Ford Racing hard at work...

[Jesse Kershaw]

The 2013 hoods initially were planned to have all the bracing removed but we discovered some "oil-canning" during high speed testing that could result in the hood gently touching either the SC pulley or the top of the intake/throttle body. It was minor enough that it took numerous runs for us to notice the slight rubbing and high speed video to verify.

We went back to the Mustang GT hood with only a small amount of the bracing trimmed for better clearance to the throttle body on the 5.0L NA engine. The weight difference is 6-7lbs.

I cannot stress enough the importance of our testing to catch issues like this. We don't just build a race car, we engineer a Cobra Jet.