What kind of gains will our Sale Director’s Roush Mustang see over a simple header swap?

Photos by Jonathan Ertz/Words by Elizabeth Puckett

Ivan is our Sales Director over here at Xceleration Media, and his 2015 Mustang GT is turning some heads, and that’s not just because it’s a great looking pony car. With only a few mods, this Roush Mustang has dipped down into the high 9s, proving that forethought put into mods will get you pretty far.

The last time Ivan went to the track, his 2015 Ford Mustang with Roush Performance TVS went 9.88@140mph! It is tuned by Palm Beach Dyno, has a 72mm upper (11.7psi), runs on e85, had the stock catback exhaust, Sai Li return fuel system, id1000 injectors, BMR Suspension springs, Jms Chip wheels, and Mickey Thompson tires. Everything else was stock including engine, trans and rear end. The car (with driver) weighed in at 4025lb.

In the pursuit of a faster setup by spring, Ivan decided to throw a pair of silver ceramic coated BBK longtube headers, and high flow mid pipe on his Mustang.

BBK made these headers as the first direct fit, full length longtube headers for the 2015-17 Ford Mustang 5.0. These headers are designed for one thing, gains! Testing through BBK has proven significant horsepower and torque gains, and once you scroll to the end, you’ll see what Ivan’s Mustang picked up.

Unlike many of its older brothers, the sixth-generation Mustangs are champs when it comes to exhaust work.

Having access to a lift is a benefit over laying on your back while the car is on jack stands, but the headers themselves and the way Ford ran the exhaust is a better design than you’d see on the Mustang during the early 2000s and back.

The main trick to making this job super simple was jacking the engine up for better access. After supporting the engine with a screw jack, the starter was removed, engine mount brackets removed, and the engine could be raised to create more room to reach the header nuts. A few nuts had to come out from the top of the engine, so removing the air box was needed to get that extra access up top.

Mid pipes from BBK will replace the catted pipe behind the headers.

The new headers and mid pipe went back on as easily as the manifolds and cats came off. The stock cats were ditched and replaced with a catless mid pipe.

The sound profile was noticeably different right away, with a louder and more aggressive tone — the exhaust is still being run through stock mufflers.

The whole job was very straight forward, start to finish. Total install time was 5 hours, and there were no surprises along the way. Once it’s off the lift, it’s off to the Mustang dyno to see what kind of power you gain with only 5 hours worth of work.

Baseline dyno numbers were taken using an 85mm supercharger pulley, 93 octane pump gas, and only 7-8 psi of boost. This was the largest supercharger pulley they make for this blower. The only changes on the post-install dyno pull were the longtube headers and removal of cats/installation of catless mid pipe. The baseline pulls vs. post-header install pulls reveal a massive horsepower and torque gain. Ivan’s Mustang picked up peak numbers of 42hp and 41ft-lbs of torque, and even more through parts of the power/torque curves.

This was done in a temperature controlled facility, so the install was the only thing that made a difference. Ivan also noted an immediate difference in the pedal, which is equally as important since this is a daily driven car — it’s no track queen! We will update the track times when the weather permits the tracks to reopen in the spring.