Review | Ford Shelby GT350R | The Dying Superhero

Now, if you're someone from the United States, you probably know all the technical details, but if you're someone from Europe who doesn't have access to this car, let's talk about why it's not just an old Mustang. Now yes, there is something cheesy. but overall this is as tough as you can get the front end has been completely reworked from a normal mustang it is wider the fenders have been redone the hood has been lowered the front has an aerodynamic purpose changes have been made to the front splitter there is a splitter To create front downforce, there are different ducts that help flow from the front right and front left of the car that has transmission and oil coolers and actually flows through the coolers through the wheels and then comes out the back of the wheels to move. air to the front and rear more cleanly, okay, if you're still not impressed because every manufacturer claims to have aerodynamics these days, let's talk about cooling, this is a high revving v8 monster and this is not a car that only It's designed to park hard on the street.

It's not just another Mustang that can go fast in a straight line and can't do anything else, so if you're going to take this to a track you have to worry about cooling, something they've also addressed. . This hood vent here and the way the actual airflow moves through the center grille not only serves as a flow point for air intake induction, but it also cools the engine and helps exhaust air from the engine, which is really important because this isn't just one of those red herring cars that you go out for 10 minutes and then have to worry about something overheating.

When you walk past the side of the

gt350r

you realize how wide this vehicle is, I mean that. It's amazing the front and rear fenders stick out just the styling and lines look amazing if you're not a muscle car lover this may actually convert you but one of the main reasons the fenders are wider is this monstrosity of tires you have. real 305 series rubber in the front and 315 in the rear and they are running these michelin pilot cup sport 2 tires that are essentially going to go in the trash after probably 2000 miles, I mean there is literally no jogging here you can just listen to them disintegrate as you drive, but the r also has this carbon fiber rear spoiler and the cool thing is it's actually painted, it doesn't look like, oh look, I'm driving with a carbon fiber rear spoiler, on reality it is. painted black so technically that's a nice touch, if you order a

gt350r

you don't cut it, it doesn't come with a trunk, well it comes with a trunk, but it has no cladding, it's just bare metal, well the new owner of this car is going In fact, I have the trunk, it is fully lined and fully usable like any other Mustang.

Now you're probably wondering, okay? What the hell is wrong with this car? It's just another fanboy

review

, it's not because this gt350 looks much like the gt and ecoboost. I checked this comes from the same factory, no different, has the same issues with panel spacing, many of the panels don't line up perfectly, there are a ton of gaps in many of these areas, the paint quality just isn't good, I mean. the orange peel is just ridiculous and some of the matches between the plastic parts and the actual sheet metal just aren't perfect and that's exactly what you get on this Shelby GT350, just like the rest of the Mustangs, no they build it. to the highest quality, the actual standards they use to produce it are not those of a high-end car despite the price here, eh, I think this battery has magnetic suspension, it is magnetic, yes, yes, of course, it seems like a Simple ass, no, they are Magneride shock absorbers, so before continuing to discuss the pros and cons of this, let's talk specifically about the GT350R.

Okay, tell me. This real vehicle was designed in a wind tunnel. The aerodynamics are no longer that of the full scale car, but a reduced model of this and that's how they created the real front splitter, this front tray to the rear tray, so what they did was take this splitter on the gt350r, it's much larger and is designed to configure this panel. and these kickbacks here to flow air under the bottom of the car to cool not just the transmission, the actual center tunnel of the car all the way to the diffuser at the rear to help the air flow directly into the actual differential cooler.

Another part of cooling is very important with this car and I'm sure first generation or first model owners figured this out right away. If they didn't have a track package they had issues with trans heat so this car comes with a transmission cooler and engine oil cooler front left and front right the other part is that There are brake ducts on the front, left and right that help move airflow to these monster Brembo brakes and that air really does. cool it down and part of this aerodynamic panel also has pulses here to blow air directly over the brakes so they really thought about this, it wasn't just a panel they put in here to smooth out the airflow, it's just a little bit of a dispute. that hangs out and yeah, right there, yeah, just a little bit of plastic that shoots out like you know, a little can of air with air, there are vents coming out of the wheel wells in the front, from the oil cooler of the engine and transmission.

