2006 GT "Grabber Boost" Project Mustang

Dave: Hey, everybody. I'm Dave with americanmuscle.com. I'm here today with stage one of our project car, Grabber Boost. It's our 2006 Mustang GT. Now, as you may or may not have heard, we're switching things up a little bit. We're going to bring, not one, but two builds at the same time. We're gonna bring you two awesome street machines, while I'm here with the '06 GT, Justin's sneaking around with our '14 GT, Project Coyote.

At the end, we're going to bring these two cars together and battle it out at the drag strip at the completion of each build. We're going to do something we've never done before. We're going to assemble two teams of Mustang experts, actual americanmuscle.com employees, to help Justin and I choose what parts go on the car and help us to install them. We already got our baseline dyno run and stock quarter mile time. Power-wise, our three valve put down 278 horsepower and 291 foot-pounds on our dyno.

Now, at the drag strip, we got a best run of 14 seconds and 103 miles an hour. Okay, obviously we're in for a bit of a challenge here, we know this. Our '06 GT, stock-for-stock, does not come anywhere near the power of the '14, but with all the aftermarket parts available for the 4.6, my team and I are quite confident we're going to make Project Grabber Boost a contender. Like you've seen other project builds, we like to go ahead and get the exterior stuff and some of our smaller performance parts done in stage one, before we move on to some more heavy mods, and trust me, they're coming.

In this stage, when we wrap it up, we're going to put the car back on the rollers one more time and see what kind of horsepower we picked up. Then we're gonna go to the quarter-mile track and see how much our time's gone down, and maybe more importantly, see how this car stacks up against our '14. Are you guys ready?

Team: Yeah.

Dave: All right, let's get this started. To get things going, we're going to start with an appearance overhaul on our '06 GT. First thing we had to start with is getting rid of those stock, ugly wheels. Now, the team decided to go with the silver AMRs, wrapped in Mickey Thompson street comp tire. Mike, you were one of the guys that picked this, right? What was your thought behind it?

Mike: We thought it'd be a great fit for the car. We went with the 19X10 in the rear with a 285, and a 19X8-1/2 from the front with a 255. The AMRs have been a really popular wheel since their launch. They look great on the S197, so we thought that'd be a good look.

Dave: I mean, I definitely agree. In fact, I think it offsets the caliper cover pretty nicely as well.

Mike: Absolutely. Threw in the caliper covers from MGP as a little touch just to finish off the wheel look. But more importantly, we went with the Mickey Thompson tires to give us the traction on the track that we needed to get us out of the hole, and they're also a really good street tire, which are gonna help us in the corners as well.

Dave: I completely agree. Great package. Great Choice. All right, the next part up on this has us really, really excited, and I think it's going to have a lot of you '05 to '09 owners excited as well, it's Raxiom's Gen5 Tail Lights fitting all '05 to '09 Mustangs. Steph, I mean, I really think they look great on here, what do you think?

Steph: These tail lights look awesome. They have a very aggressive look.

Dave: They really do. They've got the modern styling, they have the full LED lights, they even have the built-in sequential turn signals.

Steph: Very sleek look. These are great.

Dave: To finish off the back of the car, we're gonna go ahead and take off this stock spoiler in favor of an AmericanMuscle Pre-painted GT500 one.

The guys at MMD have come up with some new and interesting parts for this build. Of course we have our favorite classics like our pre-painted side scoop, and our quarter window covers, but it's what's going on up front that I really want to show you. These functional matte black hood scoops are the latest creation from MMD. They draw a heavy inspiration from the '13, '14 hoods, but they're made specifically to fit in our '06 project car. They require just a little bit of cutting and they are well worth it, especially when you see how they line up with our smoked headlights and foglights, along with the new aggressive chin spoiler. It completely changes the front end of our project car.

All right. We know if we have any shot at beating the '14, we're going to have to pull out all the stops, but before we get to some of the bigger mods, we've got to get some of the basic bolts-ons on the car to pave the way for those other modifications. Up front we have Mike and Andy wrapping up the SR Performance 62mm Throttle Body and Cold Air Intake kit combo. In Andy's hand, there is the SR Performance Oil Separator. Why do we want that in the car, Andy? Can you tell us?

