Bogart Welded R/T Wheels and Mickey Thompson Tires
Our final upgrade was a set of Bogart "big and little" wheels. A set of Welded R/T wheels were chosen for their awesome looks and, of course, their light weight. Up front, a pair of 15x3.5 wheels were wrapped in Mickey Thompson rubber. Out back, we ran a pair of 15x10 wheels, featuring a custom backspace spec'd out by JPC, with Mickey Thompson ET Street (26x11.50-inch) tires. Before we could install the rear Bogart/Mickey Thompson wheel/tire package, we had to make a slight modification. The rear antiroll bar mounting location needed relocating. Thankfully, BMR sells a nifty little relocation bracket to remedy the situation. A saw is needed to cut the old brackets, but installation is simple.
The 15x10 Bogart Welded R/T wheels with a custom JPC backspacing fit perfectly on our test Stangs.
Swapping to the Bogart rims made a huge performance gain thanks to the super light weight when compared to the 18-inch and 17-inch wheel combinations we had been running all day. Having the Bogarts up front netted a 66-pound savings, while the rear wheels removed a total of 16 pounds. Instantly the car had the front wheels off the ground, and Burcham banged the gears to a 12.51 at 108.19 mph. Getting the front wheels to come off the ground in the stick car with stock 3.55 gears, stock rear suspension, stock shocks, and stock struts is quite an accomplishment. We were impressed. At this point, we simply ran out of time and were unable to back up the final performance numbers. But given the severe weight reduction and the already warm engine, we have no doubt this car would have run in the 12.50s again. We feel that with a longer cooldown and iced intake, this car would have broken into the 12.40s.
By the end of the day, we had reduced the weight of the stick-shift Stang from 3,600 pounds to 3,460 pounds using simple, proven methods. Our day started off with a car that was bone-stock and running mid-to-low-13s and we turned it into a bona fide mid-12-second monster. The automatic car was equally impressive, but this is the first step for this Mustang. Burcham is working on running 11s without the aid of a power adder. Some tried-and-true tricks proved to be worth their weight (pun intended)--running 12s with the S197 Mustangs is a lot easier than people expected.
Before C&L Performance's cold-air kit... | 
...and after. This kit was swapped in at the track on the stick-shift Stang. It picked up 4-5 tenths of a second and almost 4 mph on the racetrack. | |
With the BMR piece in place, we knocked off two tenths from the stick-shift car's performance with an extremely cold engine. |  | 
In order to swap the 15-inch Bogart wheels on the rear of these cars, we had to make minor modifications. BMR sells a rear antiroll bar relocation bracket that is required when running the 15-inch rims. It lowers the mounting point of the rear antiroll bar so it does not interfere with the rear wheels. A Sawzall is required. A quick cut is made and the bracket is bolted on. |
 |  |  |