2005-2009 V6: Bolt-On Build-Up

Justin: Hey, I'm Justin with americanmuscle.com, and this is our Power Pack Bolt-on Build-up for all '05 to '09 V6 Mustangs.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "A Power Pack for a V6?" Well, yeah. I mean, the truth is, there are a ton of these 4-liter V6s out on the road, and honestly, they can be pretty quick just given a little help. And that's exactly what we're going to do with our 2005 V6 here. We're going to add some basic performance parts and some acceleration parts, which should really wake up our 4-liter motor, and hopefully, give those V8s a run for their money. But before our car goes under the knife, we're going to grab a quick baseline Dyno on first, then hand the car over to the crew to get everything installed.

Hey, what's going on, Mike?

Mike: Hey, what's up, man?

Justin: Not too much, but I know we just finished up installing a bunch of great parts on our V6 here, the first of which was Pypes' Mid-Muffler True Dual system. Now, I know, previously, we had a different dual system on this car. How is the Mid-Muffler going to differ?

Mike: First off, there's little or no drone or resonance, thanks to the M-80 mufflers and the longer tailpipe, and we'll get a slight increase in horsepower.

Justin: All right, Mike, moving away from the back of the car to under the hood, I noticed we have the tried and true AIRAID cold air intake system in place. Now, besides the obvious bump in power, what else can we expect from that?

Mike: We're going to get superior filtration, thanks to the Superflow technology. The filter's much better than any of your typical cotton gauze type filters on the market, which can give us maximum protection. The filter's also reusable, so it can save us money in the long run. It's no-tune-required, but we're going to put a tune on it anyway to maximize our power gains. And it looks great under the hood.

Justin: Speaking of looking good under the hood, I noticed we also installed the Accel coil pack as well. I know, traditionally, we don't expect to see a ton of power from that mod by itself, but it will offer some other benefits, correct?

Mike: Right. Overall, the drivability is going to be improved. It's going to help give us a smoother idle, quicker start-ups, a little bit of fuel economy, and a slight gain in horsepower.

Justin: Now, awesome, man. I can only assume we're going to top all of this off with one of your custom BAMA tunes?

Mike: Oh, yeah.

Justin: Very cool. Now, besides the big power expectations, what else can we expect to see from this tune?

Mike: Just like all of our tunes, it's custom tailored to the mods you have on the car. Though it's not required, we're going to install one to help tie everything together and increase our shift performance and our throttle response.

Justin: Cool, man. Well, I'm interested to see how these mods come together. You about ready to do another pull?

Mike: Let's do it, man.

Justin: All right.

So, our baseline run with our 2005 V6 gave us 173 horsepower and 203 foot-pound of torque. With our Power Pack installed, we were able to make 189 horsepower and 218 foot-pound of torque, giving us a peak horsepower gain of 16 over our baseline numbers, and gains of 22 horsepower and 23 foot-pound of torque throughout the curve.

All right, Mike, well, the car is definitely making some good power, but before we get out of here, I just want to ask you about a couple things the guys installed for us. Ready for this? We got brand-new 4.10 gears, a new diff from Auburn, and finally, this control arm combo kit from BBK. And what can we expect from all this?

Mike: The 4.10 gears are going to help us accelerate quicker. The limited-slip differential is going to equally distribute the power to both wheels. And the BBK control arms are going to take that power and help put it to the ground.

Justin: Well, I guess there's only one thing left to do, get the car off the Dyno and onto the street, just so we can see how everything feels. Thanks again, Mike.

Mike: Anytime.

Justin: All right, so we just got done talking to Mike, we got the car off the Dyno and out on the street here, and wow. That's just my first impression. It sounds amazing, quiet when you want it to be, but loud when you want it to be, but not in an annoying way. It sounds great.

Now, as for the acceleration parts, we added some really good stuff. We've got the 4.10s. Mike laid it out for us, faster acceleration all around, just always in the power band. The Auburn LSD, the car just pulls hard out of the turns, pulls hard out of the hole, and the power, you can just feel it going to both wheels now. Finally, those BBK control arms, the car just feels solid in the rear end, feels solid on the launch, and wheel hop is all but gone.

Now, would I put this car against a V8 right now? Sure. I mean, that's probably, that's half the fun, is really seeing what you're working with and having a little fun with these builds. And that's why we're car guys. This car is a new animal altogether. I know these V6s can be totally competent. Again, as I mentioned earlier, they just need a helping hand. They just need to be shown the right way, and with all the parts we added today, I think we're definitely on the right track to embarrassing some V8s.

So, that wraps up our Bolt-on Build-up Power Pack for our V6 here. Be sure to check out some of our other Bolt-on Build-ups as well, where we improve our handling and our appearance.

Hey, I'm Justin with americanmuscle.com, and this in our Handling Bolt-on Build-up for all '05 to '09 V6 Mustangs.

Now, in this portion of our S197 V6 build, we've tackled some handling basics in an attempt to make our V6 stay flatter in the turns. Now, this is going to make our car more firm on the drive, and ultimately, should make our V6 faster and more predictable throughout those turns. Now, this isn't some huge overhaul here either, guys. We've installed three of the most popular handling mods found here on the site, all of which are pretty basic, but when paired together, should give us some really good results. So, with that said, let's check out those parts.