Cooler where the air is blown specifically downwards and these coolers for the brakes actually help move the air through the rear points behind the wheels and these rear vents come out the side of the car to dissipate the heat and smooth out the airflow, so this is really cool. For a production car, a lot of thought went into this because, you know, something you wouldn't normally think about in a mass-produced type of sports car in America, it did a very good job, your actual brakes again are single part. uh, brembo brakes, 15 and a half inch rotors which are actually a two piece design, although they are fake two pieces because you can't take the hats off the rotors, you have to buy the whole thing, but technically they are two pieces because the hat is aluminum and it's fixed to the real one, it's fixed there, so the brake rotors are directional veins like a high performance disc should be, so you know you can't just swap the rotors back and forth, they are per wheel on the actual front hubs.

This car is aluminum, which is different from the regular Mustang, and they chose these upgraded aluminum hubs, not only for the size of the brakes and wheels, but also to help with steering feel. It has two ball joints again on the bottom half of the actual hub. this is for the feeling of steering stability and to control the extra load on the wheels, actually on the suspension and the bushings, and it also has improved wheel bearings in the front and that's totally different from the normal mustang, so that's a lot actually just on the front half of this car and we're not even done yet no, no, let's get to one of the things that you noticed right away with the plastic drain plug, yeah, plastic oil paint, the plastic composite, no, they call it composite, which could mean anything, uh, this.

The oil pan is a first for them, it includes a different baffle and pickup all in this pan so they didn't have to separate them and it was designed for high G force which also adds two extra quarts of oil for the engine so you say ten and a half quarts yeah it's like something like ten and a half quarts so that's two five and fifty five fifty and they actually gave this the correct weight of oil on the gt that runs a pathetic 520 that will become, you know. diarrhea water, if you know any, you know five minutes on a track, so you actually have the right oil weight for this car and heat is not an issue with the oil cooler, although I would probably take out the engine oil and put in some serious synthetic fluid. here if you're tracking it just to be sure, but that's just another part of it, the trans is totally different from the gt, this is a tremec unit, not the cheap crap they put in the gt that looks like it's going to fall off. aside after knowing 30,000 miles this is supposed to be much more durable and you can tell by the field of the shifter that it's fine yeah I saw it has six gears and then it has a racing gear yeah the race skate cvt for race mode yes yes. it's a cvt it actually has a cvt built into this so you can go into its pure motorsports mode.

I was hoping to see a carbon fiber driveshaft. No, there is no carbon fiber driveshaft and let's get this out of the way right now when it was. At that gt350 event I looked at this car front and back and drove it and thought they could have done a lot more here, why isn't there more aluminum? Why is it like you said? A carbon fiber driveshaft, why isn't there one? Wouldn't more attempts to reduce weight on this chassis besides adding, you know, $20 grand wheels make more sense? And then you know you drive this thing and you realize the price if you could get this car as a sticker, the regular gt350.

It's 65,000 and it's a really attractive package for that, if you add all the aluminum chassis, aluminum body panels, forged aluminum control arms and all of this, you're looking at a car over a hundred thousand dollars easily and that's it Out of your reach. from your normal human being who actually works a pretty middle income or upper middle income job, this would make this totally unattainable and wouldn't be that great, okay, let's go back, and again, there are some things to go over on your diffuser. designed to have actual holes to create negative pressure and kick up to help cool the differential cooler underneath, it looks like it's just a small, it almost looks like a steering counter, yeah, it's very small, uh, very small , it looks exactly like a transmission cooler, but there is a pump connected to the differential that moves the oil in and back to cool it, which is critical if you're just going around the track, so they didn't just design a solution cooling, but also an airflow solution to help.

