How To Make 500 HP in S650 Mustang GT With NO Bolt Ons!

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Here's how you can make 500 horsepower in your S650 Mustang GT. Hey guys, welcome to Red 5. Today we're going to be talking about three different ways you can make 500 horsepower on your S650 Mustang GT. We're going to be covering these three methods because one of them is going to be completely free. The other one's going to cost you a little bit of money, but both of them are still going to keep your warranty. And third one is if you don't care about your warranty and you just want to full send it, it's probably the easiest way to do it. So, with that being said, let's dive right into the video. Now, before we dive into these three methods, I want to talk about something is the horsepower ratings on the S60 Mustang. So, if you have a car without the active exhaust, you've got about 480 horsepower. And if you got the active exhaust, you get six horsepower bump, bringing it to 486 horsepower. So, as you can see, you're pretty much there in terms of 500 horsepower. Now, let me clarify something in this video as well. I'm not talking about the wheel horsepower number here. I'm talking about just the crank horsepower. just if you want to be out on the streets and say you've got a 500 horsepower Mustang just to have a little bit street credit and it's going to be obviously the same horsepower at the dark horse. So, it's pretty impressive to have a 5 liter making 500 horsepower and that is currently reserved for the S650 Mustang Darkhor, but you can easily get there with your regular Mustang GT as well. So, to start off, we're going to assume you have the active exhaust vehicle that makes 486 horsepower, which will be a little bit easier to get to 500 mark. So, the first method is going to be completely free.

[00:01:28]It's going to be not doing anything with your warranty. So, your warranty is still going to be intact, and that is going to be removing the carbon traps.

[00:01:37]Now, if you didn't know, the S50 Mustang GTS come with carbon traps in their intake system, and that is pretty restrictive. It's done for emission purposes, but of course, it's robbing you off of some horsepower. So, if you go ahead and get the carbon traps removed, you're going to free about 10 to 12 horsepower. That has been proven by the dyno, which comes up to be right around 14 horsepower or so at the crank.

[00:01:59]So, if you start off with 486, you're right there at 500 horsepower. Depending on different dyno reading, if you want to measure the wheels and do the calculation backwards, it might not be exactly 500, but you're pretty much there. Maybe a little bit over, maybe a little bit less. So, this method basically allows you to have the 486 horsepower Mustang go all the way to 500 horsepower without compromising on your warranty without spending anything. So, if that's something you just want to try it out, you can do it. Even if you have warranty work, you can always put the carbon t back, take your Mustang in for some service work. And as I mentioned, this is with the active exhaust. So, if you do have the non-active exhaust, you're a little bit short cuz you're going to be right around 492 494 horsepower. So, this works for the active exhaust cars because you do have that 6 horsepower bump. But the reality is you're not really going to feel the difference between an active exhaust versus a regular exhaust car. Now, what if you really want to send it to 500 horsepower comfortably? You're okay spending some money, but you still want to keep your warranty intact. How do you go about it? Well, the second option is going to do exactly that. You're going to have to spend a little bit money, but you're going to still keep your warranty, and you will definitely be comfortable there at 500 horsepower mark even if you have the regular Mustang GT without the active exhaust. So, how that works is going to be obviously starting with the removal of the carbon trap, which frees up another 10 to 12 horsepower for your Mustang, and then getting an Xpipe or H pipe, which is going to be a resonator delete. The resonator delete is going to make your car a little bit louder as well, and especially if you have the active exhaust, can sound amazing, but it will free up about 5 to 7 horsepower depending on what dyno you ask. So, if you have about 10 to 12 horsepower from the carbon trap removal, then you've got another 6 horsepower from the air delete. If you have the active exhaust car, you are definitely comfortably in the 500 horsepower crank range. If you have the regular active exhaust, or if you have the regular Mustang without the active exhaust, you're pretty much flirting with 500, if not already there, because you've got about 492 just from the carbon intake removal. And then you've got about six or seven horsepower increase from the resonator delete. So 499 498 somewhere around that. Pretty much round it up to 500 horsepower. Now as you can see the both methods that I've talked about so far retains your warranty and they pretty much cost nothing. With the Xpipe or H pipe you will spend about $150 $200 for a nice Xpipe or H pipe and the removal of the carbon trap is obviously free. So, this is a very lowcost effort to be able to get to the 500 horsepower without messing anything up because you will still have the warranty intact. With the first method, you can always put the carbon trash back. The second method is a little bit different because once you cut out the resonators, it's going to be just the Xpipe or H pipe. So, if you do go in for service, that could be an issue, but deal really has to prove that something is causing that. So, if you have an exhaust leak, if you have some mufflers not working properly, anything like that, you might be in trouble. But if you're just having some engine or transmission work done, they could not deny you the warranty just because you changed out a mid pipe from your Mustang GT. Now, let's talk about the third and last option, which is personally my favorite, especially if you don't care that much about the warranty, is going to be tuning the Mustang, because it's not only about the horsepower, it's also going to be about how your Mustang is going to shift, especially if you have the 10-speed Mustang GT. Now, it is also going to be a little bit more costly because you have to get a device and you have to get a separate tune. You're roughly going to spend about $7 to $800 to be able to get a 93 octane tune. If you can do E85, it's going to be a little bit more pricier, but we're going to keep it just at 93 for now. You're going to need to purchase a device.

