Quarter mile/standing 400 metre times for an EL GT

[project 064]

Well here comes the "Pandora's Box"
According to Mr Mathieu Raudonikis & Mr John Wright of Performance Street Car
June/July edition 1997.
Mr Raudonikis recorded an ET of 15.45 secs @ 143.92kph.
Ford claim 15.65.
Time was recorded @ Eastern Creek in a Automatic EL GT.
Mr Raudonikis went on to say the Ford claimed ET for a manual EL GT of 15.06, would result in a genuine 14 second showroom stocker if you dropped two-tenths of the claimed time.
I do know of 2 14 second passes recorded by 2 EL GT's.
One pass was recorded here in WA @ Kwinana, the other was recorded @ Heathcote.
A lot of people dismissed the EL GT as a "slug" when it was introduced in 1997, but for a showroom stock, non stroker engine, it didn't do too bad with a 14 second pass.

[MisterAU]

Yes, remove the fugly plastic fantastic bits and you might dip into 14s on a perfect day. Unfortunately it (IMO) never deserved the GT badge as it simply didn't cut it in the performance class of the day. It was a plastic laughing stock.

*quickly jumps into flame suit*

[FTe217]

"your a bad man" Jeff LOL.......

[GTsteveMkII]

Seriously?! A T3 owner calling the EL GT ugly? The T3 is really a continuation of EL GT's styling. To say the EL GT doesn't deserve the GT badge is just crazy, Ford chose to badge it as a GT so that's all it needs. Performance and power wise it stacks up against its competitors of the time. It was far from a laughing stock, MOTOR magazine tested the EL GT V's the VS GTS-R and picked the GT as the better car, including Allan Moffat and Peter Brock who both also picked the GT.

[project 064]

Jeff, have you got any ET's for the T Series Cars. The only one I can find is 14.2 for Series 3 TE 50, almost as quick as the E 49 Charger.

[project 064]

Well according to the road tests of the era, 3 cars made sub 15 seconds on 400 metre sprint.
XW GTHO 14.2
XYGTHO 14.2
E49 Charger 14.2
Hmm maybe I can convince the "rusty bumper" brigade, most of their cars do not deserve the GT BADGE.
Then we have the "tarted up" Taxi Brigade of which we had 3 versions, the best being Series 3 TE50 14.2.
Any disagreements?

[MisterAU]

Actually the taxis were tested by the mags at 14.05 - 14.1 for the manual (two passengers half a tank of fuel blah blah blah). John Bowe is on record doing 13.8. There have been several owners cars in our club have run mid to high 13s with nothing more than a flash tune, mine included. Others with an exhaust and CAI have done the same with just the factory tune. So it doesn't take much to go sub 14 in one - I expect it would take quite a deal more to go sub 15 in an EL GT.

Fact ... the T3 was the first car Ford (FTE) built in over 30 years that went 14 secs from factory. That's why I don't believe any of the "anniversary" GTs were deserving of the badge. In fact I have more admiration for an EB XR8 Sprint as the best performance Falcon produced between the old school muscle GTs and the T3.

On another front I don't remember any GTs ever running quicker than 14.3 in road tests but I could be suffering alzymers again. I believe the E38/E49 Chargers were the quickest cars in the day.

[Elks]

Fact ... the T3 was the first car Ford (FTE) built in over 30 years that went 14 secs from factory. ............................

The real claim to fame of the T3 in my eyes was it was the only Ford/Tickford/FPV for all the years from the XE 5.8 until the current 5.0 Coyote. That was actaully quicker than the Holden/HSV equivalent of the day. Thats the real test.

For the record my T2 220kw Auto, almost 100% stock with 160,000 km on it, (with only mod being hot dog mufflers) ran a best of 14.98.

[4Vman]

Actually the taxis were tested by the mags at 14.05 - 14.1 for the manual (two passengers half a tank of fuel blah blah blah). John Bowe is on record doing 13.8. There have been several owners cars in our club have run mid to high 13s with nothing more than a flash tune, mine included. Others with an exhaust and CAI have done the same with just the factory tune. So it doesn't take much to go sub 14 in one - I expect it would take quite a deal more to go sub 15 in an EL GT.

Fact ... the T3 was the first car Ford (FTE) built in over 30 years that went 14 secs from factory. That's why I don't believe any of the "anniversary" GTs were deserving of the badge. In fact I have more admiration for an EB XR8 Sprint as the best performance Falcon produced between the old school muscle GTs and the T3.

On another front I don't remember any GTs ever running quicker than 14.3 in road tests but I could be suffering alzymers again. I believe the E38/E49 Chargers were the quickest cars in the day.

The only problem with all that is quarter mile times make up about 10% of the measurement of the ability of a performance vehicle...! Most people rate handling, braking and rolling performance as far more important.

On the other point the 1971 XYGTHO Phase 3 has been recorded in a mag test doing 14.1, the 1971 e38 was mid 14's, the 1972 E49 was low 14's, we never got to see what a 1972 Phase 4 did, people compare HO3 with E49 but they were not manufactured the same year for starters, let's look at Bathurst for a more realistic comparison where the Older Phase 3 was 20mph faster down Conrod than the E49 and seconds faster per lap so that is a more realistic indication of the real performance differences...

[MisterAU]

That's all very well but the topic was 1/4 mile times - you see it up there in the header? LOL.