I think they even stamped the gear ratio on the rear 373. Yes, that's right, I have to look it up. The rear lower control arms are very similar to the GT Mustang, but have been modified for this car. uh for rigidity um for the additional load again you have different uh physical bushings uh the size of the front and rear stabilizer bar on this car is the same as the gt350 the r is no different the only thing really different here in the suspension is that the gt350r has higher front springs weigh about 80 lbs so there is a little difference there and I'm not too sure it's probably due to the tires, I'm guessing the rear of the bumper, this is actually the exit point of all the air, this has a dual purpose.

It helps create downforce at the rear, cools the rear and makes air flow smoothly outward in combination with the real carbon fiber aerodynamic profile. These wheels are designed by an Australian company, they manufactured them for Ford. They are all carbon fiber, as most people know. and they go crazy over these things because it saves 50 pounds compared to a regular aluminum wheel for all four, so that's a lot for how big these things are and they're huge. The negative part is that it creates this level of phobia because I know some people will come up and lock them or try to steal them because they cost a lot of money at four, almost four thousand, close to four thousand dollars a wheel, that's crazy.

I think they could come up with a better nut design. that something from a toyota corolla oh my god, those nuts are horrible. I don't know who really thought you know let's do this. Let's put these esoteric wheels on this car and then put lug nuts that look like this here. It is awful. single nut, six lugs, seven lugs, all with different keys, yeah, yeah, so the guy that's trying to steal it like he cut his throat, he just cut himself, instead they just cut the wheel, but yeah, these Wheels and tires are really great for a production car, but I mean there are tradeoffs if you're going to drive this on the street, you have to be very careful because a damaged wheel is very expensive.

Can these wheels be repaired or should you replace them? They have to be replaced because they crack and the tires. They are the same story now, they are amazing on the track and Ford will claim that and many people say that these cup 2 tires are the best tires for track day, that you can use dual purpose on the street and the track, and I'm sure everyone will. argue that or most people are going to argue it, but you get theseTires with literally no tread in the center, look like they've already been cooked, which will probably be great in the rain and I doubt you'll do that. get over 2000 miles on these I'd be surprised 2000 miles just driving on the street well yeah two thousand street miles I think you can get more than that yeah what if you just parked it and drove around Starbucks? a thousand miles, yeah, let's drive around the square and make people look at you and rev their engines.

How much did you say that these tires are the rear ones? 545 535 oh my god, where is that tire rack thing from? What is the front? Leave me four 535 for the Back 435 for the front so this is going to be one of the most important consumable parts of the gt350r the tires and if you want to spray them they will last 2,000 miles and you will be doing 10,000 miles a year on this car God. Scott, we finally did it. under the hood finally spent a lot of time looking at this there's a lot to talk about you like that hood vent right?

I'm trying to figure out what this little hair strap is for quick release quick release quick release vent that's on In case you lock someone under the hood, they can, yeah, they can just pull themselves out of the vent, that's what es.Really because it's not for cooling, so at the front of the car this whole hood has been lowered. This is a little bit lower than the regular Mustang, so you get this carbon composite, just kind of a front casing for the radiator support and they decided not to cover this. because they obviously want to show the fact that it's a carbon fiber composite.

The second thing they did here. The goal of getting a high revving, stable, high revving V8 was airflow, so the entire engine was designed from the ground up. This is not the same as the five liter, the block, the heads are all different, now the intake manifold is also different, it is very similar to the five liter, but overall it still has long runners, but the actual diameter is larger again, the air flow is larger, the valve diameter is larger and larger. it has a 14 millimeter lift which is really high for a 32 valve engine supposedly of this type and then of course they made this short ram cone style filter that seals the hood to create a good seal, they don't cover it so In terms of airflow, they actually use the front grille airflow, but it's restricted because they found that it creates too much air turbulence, so they use it partly for air induction and intake for this filter element and also to cool the engine compartment.

I know the air moves pretty well around here. I'm going to go to the car to take a nap. Part of reducing friction is that they have used the deck plate honed block, which means the bores are more uniform, allowing them to use piston rings that have less friction. less resistance with the cylinder walls. Actually the piston rings also account for most of the friction inside the engine and what they have chosen is 12.1 compression and they are using port injection only, no direct injection here, what type of octane fuel do you recommend? 93 or 91 minimum, but 93 is where you get the most power.

