Had some fun with the Ghost Stang

[Gymrat]

I took my Mustang to Test and Tune this evening. It is the first time I have ever tried something like this on a formal level. When I was 18 I had a 71 Mach I with a 351 Cleveland. We had a precise quarter mile marked out on a stretch of highway, we would have a look out watching for oncoming traffic, and run our cars on that. I don't know what my time was my my Mach I would do 90 MPH in a quarter mile. Fast forward to this evening.

I paid $20 to do as many passes as I wanted. I only did 1 because I didn't want to wait in line over half an hour to do a second one. I made a couple serious mistakes. I forgot to turn my traction control off. That senses any wheel slip and cuts power to keep the tires from turning. I forgot to put my car in manual mode so my transmission decided when to shift. Fortunately I was in "sport" mode.

I was put against a Pontiac G6. As you can see on my slip my reaction time was twice what his was. We were door to door until I hit about 50MPH then I walked away from him.

I can't describe the thrill of being able to just open my car up with no worries whatsoever. No concerns of some child wandering out in front of me, no concern about a car pulling off a side street in front of me, no worries about seeing blue and red lights in my rear view mirror. I should add that typically when I want to play I take my car to on ramps. Hammer it then shut down with enough time to get down below speed limit before reaching the hiways. In this case I didn't even have to do that. I just opened her up and enjoyed. I am absolutely going to do this again. Anyway as you can see by my slip my little 6 cylinder engine outdid my high performance V8 from the golden muscle car era. Not by much but I honestly think with my traction control shut off, and shifting manually, I will hit 100 next time.

[mashani]

That's pretty cool. I used to have an old '66 Mustang with a 289A. I wish I still had it and could take it out like that today. I sold it to my brother and he piled stuff on it and let it rot. Pisses me off.

It also makes me wonder what my old 72 LTD would have done in a straight line. That thing had a 429 police interceptor engine. I think it was 350 HP. The Mustang would win against it still I'm pretty sure, but that boat could go fast considering it was a boat. But you would not want to take any corners fast with it. Just no. But it bounced oh so nicely if you left the ground going over a railroad crossing. Not that I ever did that. LOL. Too bad that car got totaled through no fault of mine. It was used back in my college days to ferry large amounts of women from my campus to others for parties. It was a popular vehicle.

[John Sand]

Great story. Something just recently reminded me of my first car, a '73 Charger. It was a lot of fun in Florida. My current car is a '79 Chrysler 300. I don't beat on it, and it can't keep up with a Mustang. But with a 360 4bbl it isn't slow either. The fastest car I ever drove, iirc, was my buddy's 72 Charger. With a 440 Six Pack, it was a monster.

[Gymrat]

I love the old 67 to 72 chargers with my favorite year being 69. That was my favorite year for pretty much all cars.

Mashini those big old boats were comfortable cars. I love my Buick Lesebra for that reason. Roomy, rides smooth, and super quiet. It just begged me for a good aftermarket sound system and so it got it.

[Beer-lord]

If you've got the power, might as well play with it. That sounds like fun though I'm sure as we get older, our reaction time gets worse too.

[Gymrat]

If you've got the power, might as well play with it. That sounds like fun though I'm sure as we get older, our reaction time gets worse too.

No doubt. This is something we need to think about when driving on public streets or highways. In drivers ed in Iowa they taught us the 2 second following distance rule. We should be able to count two seconds from the time the car in front of us passes a fixed object to the time we reach it. This allows for reaction time in an emergency. Seeing this ticket I can see how important that really is.

[Gymrat]

If you've got the power, might as well play with it. That sounds like fun though I'm sure as we get older, our reaction time gets worse too.

No doubt. This is something we need to think about when driving on public streets or highways. In drivers ed in Iowa they taught us the 2 second following distance rule. We should be able to count two seconds from the time the car in front of us passes a fixed object to the time we reach it. This allows for reaction time in an emergency. Seeing this ticket I can see how important that really is.

If I was going to do this every weekend it would have been worth spending the extra money for the 420 HP GT. But this to me is the only way it makes sense to take advantage of that horse power. I would like to do this again but I can't see doing it regularly. I do think I could knock 30 seconds off of my time and squeeze 100 MPH out of my car if I went in knowing what I was doing.