Andy: Well, this is gonna catch all the oil vapors and residue that travel into the intake manifold. This is gonna help with the bolt-ons that we have right now, and it's going to help with the bolt-ons that we have coming up for Grabber Boost.

Dave: All right. Aside from the mods under the hood, we're going to go ahead and give this car some of the MagnaFlow's Axle-Back chambered mufflers to give it a little bit more grunt around town. Once we get working on four, six in later stages though, these are really going to make our car scream. With the mufflers already on the car, and the guy's all wrapped up under the hood, we've got Steph inside loading up the Custom Tune.

Steph: The custom tune that we have from Bama is really going to wake up our three valve. It's also really going to help us make the most out of all the modifications that we've done here today. What the tune is going to do is it's going to adjust our air-fuel ratio, it's going to change our variable cam timing, and our spark timing. The results in the dyno are going to be awesome.

Dave: No, they definitely will be.

Steph: A tune really is one of the best modifications any Mustang owner can do for their car.

Dave: I completely agree with Steph, it really is. Is ours all loaded up?

Steph: Yeah, we're ready to go.

Dave: Okay. We're going to pull the car down from the lift and make some dyno runs, see what kind of horsepower numbers we picked up.

So, again, our baseline run on Grabber Boost gave us 278 horsepower and 291 foot-pounds torque. With our stage one part installed, we've put down 292 horsepower and 307 foot-pounds of torque, giving us a peak horsepower gain of 14 and curve gains of 19 horsepower and 17 foot-pounds of torque. With our GT looking good, and sporting a much-needed power increase, my team and I are gonna head to the track and meet up with Project Coyote team to see where we stand against their '14 and to try and get our car out of the 14s.

Justin: So we're down here at Cecil County Raceway at the end of stage one to see how Project Coyote and Project Grabber Boost are gonna make out. And, Dave, I have to say, man, the car looks awesome.

Dave: Thank you. And as does yours, I just like everything you've done. What's your plan for your car?

Justin: Well, you know, at the end of this stage, we're hoping mid to low 12s after stage one, but, we'll see. How about you guys?

Dave: We're hoping to knock a few 10s off as well. We're hoping to get down out of the 14s for sure. Same thing. Good, clean passes.

Justin: All right. So, obviously no surprises here. We were expecting, you know, Project Coyote to do a little better than you guys for now.

Dave: Yeah, for now.

Justin: But, with your name, Grabber Boost, we know what's coming.

Dave: What? Nothing coming.

Justin: Well, hey, if anything, I like the color. Nice choice.

Dave: Well, thanks. Yeah. It is a good choice. Well, hey, let's get to it. I want to see how these things run.

Justin: All right, man. Let's get to the line.

Dave: Best of luck to you guys.

Justin: Right to you as well.

Dave: Hey, we finished our runs here tonight, got some real good track timing. The '06 Project Grabber Boost, we started out in the 14.0, and tonight, knocked off a full half second, got us 13.5. And you guys did pretty well tonight too.

Justin: We did, we did, Dave. Not quite as good as you guys. We started out as a 12.9 bone stock with our '14, respectable for a stock car. Dropped that down four-tenths tonight to a 12.5, so, the car is feeling good, I think we're going to get ready for the big showdown now. It's that time.

Dave: It's coming up next. Hey, look, stay tuned as we continue with Project Grabber Boost and head onto our stage two.

Justin: And stay tuned for Stage two of Project Coyote coming at you very soon.

Dave: Shall we head out?

Justin: Shop time?

Dave: Shop time it is. Let's get out of here.