They use the forged flat crank, which is different from some of the other competitors because of the way they drilled it and the way the pins are configured, so there really is a lot to it. What can you learn about this engine. They've done a lot here to try to make this car as performant as possible to really make it one of the world's premier high-revving V8s. It is more designed for the track. It is specifically designed. to be a track engine, but we don't know if this 5.2 is going to hold up because there aren't a lot of people with the car and there aren't a lot of people with a ton of track miles yet or miles in general, oh I am.

I'm sure 50 of the people who drive them are just going to do stupid things, yeah, like they're making some killer corvettes. Yeah, I wouldn't do that to this car. I would be at full speed all the time. I'm really surprised. The high caliber car does not have flat tires. Oh, all cars should have flexible or backpack operation. Your favorite. Do you have a spare in the back? No I dont think so. I don't think they waste the weight. I think you give it options, you take it out and throw it in the trash, oh right, exactly which one comes in, actually, that's a good clue for this.

I have been on the track with the GT350 and GT350R more than once and that is where I developed my hobby. So, uh, I didn't do as many laps as I would like, of course, I would like a million laps in this car to be honest, but I just want to give you a quick summary of my time on the track and then we'll talk about the pros and cons. cons. Did you take the eco-friendly four-cylinder engine to the track? No, that was so rare and unavailable that I couldn't even get close. They had it in a steakhouse.

It's a shame. Yeah, that was good again, just a little touch here, just a minor touch. Very nice things. I wish we could teach more people to make changes that way. In fact we could keep the stick shifts around the gt350r, it's the superior track car because you have common sense stuff. like ridiculously sticky tires much more aggressive arrow and you know, improved front spring rates it feels more secure firmer more planted and there's a lot more feedback it's a very neutral car it's one of the few cars I've been in where you just feel the absolute confidence to go full speed the trans the brakes the brakes are amazing here without any damage those are on the kill switch but when you're going high speed I mean it's like you can go so deep into a corner with this car and that's At the point of firm pedals, you feel the confidence to just kill them, so I really like that.

The gt350 is no slouch either, it just feels a little softer and that's mainly due to the tires it has and less arrows up top. speed, it doesn't have as much stability, but you're splitting hairs if you're not a straight-up track guy like Rat, the 350 will serve most people just fine, so the first thing I do before starting the gt350. Do I go to the mode selector here and select sport mode especially for the street? The only thing that changed is the direction mode. I switch back to comfort. It feels more real, less synthetic, and in fact, some of the Ford guys confirm that with me on it.

Especially on the track, it feels more natural, but the shocks go into a sportier damping mode where more voltage is sent to them, the oil becomes thicker so the damping is more aggressive, the exhaust tone becomes sporty, so it's stronger, you're just ready to drive faster. On the street, in a serious track car, sometimes you expect serious things and the gt350 is one of those rare cars that actually gives you many of the tools you would expect, all the gauge information, cylinder head temperature, inlet air temperature, engine oil temperature. transmission temperature and you even have an oil pressure gauge here now, why is that essential?

It helps you know certain things like, for example, if your engine is still cold, you'll see your oil pressure gauge set at 100 psi at 2000 rpm. You shouldn't rev it, conversely, if you're on the track and you start to see that you're at 30 psi and 8,000 rpm, you know you're going to lose an engine very soon, so that's the good thing. Something I haven't seen in many cars, especially sports cars recently, is that they made sure all of this was there. Let's talk about driving it on the street, but first of all it's so over the top, I mean this car has a lot of capability. you'll probably use ten percent, I guess it's like the human brain in this car, uh, the first thing you notice, especially with these 305 and 315 tires, are tram lines everywhere as soon as you let go of the wheel.

