Chief Engineer of S650 Mustang talks Coyote, EcoBoost, Dark Horse Upgrades

[IPOGT]

Keeping the 5.0 displacement, you will see more HP increase than torque increase.
The twin inlet is wild, I didn't see that coming.

Circa 1970 Oldsmobile. 442.

Sponsored

 

[Stevefreestyle]

Well he is an engineer....not a professional public speaker

Yes he may not sound like a Public Speaker, but surprisingly he didn't sound much like an Engineer either. Disappointing.

 

[Patio208]

Yes he may not sound like a Public Speaker, but surprisingly he didn't sound much like an Engineer either. Disappointing.

Tough crowd

 

[Mustang406]

Tough crowd

The Ford engineer guy probably just isn't comfortable speaking in public. I personally hate it. Lol

 

[Mike Pfeifer]

The Ford engineer guy probably just isn't comfortable speaking in public. I personally hate it. Lol

Certainly outside his comfort zone for sure. Everyone is looking at the Apple events and feeling like they have to try to capture that same energy. I think it’s fairly obvious they have a lot of work to do in presentation skills.

 

[300C Hemi]

Until they release final horsepower specs and weight I'm skeptical about upgrading.

Would you rather Ford dropped the V8 and went the EV route. The S650 looks fantastic at a time the auto industry is being pushed toward EV vehicles. I don't see any reason to be skeptical regarding Ford continuing to offer the Coyote powered S650 Mustang to those interested in owning one. Dodge fans wish they still had the option regarding the SRT Hemi vehicles.

 

[300C Hemi]

Would you rather Ford dropped the V8 and went the EV route. The S650 looks fantastic at a time the auto industry is being pushed toward EV vehicles. I don't see any reason to be skeptical regarding Ford continuing to offer the Coyote powered S650 Mustang to those interested in owning one. Dodge fans wish they still had the option regarding the SRT Hemi vehicles.

Regarding weight. From information I've reviewed. The weight of the S550 and S650 is basically identical.

 

[IPOGT]

Certainly outside his comfort zone for sure. Everyone is looking at the Apple events and feeling like they have to try to capture that same energy. I think it’s fairly obvious they have a lot of work to do in presentation skills.

The product should speak for itself. Screw presentation skills.

 

[Angrey]

The twin inlet (and throttle body) was a gift from the EPA. They had to include the stupid carbon capture inserts and that was restricting flow to the point that a single intake was going to be impractically large in order to get the flows and power they wanted. So what do you get? An utterly useless modification that adds cost and complexity just so they can keep dimensions down (all stemming from EPA regulatory pressure for emissions).

The S650 feels to me like Ford put it on the calendar years ago and as the deadline drew nearer they didn't have the wisdom or courage to cancel it.

The only thing truly upgraded (that's not just minimally incremental) about this model is the infotainment/screen/interior.

The rest is yawnworthy. In fact, so much so that they realized it and had to try to do an okie doke during the unveiling by showing CGI content for the Ford Racing variants (to get people excited who don't realize those cars are unicorns and extremely cost prohibitive).

Other than the interior, there's nothing I've seen on the GT to suggest it's an improvement to the current S550 offerings. (setting aside the aesthetics debate).

Furthermore, Ford gets a big fat F for continuing their terrible relationship with Getrag. You shouldn't have to buy special packages to get a decent transmission. That's like a hotel saying "well, you can stay in our normal rooms but don't drink the water, it's only been filtered and safe for consumption in our premium rooms."

There were large enough upgrades and differentiators between the S197 and the S550 to justify a new generation. There's really not a whole lot of upgrading going on with the S650.

And upping the compression to get you to power numbers you want seems foolish to me. The newest generation has DI to help with knock/preignition, but at some point if you keep upping CI you end up with the same problems you have on the GT350. A motor that briefs well on paper with quality 93, but in the real world where fuel consistency and quality is problematic and it only take one bad gulp from one bad fill up to smoke a motor, it's just not the path I'd have picked to increase power.

 

[dx2]

Well he is an engineer....not a professional public speaker

And as we know engineers are told to zip it when it comes to the interesting details. He has my respect for being able to hold back the info he wanted to mention as engineer. This is not easy.

