Dyno Day

Note: I don't know why the panoramic views look so fuzzy, but if you click on them they get better.

UPDATE II: Find all the pictures here on Photobucket!

The day dawned bright and clear, and wonder of wonders warm enough to put the top down from the beginning of the trip at 7:30 AM. It stayed down the rest of the day, in spite of what the weatherman had said (low 70's) the temperature got up into the high 70's. The highest I saw on my dashboard display was 78 degrees.

We met up at a local Mickey D's and then headed out as a group to Piedmont Custom Motorsports in Raleigh NC for the dyno pulls. There were a lot of cars in attendance, and if one was observant one might think Piedmont does a lot of Mustang work.

Of course I left my camera at home so I had to spring for a new one, a Fujifilm AV100. That wasn't all bad though, this one has a panoramic option that works out pretty well. Also, it was on sale so I only shelled out fifty clams for it, so it was a pretty good value.

At any rate, I was near the end so I got to see lots of cars put on the dyno. The high HP winner for the day ended up being a supercharged 2010 Camaro SS and the low HP winner of the day was a stock 04 Mazda RX8.

The Firefly posted numbers of 357.8 hp and 337.71 foot pounds of torque through it's automatic transmission, which when you take into account the estimated 16.5% drivetrain losses for the automatic (15% for the manual) puts the crankshaft numbers right at 428.5/404.4. Ford's estimated numbers are 412/390 respectively, and the only thing I have put on the car is a bit over 15,000 miles (it turned over 15K today on the way to the dyno), so that's downright pleasing.

There were 5 other 2011 5.0's there for comparison, the highest numbers came from a stick car with exhaust, cold air intake and tune at 390/374. The lowest numbers for the 5.0 came from another automatic with only 6K on it's clock. It turned in a 344/326, which is still right in the ballpark and will very likely get better when the first 10K is put on it.

I also heard a Borla cat-back exhaust on one of the new 5.0's (the only other 2011 convertible) and I have decided that is the sound that I want. When I get around to modding this car it will get the Borla cat-backs, some sort of cold air intake and a tune. That should put me well above anything I will ever need (notice I did not say want). As it is the car is far more capable than her driver, so all in all I'm pretty pleased with the day.

The other convertible left before I could take this picture, but here are all the other 2011 5.0's in a row. You will notice one other GT/CS, also in Race Red. The highest powered 2011 5.0 was the Ingot Silver one on the far end. The Kona Blue one was the other automatic.

UPDATE: Added more pictures and the video, the Firefly is on at 5:15 but those numbers are wrong. The numbers displayed are for the glass-top GT/CS.