Dave: Well, welcome back to our Stage 2 of our 2006 GT Project, known as Project Grabber Boost. I'm back in the car for the first time since our run with the track. I've got to be honest with you, time was not that kind to our car. If we want the car to be consistent and all-around performant, go to the track and compete with the '14 GT. We've gotta do something about that. Before we tell you how we're gonna address that issue, I wanna go ahead and get everybody up to speed and give you a recap of what we've done so far. In Stage 1, we outfitted our '06 GT with a ton of cool styling parts from MMD, and updated our lighting with help from Raxiom. The biggest impact in the styling came courtesy of the 19-inch silver AMR wheels, wrapped in Mickey Thompson Street Comp Tires. Performance-wise, we helped our [inaudible [00:00:55] breathe a little easier with the use of SR Performance's Cold Air Intake and 62mm Throttle Body, along with Magnaflow's Axle-Back Exhaust. And of course, we wrapped everything up with a custom tune from the guys over at Bama Performance. On the dyno, we had 292 horsepower and 307 foot-pounds of torque, and the track, we knocked our baseline of 14.0 down to 13.5.

So, our '06 GT has been a long time member of the AM fleet. It's been a workhorse for us. It might look great as it does, but the ride quality shows it's got a 6, 7-year-old suspension in it that's been used. So, the goal for my team and I, we're gonna do a complete suspension overhaul using some popular products from the site and input from the team. So, we're gonna get back to AM and get to work.

SR is playing a huge role on our overhaul, giving us four different items, each one as important as the next. We've decided to go ahead and start with SR's Adjustable Upper and Lower Control Arms. I think we all agree these are the right parts to start off, to kind of get rid of some of the sloppiness when we're, you know, kicking it around on the back roads.

Andy: I totally agree, Dave. I mean, these control arms are really to help control the rear axle. These are gonna help out with the street and strip getting better launches and better traction.

Dave: Definitely.

Stephanie: Yeah, exactly what Andy said. Going along with that, these controller arms are really gonna help us get out of the hole in the track, and we're also gonna notice a big difference on the street coming out of the corners. It's gonna be a lot smoother and we're gonna stick to the road a little bit better. One of the main keys to the control arm is actually this Whiteline Relocation Bracket right here. It gives us the correct angel on our control arm so that we can really control the axle.

Dave: I got a feeling too, with this whole package fit together, it's probably just gonna feel tighter back here.

Stephanie: Oh, definitely, much better than the stock setup that we had before. Every time we hit a bump in the road, we're not gonna feel the same sloppiness. We're not gonna have the same messiness in the rear end. It's gonna be much more solid.

Dave: Now, we just wrapped up one of the last parts from SR we're putting on is the Adjustable Panhard Bar. Now, this guy, it might be a little tough to see tucked up here, but it works in conjunction with the rear control arms. And it's funny, a lot of people don't know how or even why you'd replace it, but it's a vital part.

Stephanie: Exactly. Basically, our control arm setup takes care of our up and down and rotational movement of the axle. The panhard bar here is gonna take care of our side-to-side movement. So, when you're launching at the track or even on the street, what you really want is to stabilize your rear so it's here. You don't want it to move. You don't want side to side, you don't want up to down. You want a hook up. So, you want it here and you wanna go.

Dave: The final piece of the puzzle to tie everything together is our SR Performance Front and Rear Sway Bars, and we just got these bolted on and I'm really excited about this. It is going to make a huge difference in the handling of this car when we eventually get back out to those windy backroads.

Stephanie: Body roll. No more.

Dave: Exactly. Since this car's been part of the AM fleet for awhile, it picked up a set Eibach lowering springs somewhere along the line. We figure why mess with a good thing, so we stuck with Eibach and put on a set of their Pro-Damper Shock and Struts. Since we had the wheels off for the suspension anyway, we figured now's a good time to give Project Grabber Boost a little bit of extra stopping power, because in the later stages, it's gonna need it.

Mike: If you have deep pockets, a big, fancy namebreak kit is really appealing. But if you don't and you get the same performance by building your own kit, and that's exactly what we did here on the Project car.

Dave: Definitely. Mike and I are working right now on the '06. I'm putting the Slotted DBA Rotors on and the Hawk Ceramic Pads.

Mike: Definitely. The Slotted Rotors and the Hawk Ceramic Pads are really gonna help us give us the bite we need. The Ceramic Pads are gonna bite in but not create too much brake dust, help keep the wheels a little cleaner.

Dave: It's nice.

Mike: And the Slotted Rotors are gonna help with cooling so we won't get so much brake fade. While we're in there, also threw on a set of J&M Steel Braided Lines, which was one of your choices.