As the s650 is a compromise altogether, he could not tell what he wanted to design originally or do you think thats all they had in mind or were capable of creating? They were forced to compromise. He cannot mention that during the presentation in his position even if wanted to.

 

[shogun32]

Well he is an engineer....not a professional public speaker

that's why you feed him his lines and he practices over and over and over. Extemporaneous speaking is an acquired talent. Apple has plenty of INTP engineers too but they're smart enough not to put them on stage. I swear, is anyone running the asylum over there at Ford or are they really so clueless from top to bottom?

How about rolling all that worthless spending on a new corporate Plantation and instead fix all the problems with the smaller Turbo motors once and for all, and find 700 more RPM on the coyote drive train and fix the cooling problems too.

 

[musdng18]

Not happy about the Camaro similarities on the front, the rectangular headlights, awkward interior display screen, flat tail lights, apparent reduced rear shoulder width over the rear wheel wells, and the lost edges that ran the length of the body sides through the fuel door. Hoping the next couple years yield some changes to resolve what many have already critiqued. My '18 GT Premium has a beautiful 2-toned B/W leather seat package, so looking for those options also. Still a Mustang underneath, so likely will own one in '24. There are great possibilities to customize though....

 

[AvalancheSVT]

Like I said.... sounds like a 13yo EdgeLord named it. The reason no one saw DH coming was because all its specs were expected to be in the GT based on rumors. It wasn't that they hid it, they just hid that it wasn't the GT that the info that was leaking was about.

As an internal Project name DH is fine, but as a nameplate, it utterly blows.

Mach1 makes you think Speed
Boss makes you think taking charge, the top dog
Bullitt at least makes you think "cool 60's muscle doing cool 60's stuff"
Dark Horse makes you think there is a horse trying to hide in the shadows in a massive horse sized trenchcoat waiting to try and sneak up on you.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of camaros? The Dark Horse Knows!

boss and mach 1 are in the same vein, bro
i'm kinda surprised it took em this long.

the name is kinda cheesy but so was boss and mach when it came out.

 

[Patio208]

You know we have reached peak bitching season when an engineer is expected to give a Morgan Freeman-like narration

If they had thrown Jim Owens out there people would've complained "he's such a meatball". People aren't happy unless they're unhappy.

 

[Dub347sbf]

The twin inlet (and throttle body) was a gift from the EPA. They had to include the stupid carbon capture inserts and that was restricting flow to the point that a single intake was going to be impractically large in order to get the flows and power they wanted. So what do you get? An utterly useless modification that adds cost and complexity just so they can keep dimensions down (all stemming from EPA regulatory pressure for emissions).

The S650 feels to me like Ford put it on the calendar years ago and as the deadline drew nearer they didn't have the wisdom or courage to cancel it.

The only thing truly upgraded (that's not just minimally incremental) about this model is the infotainment/screen/interior.

The rest is yawnworthy. In fact, so much so that they realized it and had to try to do an okie doke during the unveiling by showing CGI content for the Ford Racing variants (to get people excited who don't realize those cars are unicorns and extremely cost prohibitive).

Other than the interior, there's nothing I've seen on the GT to suggest it's an improvement to the current S550 offerings. (setting aside the aesthetics debate).

Furthermore, Ford gets a big fat F for continuing their terrible relationship with Getrag. You shouldn't have to buy special packages to get a decent transmission. That's like a hotel saying "well, you can stay in our normal rooms but don't drink the water, it's only been filtered and safe for consumption in our premium rooms."

There were large enough upgrades and differentiators between the S197 and the S550 to justify a new generation. There's really not a whole lot of upgrading going on with the S650.

And upping the compression to get you to power numbers you want seems foolish to me. The newest generation has DI to help with knock/preignition, but at some point if you keep upping CI you end up with the same problems you have on the GT350. A motor that briefs well on paper with quality 93, but in the real world where fuel consistency and quality is problematic and it only take one bad gulp from one bad fill up to smoke a motor, it's just not the path I'd have picked to increase power.

It has the same compression as the gen 3 motors, 12:1. I honestly am pretty impressed they are shooting for 100 hp/liter, especially in today's world. I think 500 horsepower from a stock coyote is pretty awesome.

Sponsored