AmericanMuscle's 2011 V6 Mustang Project Car

Hi, I'm Mike Wilson and welcome to our 2011 V6 Project Car Series. What we're gonna show you here is how we take a stock car and turn it into a serious performance car with a few stages of modifications. When we picked this car up, we were really excited to get started on the project, so we brought it back to the shop and stuck it on the dyno to see where we stood with our horsepower and torque numbers.

As you can see, our car put down 260 horsepower and 241 foot-pounds of torque to the wheels. That's right on par with the 305 horsepower the Ford rates this new 3.7 liter V6 at.

After we saw the numbers, we couldn't wait to get to the drag strip to see what kind of quarter mile times it ran.

So, our V6 went down the quarter mile at 14.3 at 101 miles per hour. This was done with the car completely stocked, running 93 Octane fuel. After seeing these results, we couldn't wait to take the car to the next level. So, for Stage 1, we installed a Cold Air Intake, a 93 Octane Bama Race Tune, and some exterior modifications to enhance the appearance of our Mustang.

After we finished installing all these parts, we put the car back on the dyno to see what our power gains were. With a Cold Air Intake Kit and the 93 Octane Bama Race Tune, the car put down 273 horsepower and 263 foot-pounds of torque, while gaining as much as 22 horsepower and 30 foot-pounds of torque throughout the curve. After seeing these gains, we're even more excited to get the car back to the quarter mile and see how fast it would run.

As you can see, the car went 13.64 at 104 miles per hour. That's over a half second and three miles an hour faster than our car went stock, just by adding a Cold Air Intake and our Race Tune. So, that wraps up the Stage 1. We installed a Cold Air Intake, a 93 Octane Bama Race Tune and some nice exterior components. Follow along as we head to Stage 2 in our 2011 V6 Project Car.

We're back with our 2011 V6 Project Car. In our previous video, we showed you how the car performed stock and with our stage 1 modifications which included a cold air intake, a 93 octane BAMA race tune, and some exterior modifications.

We're now back with the car at stage 2. For stage 2, we installed our new set of axleback exhaust to give the car a more aggressive sound. We also changed our rear gear ratio from 2.73 to 3.73, added a limited slip differential, new wheels, and a set of Nitto NT555R drag radials in the rear.

Because we're looking to get the best possible performance at the track, we felt these three modifications are crucial as they help with offline acceleration and traction.

Finally, we installed a set of stripes to help give our V6 more personality. Once we had all the parts installed, we went back to the quarter mile to see what our improvements were.

The limited slip differential will help us evenly transfer the power to the tires, and the 3.73 gears will help us with faster acceleration and keeping the car in the power bend between the shifts.

We're very surprised with what these parts did to our quarter mile times, knocking our stage 1 time down from 13.64 to 13.37 at 105 miles per hour. That was three-tenths of a second without modifying our car's power.

Stay tuned next time for stage 3 of our 2011 V6 Project Car.

Hi, I'm Justin with americanmuscle.com. And this is our Appearance Bolt-on Build-Up for all 2011 and newer V6 Mustangs. These newer generation V6's have come a long way from previous generations, and honestly aren't all that different from GTs. The performance is great, and the styling differences are subtle enough that, to the untrained eye, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between a GT and its 6-cylinder sibling. So, why put together different appearance packs? Well, because we want to embrace the subtle differences that make the V6 unique, while improving them at the same time. In the end, I think you'll see why, appearance-wise, we think our race bred 2011 V6 is about to make a lot of GTs jealous.

MMD has really been cranking out some must-have parts for the Mustang lately, some of which have found their way onto our 2011 here. First up, we have their pre-painted retro style mirrors that get rid of the generic sedan style mirrors typically found on the factory V6. In addition to further increase that retro vibe, we also went with their pre-painted side scoop, which just pays tribute to the GT 350s and the GT500s from the 1960s. Now, those first two parts were great, but this third part from MMD really transformed the entire car, in my opinion. I'm referring to their pre-painted quarter window kit, that as you can see, really gives the car a very cool fast-back type of look. Now, in fact, when I first saw the car, I was reminded of the super rare Iacocca Mustang that we had in here for the calendar shoot. Either way, this pre-painted MMD kit is a great way to show you that sometimes a small part can go a very long way in regards to your exterior appearance.

We couldn't do an appearance build and not include some aftermarket lighting from Raxiom. First up, we went with their smoked aero tail lights, which are a huge improvement over the factory tail lights, in my opinion. As you can see, they've relocated the reverse light to the bottom of the housing, which totally cleans up the entire look. Now, that's just the rear of the car. Let's take a look at what Raxiom has for us up front.