Dave: We're just about done with the brakes, and then we're gonna go ahead and throw Whiteline's Strut Tower Brace on up front, just to finish firming things up. Then, I'm gonna take it back out on the backroads and see how it performs compared to the beginning of the stage. We're out on some backroads here and just getting a feel for the car with a little bit of spirit of driving, not anything crazy, it's tight. And it feels like it's gripping the road much better. I've got consistent pedal feel on my brakes. I've to some really nice control with the body roll, almost no body roll, having a lot to do with the new Sway Bars we put on. The ride put is phenomenal, we'll start there. The car was already lowered, so we had to work with that. But lowering a car and putting on some good shocks and struts, can change the ride and make it stock-like or better, and that's exactly what I'm feeling here. The ride put is phenomenal, but it's super tight and super easy in the turn. These new sway bars, you can see here, as I take this hard left-hand turn, there's virtually no body roll. It's fantastic.

Well, that wraps up Stage 2 of Project Grabber Boost. But, stick with us as we're gonna ramp this up big time in the next couple of stages, and get this car ready for showdown with the '14 GT. I'm gonna head back to AM and we're gonna get this thing started. Stick with us for Stage 3 of Project Grabber Boost.

Dave: Hey, everybody, Dave from americanmuscle.com, and I'm here with Stage 3 of Project Grabber Boost. We're in typical project car fashion. We've changed the appearance, we've tackled our suspension, and we've added some performance bolt-ons. And we're happy with where the car's at, but now it's time to set the stage for the larger mods coming into Stage 4 and our showdown with the '14 GT. Before we get there, let's have our team and I give you an idea of how we've got to where we're at with our '06 GT.

In Stage 2, we completely overhauled our seven-year-old suspension, starting with an arsenal of parts from SR Performance. Finally, we gave Project Grabber a boost with some serious stopping power, thanks to DBA slotted rotors and Hawk ceramic pads, along with stainless brake lines from J&M. Now that we have the basic foundation laid out, it's time for my team now to get down to some more serious mods. With a name like Grabber Boost, you probably have an idea of where we're going. Mike, I mean, there's a few other ways to make horsepower, right?

Mike: Absolutely. I mean, one of the ways you can do it is, you can increase an engine's displacement or increase the compression ratio, both of which are going to require us to pull the motor out, take it apart, rebuild it, and put it back in.

Dave: Now, there's a few other things that we've done to the motor, like our throttle body, or cold air intake, and axle-back to really help it breathe, but there's still something left, and that'll be a nice set of long-tube headers and off-road mid-pipes.

Stephanie: So, that's where we installed this set of Kooks long-tube headers, as well as our aftermarket X-pipe. Kooks is one of the best name brands in the business, and it's not only because they have a great quality product, it's because they have great fitment as well. So, you're really getting what you paid for with these modifications.

Mike: Could you give these guys an idea, too, of why they're so important, why they're going to help our car breathe so much better?

Stephanie: Sure. So, the stock headers that we used to have on here, along with the stock mid-pipe, can be really restrictive, and as a result, it's going to hinder our performance. By adding these long tubes and an un-catted mid-pipe, we're going to be able to free up that power, and we should see really good gains.

Dave: Now that our car is ready to throw more air, it's safe to say we're ready for our power adder. Before we get to that, though, we have to make sure our clutch and drivetrain can handle more power, right?

Mike: Absolutely. So, what we wanted to do is go with the Exedy Mach 500 Stage 3 clutch and their lightweight flywheel. This combo's going to be really good for holding up on the street, as well as holding up to some of the abuse we're going to add to it down the road. We wanted the full-face design as opposed to a puck. A puck would have individual teeth on it, which are going to be really great for a track environment, but not so great for daily driving. You get more of an in-an-out with a puck. With a full-face, it's going to give us stock-like drivability, but hold up to the power that we're going to add in Stage 4.

Dave: Now, Mike, we've done a lot of things to the car. If you don't mind, give these guys an idea of what else we've got too.

Mike: Absolutely. So, what we wanted to do was make sure the rest of the driveline's going to hold up as well. So, you have a stock two-piece drive shaft. It's heavy. It's weak. We wanted to get rid of that. We went with an aluminum one-piece drive shaft. It's going to save us 20 pounds of rotating mass, which should save a few tenths on the track.