[00:05:39]You're going to need to get a tune. Uh I'm tuned by London Racing, my S550 Mustang, their shoemaker, Writer Performance, any of the bigname tunes are going to get you there very, very easily. Now, it is not a turbo engine.

[00:05:51]So when you tune it up, you're not going to free up that much horsepower, but you'll still get a little bit bump in the horsepower. Now, typically we have seen dyno readings of about 20ish horsepower to the wheels, which would translate to about 22 to 24 horsepower at the crank. So if you have a active exhaust GT, you're definitely going to go from 486 to easily almost 510 horsepower, which is actually more than the standard dark horse. And if you have even the regular Mustang GT, which starts off at 480 horsepower, just by doing this, you're going to go from 480 to 502 to 504 horsepower. Again, crossing that mark over of the 500 horsepower that you can have with your S650 Mustang GT. Now, it is worth noting that the warranty is still going to be technically intact because if the car is under warranty and you tune it up, the dealer really has to prove something is caused by that. So, if you have some engine damage or transmission damage, you're not able to reverse the tune or return the car back to stock, you could have an issue with the dealer will deny you the claim. So, definitely do that at your own risk. But the reality, these tunes are not going to be pushing a car over the edge. These tunes are very conservative. They'll give you a little bit of power bump and you'll be more more than likely fine. But of course, do your own research to make sure that you're not going to come across any issues. I've been tuning my S550 Mustang GT for a long time now and I've had no issues. But I definitely recommend you do a little bit more research before you tune your Mustang or talk to your service adviser because each dealership is different. Some people are cool with mods, some some dealerships are not cool with mods. So, you just got to talk to them, get an idea of what your service adviser is saying. Now, the other big thing is if you do tune your Mustang and you have a 10-speed GT, it's going to make the driving experience a lot more fun for you. It's going to be a lot smoother. It's going to be a lot punchier in terms of the gear shifting.

[00:07:42]It's going to be much nicer. It's not going to do as much gear hunting. You're going to get a little bit faster shifting times. So, all of that gets improved. So, if you have a stick shift, yes, you'll get the power bomb, but if you have the 10-speed transmission, you're going to see all the other benefit I just mentioned with the tuning capabilities. So, not only are you getting 20 more horsepower, you're going to get a much better ride quality in terms of your transmission shifting, in terms of the gear hunting. You're going to enjoy your car a lot more aside from this 20 horsepower we talked about. So, yeah, guys, this is how you get to 500 horsepower in your S650 Mustang GT. As I said in the videos before that this is the crank horsepower, not the wheel horsepower. It will take a lot more to get to the wheel horsepower, which I'll make a video on that as well to see what you need to get to the 500 wheel horsepower mark on your S50 Mustang GT compared to crank horsepower. Crank horsepower is pretty easy because you're pretty much there. And aside from just a little bit mods here and there, it's not going to take you much to get to the 500 horsepower mark. So, I hope you guys enjoyed today's video. If you did, make sure you smash that like button. Comment below what kind of power goals are you shooting for your S650 Mustang GT. And of course, subscribe to Red 5 for more