Shelby GT500 Performance Pac - Packing Heat - Tech

It's been said that you never want to bring a knife to a gunfight. After all, if you do, you will be at a serious disadvantage. The same can be said for waging battle on the streets and dragstrips of America. With the new Dodge Challenger now roaming the tarmac, and the Camaro about to hit showrooms with a V-6 purported to lay down 300 some-odd horsepower, the Mustang is going to have to step up its game. Thanks to companies like SLP Performance Parts, adding the necessary go-power is as easy as making a phone call.

Known to produce parts for the dark side-a.k.a. the F-body cousins, SLP also has some stellar parts and pieces for Mustangs, including the GT500-namely its 600HP Performance Pac for the SVT special. After speaking with SLP's Director of Engineering, Hank Daniecki, at length about the package, we hopped in our beater Taurus and cruised down to Toms River, New Jersey, where we checked out the parts and how easy it was to install them. We then borrowed an SLP-equipped GT500 that just had the 600HP Performance Pac installed, and not only hit the dragstrip with it, but cruised the roads around central and southern New Jersey to see just how the road manners would be.

While the 600HP Performance Pac comes with three different options, all of the basic parts are the same. The package is made up of an SLP high-flow Blackwing Panel air filter, a 2.70-inch upper blower pulley, a Diablo Predator programmer stocked with a custom SLP tune, SLP long-tube headers, and a Powerflow-X x-pipe assembly. The options lie in the type of exhaust system you want, as you can get the 600HP Pac with either a Loud Mouth exhaust, or a PowerFlow exhaust with either 3- or 4-inch tips. The Pac is a bolt-on system, and the smaller upper pulley still retains the usage of the stock belt. All told, the Pac is good for 600 SAE-corrected horsepower to the rear tires on the SLP SuperFlow chassis dyno.

"The GT500 Pac was derived directly from the Pac we had developed for the '03 and '04 Terminator Cobras," Daniecki explains. "We knew how much power we developed with those cars, and applied the same type of changes to the GT500. The added power in the Cobra was more than enough for the average enthusiast, and the goal on the GT500 Pac was to obtain the same gains, with any more than that being icing on the cake. Once we got close to the 600hp level, we made some minor adjustments to the package to make sure every car would reach that level."

Obviously the exhaust improvements offered by the high-flow filter, long-tube headers, and better exhaust system, would undoubtedly help the 5.4L supercharged Four-Valve inhale and exhale easier, but the majority of the power gains seen in our test vehicle came from the swap to the 2.70-inch upper blower pulley and the addition of the custom tune. "The most important changes in the tune for any modified supercharged engine are ignition, timing, and fueling," Daniecki says. "Both are modified for the extra boost and added flow, keeping the engine safe, while at the same time adding horsepower and torque."

The results speak for themselves. While the header install is the most difficult portion of the overall installation of the Pac, for a competent shop with a lift, the install can be performed in a day. Our test car spun the rollers to 520 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque in bone-stock trim. With the addition of the 600HP Performance Pac, the same Shelby rang the dyno to the tune of 601 rwhp and a stump-pulling 604 lb-ft of torque. That's a solid gain of 84 hp and 94 lb-ft of torque at the rear tires.

Thanks to companies like SLP Performance Parts, adding the necessary go-power is as easy as making a phone call.