Dave: That sounds great. It really does. There's one more thing I want to show you folks. We went ahead and installed a billet competition short-throw shifter from Hurst. And it was funny. We took the car to the track in the first couple stages and actually broke the bolts of our stock shifter clean off, so we had to go with something stronger and better. We chose the Hurst to give us short-throw shifts and reduce our quarter-mile times as best we can, so we can bang gears all day long. That was the last part we wanted to install in this stage before we get our car over to the Dyno and see what kind of results we get before our showdown with the '14 and before the power adder.

Last time we ran Grabber Boost on the Dyno in Stage 1, we put down 292 horsepower and 307 foot-pounds of torque. With our Stage 3 mods, we just ran 301 horsepower and 316 foot-pounds of torque, giving us a peak horsepower gain of 9, and curve gains of 13 horsepower and 13 foot-pounds of torque.

Project Grabber Boost made great power in Stage 3, and it's right where we want it. For Stage 4, we're going to pull out all the stops and give this car the power adder it needs to live up to its name. We're going to get this car down the track and see how it performs against the Project Coyotes. So, we'll see you back here for the end result of Project Grabber Boost at americanmuscle.com.

Dave: Hey, Dave here and welcome back to Stage 4 of our Project Car known as Project Grabber Boost. If you've been following along up to this point, you know that our goal was to create a 3-valve that could hopefully take down our '14 Coyote Powered GT at the track, and be a well-rounded street machine. It's now to that point where we're gonna show Justin and his team what our 4.6 can do under pressure, so to speak. Before we do that, let's recap the supporting mods that we did in Stage 3.

In Stage 3, we made sure our 3-valve was ready to move all the extra air when it came time to crank up the boost in Stage 4. For starters, we replaced restrictive cast iron factory headers and midpipe with a quality set of long tubes from Kooks, along with their matching off-road X-pipe. To help us get the power to the ground, we installed Exedy's Mach 500 Stage 3 Clutch and Lightweight Aluminum Racing Flywheel. And we strayed from the drive train, using Driveshaft Shop's Lightweight Aluminum One Piece Driveshaft. Finally, we topped our five-speed trans off with the Hurst Billet Competition Plus Shifter, which should eliminate any possibility of a mis-shift when we line it up with the track against the '14.

All right. We know you guys have been dying to see what we have done, so let's show you. We went with the Vortech V3 SI Trim Blower to give our project car the boost it needs to, well, live up to its name. The V3, it's an internally lubricated centrifugal supercharger. It's a real good blower for the street or the strip. Should give us about 8 to 10 PSI and produce some real good horsepower numbers for us to compete against and run with the '14 GT. Of course, when you're doing something like this, you can't expect to just slap the blower on and go. There's a few necessary changes you have to make to the motor to help it accept the extra air you're forcing into it.

Mike: So for starters, you gotta take a look at the factory mass airflow sensor. It's just not gonna be able to keep up. So, we're gonna keep things simple. We went with the plug and play unit from Diablosport called the MAFia. it's a piggyback unit, goes in line with your factory map, but it's gonna allow it to handle all the forced air from the supercharger without spiking the unit.

Stephanie: But, maybe the most important part when adding forced induction, other than making sure you have a good tune, is making sure you have enough fuel to meet the demands of the new setup. So, in order to meet our added fuel needs, we recruited two parts from Ford Racing. We installed Ford Racing's High Performance Duel Fuel Pump Kit, and paired that with Ford Racing's 39-pound injectors. In order to avoid detonation, we also installed a colder range set of spark plugs.

Dave: Well, that should do it. In fact, that does do it for our project car here. Before we head down to the track, why don't we get the car over to the dyno one more time, get one more set of numbers and see what we made.

At the end of Stage 3, Grabber Boost put down 301 horsepower and 316 foot-pounds of torque. Well, here at the end of Stage 4, we just blew that away, putting down an incredible 463 horsepower and 425 foot-pounds of torque. That gave us a peak horsepower gain of 153 and curve gains of 172 horsepower and 147 foot-pounds of torque. The car looks great, it sounds great, the horsepower numbers are amazing, and I think we all agree, we got a real fighting chance against the '14 GT. All right, ready for the track?