First up is Eibach's anti-roll sway bar kit, which, as you might have guessed from the name, its number one purpose is to reduce our body roll. Now, before even bolting this up, I could tell it was going to make a night-and-day difference on our V6. How did I know that? Well, from the factory, our V6 didn't even come equipped with a rear sway bar, as is the case with any '05 to '09 V6 not equipped with the Pony package. So, by adding that rear 22-millimeter bar and upgrading our 31.5-millimeter stock front sway bar to a big beefy 35-millimeter bar, and along with those polyurethane bushings, should really help us in our quest for better handling.

The final two-thirds of our build are from SR Performance. First up, we installed a set of these SR Performance lowering springs, which, as you can see, lowered our V6 about an inch and a half or so on all four corners. Now, obviously, at first glance, this definitely helped our appearance by reducing that wheel gap, especially when paired with our 18-inch DT500-style wheels. But this is a functional build first, and these springs are definitely going to help our handling by lowering our center of gravity, reducing our body roll, and just overall, firming up the ride.

Finally, we saved the easiest mod for last with this SR Performance strut tower brace. Now, this is another one of those parts that can be both function and form related. As for the form side of things, well, you can see that bar really pops under the hood, thanks to that bright chrome finish, which looks great. Now, for the function side of things, this bar is going to help reduce our chassis flex and body roll by tying the two front strut towers together. Now, the best part is, an extremely easy install. It only took me a few minutes.

Now that you know what we've installed, I'm going to get our V6 out of the shop and put it through its paces, so we can see if we succeeded in improving our handling.

All right. So, we're out in our 2005 V6 with the Handling Pack installed, and we've got our first turn right now. Let's check it out. No break dive here with the springs, hard in on the turn, came in pretty hot, and the car stayed really flat throughout the turn. It feels great.

We've got one more left-hander coming up here. Again, we're just staying in it through the turn, really test this package out. No under-steer, and the body roll is all but gone. And again, the car just feels rock-solid going through turns now.

So, that wraps up our Handling Pack here with our 2005 V6. Be sure to check out some of our other '05 to '09 V6 Bolt-on Build-ups where we improve our appearance and work on our performance.

I'm Justin with americanmuscle.com. And we're here with this, our appearance Bolt-On Build-Up for all '05 to '09 V6 Mustangs. Now, the objective with this pack was to take our average-looking V6 to the next level and beyond. We bolted up and installed nearly 20 different appearance parts, ranging from some smoke lighting from Raxiom, some American Muscle Graphics tint and vinyl, and also a few different parts from MMD like their black billet aluminum fuel door and their rear decklid panel, just to name a few. However, we feel there are a couple of parts that really set the tone for our build, so let's get into them.

First up, we've got these MMD retro-style mirrors which, honestly, are a night-and-day difference versus your old factory mirrors. Now, as you can see, we did decide to leave these unpainted showing off that matte black finish which really breaks up our competition orange paint job and flows pretty nicely with some of our other black accents on the car. Now, there is a little bit of work getting these installed. You do have to transfer over your factory motors and your wiring harness from your old mirrors onto the new units. Honestly, it's just a few nuts and bolts. Only took us about an hour or two.

Moving on to another part from MMD that made our build are these Eleanor style pre-painted louvers. Now, any Mustang fan should know the name "Eleanor" pretty well. And I, for one, really dig the look that these louvers give to any Mustang, whether it's a V6, a GT, or a certain silver 1967 GT500. Now, that pre-painted convenience is very nice as well. You basically get them out of the box, prep the area, and slap them on. It's just that easy. No more waiting, no more phone calls to your paint guy and, best of all, a perfect color match every time.

Checking out the back of the car here, you'll notice a little forward-thinking from Raxiom. I'm referring to these smoked Coyote tail lights which, you may have guessed, are inspired from the '11 and '12 Coyote Mustangs. And, honestly, they look right at home here on our S197 as well. Of course, going with that smoke look was pretty much a no-brainer considering all the black accents on our build. However, what you won't notice until you see these tail lights in action is this. That's right, we've added the very cool sequential plug-and-play tail light kit as well, which is really going to crank up that cool factor.

All right, when it finally came time for new wheels and tires, we decided to go big, literally. We ditched those puny 16-inch factory wheels in favor of these staggered gloss black 18-inch GT500 style wheels along with some new rubber from Sumitomo. Now this wheel and tire package could have single-handedly changed the entire attitude of our V6 on their own, but along with some of our other appearance mods that we've added today, well, I think you can see the results speak for themselves.

So the goal with this bolt-on build-up is simple in theory, but not always that easy to execute. You can't just slap a bunch of random appearance parts on your V6 and expect it to look great. That's why every part used with our build was well thought out and carefully selected to help us achieve that look that blends a little bit of retro with some of that modern in-your-face styling and, frankly, we're happy with the results.

So that wraps up our appearance Bolt-On Build-Up with our '05 V6 here. Be sure to check out some of our other '05 to '09 V6 Bolt-On Build-Ups where we address our handling and improve our acceleration and overall performance.