It feels like it's just pulling in one direction or another, following every corner of the road and that's something you normally feel with cars with super sticky tires, but this is taking it to the next level. It's amazing how much this car follows the imperfections of the pavement and us. Let's put this in sport mode. The exhaust is up. I'm going to change the direction to comfort because it feels more natural. Let's push it in the corners. This car is crazy here. I mean, for the street it's like that. Over the top, I can't believe it, Jesus, it's this car, it's something else, you have to drive this car, if you can get in one, okay, let's take this in the corners, the brakes, you know, the GT brakes with the performance are incredible, this car feels. like super car brakes without having carbon ceramic of course, there is no problem with confidence here, that's what I'm talking about, you can just put your foot down without problems with oversteer, it doesn't understeer, this car is just amazing, huh, I have to do it.

I'll say one thing, I've been in a lot of cars recently on the track and the only thing I can compare this to in terms of tingling all over your body and connecting with all your senses is the Ferrari 458, this car has all those elements of course . It doesn't have a chassis, but in terms of feel good, the feel good nature of driving a car, especially on the track, this is what no other car at this price would have, as we settle here, one of the greats Negative aspects of the GT350R are these tires. You can plan on removing them completely if you are ever going to drive this car on the street because I have never been in a vehicle that accumulates more rocks than this one unless you have had our compound on and off.

The street is just horrible because I don't know how you're going to keep your paint in good shape. I have already heard strange noises, creaks and rattles from all the rocks that accumulate here and it is just one of those things that you need to keep in mind that if you are going to buy this car, let's talk about the gt350 manual transmission. This is one of the best manual transmissions I have ever been in. In fact, the 2000 is top-notch. The brz frs is pretty good. If it holds up, those are really my two favorite gearboxes, apart from the second miata, this one is somewhere in the middle, it feels so safe, it feels so good and so direct, and then the clutch is almost perfect.

I've never missed one. Heel-to-toe downshift I've never had a problem rev-matching and it's actually one of the best parts of getting into this car. Someone might ask how this compares to the speed of the Mustang GT6 and that feels like absolute garbage compared to this. This is much better, if I had a GT I would be looking into how to trade one of these for that car in general driving the GT350 and the r. I would have to say this is definitely one of my favorite cars. I've driven it before, there's no doubt about it, but the biggest problem is that yes, these seats are amazing, the steering wheel feels good, the transmission is good, all the driver input points are excellent, but this interior is very Below what this car is, I would say.

If you are someone who is very picky about your interiors and want a more prestigious car, this might actually be a deal breaker for you, but if you can close your eyes and forget about some of this, you will really enjoy driving. this car, the interior of the gt350r. Now let's talk about the differences between the regular gt350. Well, the first thing you'll notice is that there is no back seat in this car, which is obviously to reduce weight and is more specifically designed for that. Track Car, the next thing is that if you go with this as a base model, you won't get a head unit, you won't really have a sound system, you won't have air conditioning.

Now this car, actually, the future owner will get the technology package, which is the real thing. The head unit was added back with the new Ford Sync and AC making this gt350r more street friendly, one of the best things and probably the worst things about this car depending on who you are are these recaro seats and It is a combination between fabric and silicone. about the best balance you can get between a street and racing seat, it's very comfortable now if you're a rap artist and you hang out with the female twerk crew and they have butts that are wider than about 17 or 18 inches, this will be a catastrophically uncomfortable driving experience now, if you're tall it works, but it's just the width and the way these bolsters are set up, they're so stiff they just won't work for some people, the next big change in Here's the steering wheel, The bottom is flat and actually lined in leather, which is probably where you want to keep your hands in your daily driving because the rest is wrapped in alicontera with a central leather bead on top to say the least.

Where is the center if you have never had an alicon break a steering wheel before. The first thing you'll notice when it's new is how amazing it is to hold until you start using it every day and sweat through it and spin it. like someone crushed oreos, it feels like that, if you're using this wheel on the track it's best to use it when you're wearing racing gloves for the most part. The nextdifference with the r compared to the gt350 is only small. Details like the mode selectors on the steering wheel, you have direct access to normal and sport damping modes.