Mike: Let's do it.

Dave: Let's hit it.

Mike: Shake and bake.

Dave: We're back here at the track for the final showdown. As you can see, Justin and I have brought both teams, Project Grabber Boost and Project Coyote. It's gonna be a great day for a race.

Justin: That's right, man. It's the best of three showdown. We've had a long road with these cars, we've spent a lot of time building them up. But, I think the end results have been great. You're making over 400 horsepower, about 10 pounds of boost. We're making over 400 all motor. So, you know, all motor versus boost, again, similar power. I think we should have one heck of a race on our hands.

Dave: I can't wait. It's the best of three showdown, correct?

Justin: Best of three. Yes, sir.

Dave: That's the plan. So hey, you guys excited?

Dave: Quite excited.

Justin: All right. Let's get it on.

Dave: Yes, sir.

Man 1: Who do you think is gonna come out here?

Justin: We're gonna tear them up, man, honestly.

Man 2: I don't know. If they're under pressure, I think we got the motor for it. Time will tell.

Mike: We're gonna be the victor.

Stephanie: I'm worried about the 60 foot unhooking.

Dave: That's always a concern. It's a Mustang. You got the hook, you're gonna win. That was a heck of a good run.

Justin: Yeah. I mean, it was all launch in the '14.

Dave: We're gonna hope for a little more tire smoke, get these burnouts rocking, see if we can't get the tire to hook more, because this could be an even closer shoot out, but great run.

Man: Yeah.

Dave: Well, as you can see, we had our first real issue down here at the track. It's a little sad. Little scary, but luckily we kept it off the wall. We actually broke an axle or something like that, coming out of the eighth mile and cut a tire. Not too pretty, but either way, we did manage a best of 11.9 on our first run. you guys got a 12.3 in the books.

Dave: Twelve three, yep.

Justin: So, I think what we're gonna do, just to keep it fair, we're gonna let the '06 run one more time.

Dave: Excellent.

Justin: Think you could guys could maybe take down that 11.9?

Dave: I mean, it's our goal. Certainly, we've got the power, so let's try it. Let's get this off the track, and let's go try it.

Justin: Yeah, get things cleaned up and patched up, and I'll see what we do.

Man 3: This is the fastest this thing has run all day.

Mike: What? Well, it's looking like we got some work to do. What was the number we had to beat?

Man 3: Eleven nine.

Stephanie: Wait, 11.9? Oh, wait.

Mike: Oh, that's 11.69.

Stephanie: Oh, that's 11...

Mike: Sixty-nine.

Man 2: It's all right. It's all right. It's okay. Get the camera out of my face.

Man 3: You want us to sign your shirt, you know, Grabber Boost, you know? Just letting you know.

Justin: I like it. All right, thank you. Well, what a day of racing, right? I mean, we had a car almost hit the wall, it broke, but we had a couple 11-second passes. As hard as it is for me to say, congrats on your win, guys. You definitely earned it. All right, man?

Dave: Exactly. Yes, thank you. Congrats to everybody behind me. It was really great, just getting out Project Grabber Boost, going against Project Coyote. We had a 13.5 last time when we were here, and we dropped it all the way down to an 11.6.

Stephanie: More, there's more in there.

Dave: There might be, but you guys had a good run too.

Justin: It was commendable. We had a great run. We had 11.9 down from a 12.5 last time on our first run. Still think the car has more in it personally, but that's not the case. We broke, we lost fair and square, so we admit that. But, we are gonna fix this beast, we're gonna come back and show you what it can really do.

Dave: Hey, honestly, it was great watching and being a part of this. So, thank you for watching the videos here at americanmuscle.com with Justin. Again, congrats to you guys for being down here, giving your A game effort.

Justin: Yeah, right. Tell me about it. Hey, if you guys wanna watch more Project Car vids, just click on the link below to subscribe to our YouTube channel. And hey, thanks for watching all of our videos here at americanmuscle.com.

Dave: Thank you.