It's no secret we're big fans of Raxiom smoked halo headlights, and with all the other smoked lights on the car, we figured these would be a no-brainer. In addition to these headlights, we also went with this OE style foglight kit. Now, unfortunately, our V6 was not equipped with the pony package, so we missed our opportunity to grab these from the factory. Thanks to this kit, our V6 now sports a set of very sleek fog lights, complete with all the wiring and even a factory switch to make this a seamless install.

Finally, we have the center piece of our appearance build, these gloss black 19-inch AMR wheels along with some new tires from Sumitomo. Now, if there's one area in particular where the V6's are lacking in appearance-wise, it's the wheels. The sizes are pretty weak and the design says more sedan than sports car. So, by tossing out those factory cookie cutter wheels, and adding a set of these tough-looking staggered AMRs, well, we've not only single-handedly changed the attitude of the entire car, but we also gave the car a stance any muscle car would be proud of.

Well, that wraps up the appearance build here with our 2011. As you can see, we put the race back into our race red V6 by adding a bunch of parts and vinyl that really cranked up the aggressive styling to the point where any Mustang fan would be hard pressed to guess if this was a V6, a GT, or something even more sinister. Hey, we got some other great Bolt-On Build-Ups for the 2011 and up V6, where we increase the performance and acceleration and improve our handling.

Hey, I'm Justin with americanmuscle.com. And this is our Handling Pack Bolt-on Build-up up for all 2011 and newer V6 Mustangs. Now we have four great parts lined up with one simple goal in mind, to reduce the body roll and improve the handling here in our V6. How are we going to accomplish this? Well, we're gonna lower our center of gravity, improve our sway bar situation, and most importantly, stiffen up the chassis to make the car feel solid and more predictable in everyday driving situations, but most importantly, when pushed to the limits. So now that you know what our plans are, let's check out the parts that are gonna help get us there.

First up, we went to a very effective live axle mod that will help keep your car's rear end in check. I'm referring to this adjustable chromoly steel white line Panhard bar. Now the job of a Panhard bar is to connect and brace the chassis to the actual rear end just to prevent any side to side or lateral movement. Not only will this improve our traction by reducing our wheel hop but it also works wonders in improving our handling. Now this particular bar is built extremely well. It's a simple two-bolt install, and best of all, it's fully adjustable while still on the car. All these factors make it a great bang for your buck mod. If you're one of the lucky V6 owners out there whose car was equipped with the performance package from the factory, well then you already know what a great set of sway bars can do for your car's handling. If not, then you might want to check out something like this.

We went with Eibach's anti-roll sway bar kit, which will be the biggest factor in reducing our car's body roll. Now this kit is a total upgrade over the factory setup thanks to the three-way adjustable 36-millimeter front bar along with that solid 25-millimeter rear bar. Now, if I were to bet, I'd say this mod alone will have the biggest impact in our car's handling, but it just so happens we have three other killer products to go along with it.

Speaking of great bang for the buck mods, we lined up a set of these SR Performance lowering springs for our V6. Now we were looking for a mild drop since we didn't want to ditch the low mileage mint condition factory shocks and struts on our 2011 here and these fit the bill perfectly. Now these springs will lower the car an inch and a half all around, which of course is gonna help our appearance, but this is a function-build first and we feel that the stiffer spring rates and lower center of gravity will be the two biggest factors in further improving our handling.

Now you can't be all about function and not sneaking a little form, right? Well, luckily for us, this fourth and final mod offers a little bit of both. I'm referring to this black SR Performance strut tower brace that we have to finish up installing before we get out onto the road. Now this bar is gonna further help tighten up and strengthen our chassis and will help keep the car from understeering or plowing through the turns when used with those Eibach sway bars.

All right, we pulled out all of the stops with this handling pack, and honestly, I'm ready to see if all these parts really did a good job at improving our handling. What do you say to go find some turn, shall we? All right, so we're out here in the 2011 V6 with the handling pack installed and we got some great country roads to really test this thing out on, man. And as you can see, I'm not really letting up too much and the car's taking it, man. We're, really flat out through the turns, body roll is all but gone. The sway bars are doing a great job, the springs are definitely helping out as well. The car is a little bouncy, it rides a little rougher than it did in stock form, but you know, it's a small price to pay for better handling. Hard right-hander coming up, swing it in. You just point the car and it reacts. I mean the Panhard bar is really planting those two rear tires as we get out of the turn as I stomp on it. And of course, the SR Performance strut tower brace is helping reduce some of that understeer that the car had in stock form. So this is probably one of the better handling packs we've assembled. I mean, we've got all facets of our suspension covered. It really shows in results and is a blast to drive. So that wraps up our handling pack here of the 2011 V6. Be sure to check out some of our other bolt-on build-ups as well where we work on our appearance and really pump up the performance.