Next is the button on the steering wheel that actually changes the steering feel between normal and sporty comfort, which is nice to have direct access right there. It has its general mode selector, which is normal sport weather track and drag track. You can change everything from a physical control. Also in this car you don't have to navigate through the menu to silence the exhaust. Down here, you actually have a physical switch. for the escape mode between normal and sport or as I call it, piss off all your neighbors mode, now with the technology package you get the new Ford sync, which is much better than the Microsoft version that was here before and which was just a monotonous task to use. many cars because it was slow and cumbersome to move and then other cars that just seem fine but this new timing system from Ford ditching Microsoft is much faster to use you can see there is processing power behind its response to touching the volume control. there is no lag or lag in any of the menus, it is quite intuitive, its mapping is quite good because it allows you multi-touch control and which is good because it doesn't have a command knob, it doesn't have a central command on top I have to use the touch screen for all this, which sucks, but here really you'll probably buy this car without it anyway, overall its use isn't that bad if you want to have it here, it's not.

It's going to annoy you just as much as the previous version did now, the other thing is you can turn this screen off, you can actually turn it off and on, but at night the backlight is still on which really sucks, it doesn't turn off for complete. black, you see a little bit of backlight bleeding from the actual inverter or the LCD screen, last but not least this is something to keep in mind and I'm going to give you a quote from my almost 70 year old mother who he saw this car and came in and said it looks a lot cooler from the outside than it does from the inside and that's because this is essentially the same mustang you got before, yes there are different badges, some of the instruments make a lot more sense, But this is the real weakness of the Mustang and where all the cost reduction comes from the dashboard plastics that look like they were taken from something from a B or C segment car.

The upper dash just looks cheap with these plasticized seams and I think Ford has this whole concept of making the mustang retro. where there are little design elements as a throwback to the old car, but mostly it just clashes and looks cheap with the rest of the modernism that's here, you know, I think in the future they really need to look at this if they're going to have this. sports car level, if they're going to continue to improve this and take it to the next level, they had to work on this and it's not just about the fit and finish of this car, you know, this is basically a new car and you can already hear the resonance in the plastics and the noise of the interior finish when you rub the engine.

I just got out of a GT my friend Jax you know he has 20,000 miles on the car and it sounds like it's falling apart everything rattles and creaks and that's historically what mustangs have been so yeah I know it's built on a cheap platform and all that, but really it just drags this car around. I would like to see them really work on this for the next generation and just get rid of some of the cheesiness now the gt350 the engineers actually threw in some of that like on your speedometer it doesn't say ground speed anymore we joked about it and said well where are the side mirror projections why is there no cobra hiss? and they just shook their heads, you can tell Ford Performance doesn't want a lot of that stuff and I just hope they can strike a balance between performance modernism and just saying goodbye to some of the retro elements that you already know are used.

This car dropped a bit so after spending some time at the track on the street shooting a video driving it and experiencing this car, this is one of the best sports cars I've ever been in and part of that formula is because I can really af

ford

it. Most people could really af

ford

this car, you know, without being in that one percent range. It's a car that people aspire to own. It's an American car that has somehow transcended beyond that old broken formula of well, it can only go straight. You can see it well. it drives well, sounds amazing, has an amazing manual transmission and is still one of the last high powered naturally aspirated cars on the planet, that's good now the big question: would you prefer the 350r to the regular 350 for someone who does days of random clue? autocross and just likes to drive.

I would say you would probably prefer the regular gt350 over this one now if you had the money and wanted the limited edition and numbered edition car, this one might be more for you but the problem is finding it somewhere close by. Based on MSRP, there are some dealers charging over a hundred thousand dollars for this car and that is nonsense. I do not own this vehicle, it does not belong to any automaker and I do not fundraise. I'm not asking for money. this channel but this gt350r actually belongs to a local company a non profit organization that bought this to raise money for their company they only employ disabled veterans people with disabilities and they are trying to raise money for their company and it is gentle.

It's personal to me because my dad has a Vietnam service-related disability, so it makes sense for him to have his car. I'm making a video about it and I'll post the link for you guys to see. from the fundraiser or the raffle website, but that's all I'm going to say about it in this video, check out the other videos about it and if you like it, great, if not, don't have any hard feelings.