Gadgetory

the original boss 302 Mustang only produced in 69 and 70 a vintage ass-kicker meant to answer Chevy's then bigger motors the world's moved on from caring much about Chevy versus Ford these days but the boss is back and relevant let's drive a 2012 Boss 302 Mustang the new one check the 10 the original boss was largely an engine story with freer breathing heads bolted on to a tougher block the new boss is similar a better breathing engine that doesn't dramatically increase the power over a stock v8 as much as it changes the character of and that perhaps makes this the most interesting of the hot factory Mustangs today into our spotters guide for a boss 302 if the C stripe and the big letters boss 302 don't give it away there are other things you can look for first of all up here we've got these knocked out former fog light positions it's an old boss 302 thing from back in the 60s you've got an hour body kit generally around this car which really explains the different front chin and air splitter on it you got a big hood bulge on this car which is hard to miss of course a different set of wheels now if you're not a big fan of these particular wheels you've got other choices within the 19 size which these are there's also a set of 20s from Ford but I was noticing here the clearance between this guy and that Brembo calipers about that much so might be a little dicey getting aftermarket that have got the right clearance and offset you've always got a black or a white roof on a boss and a couple of other differences are back here under the butt check it out here's one of two hurly-burly muffler and exhaust tips here they sound great but this is actually a quad exhaust car you might also spot a boss by its attitude they lower it 11 millimeters in the front and a pointless one millimeter in the rear so it ends up with kind of a stacked posture now I gotta tell ya Ford's made a ballsy move on this car they've gone not just low tech but damn near no tech look at this a 2012 Ford without Sync there's nothing look at this aux jack that's it no USB voice button there isn't one there's something cool about that in this kind of vehicle I also like the very understated cabin they've gone with this kind of faux engine-turned stuff sort of black anodized nice clean burnished aluminum style surrounds on the gauges the seats on this car you see we have the Recaro seats you get special seats no matter what you get on a boss 302 sport seats these guys are a mix of Alcantara Mouse fur and cloth and you'll find the same Mouse fur on the steering wheel one gear shift only before we get to the engine bay everything coming out of there is going to go through a six-speed with an incredibly tight and short throw these gears laterally are so close to each other it's like a fingertip shift and of course the name boss 302 comes from the fact that it is a 302 that's 302 cubic inches which is to say it's a 5 liter this is the classic Ford displacement but it's got nothing to do with the old 302s from when the lineage comes here's the motor a very high intake stack as you can see which creates the need for a hood bulge and we're on a Shelby we'd see the supercharger tucked in there there's no such thing this is a naturally aspirated fuel-injected v8 getting you 444 horsepower 380 foot-pounds of torque gets this 3600 pound Mustang to 60 in about 4 seconds while delivering 1726 or probably about 19 real-world now the way they got more power out of this guy was a variety of things including a different intake they've ported the head so the intake has very low turbulence nice flow all forged tating parts in the lower end of this engine and they've also gone through and tuned and tweaked a lot of other small things more aggressive cam as well all that gives you 38 more horsepower than a GT with a v8 which is no slouch of a motor but note this guy has a little lower torque number that's how they bias the performance curve and by the way the numbers I'm giving you are on supreme on 91 octane gas you'll knock those down a few horses and a few foot-pounds on the cheap stuff of course in a car like this you got a Monte Carlo bar here tying your two shock towers together and then underneath this rubber cap here's a what is that five position screw driver adjustable detent setting for the response rate of your shocks front there's also a pair of them in the back okay so check this out here's our main exhaust system here is a couple resonators behind the ex crossover which is right about there I think yeah but then look at these guys these are side pipes that come off right about at the crossover and they bleed off a little bit of exhaust and a lot of exhaust tone Ford says it's mostly to bleed off some sound to get an interesting mix where most of the exhaust goes out to the rear exiting system this is kind of like track day stuff by the way Ford must know us because they didn't send our boss with the so called track key a special red key that unlocks the most aggressive calibrations for throttle launch control fuel delivery in all kinds of timings now modern Mustangs have a lot of their bad habits tamed out of them these days I take this corner here and low gear bring it around and nice yeah the power is always right there cuz it's not so peaky as when you've got a blower on the engine that's something I like I'm gonna take off the traction control here and see how she gets out of shape pretty good very possible car look up to the fire hydrant and you can bring it back from the edge pretty readily I'm getting even a little bit of mud lawn here it's not filling us too far out of whack more around here see if I can't kiss that fire hydrant no so far so good okay and through it all you get that nice exhaust note predictable linear power what is good handling for this kind of car solid axle pony car that's got a lot of good technology applied over the years mostly what I love is this is a Mustang to really drive all of you know when you're in a Shelby you're not using much the MT of that unless you're on a tracker or really a drag stream this is too much there but this car you can exercise a fair amount of what it's got going keep things on a boil a little fun but not scare yourself too badly get us price the boss this guy's 41 one delivered not a lot of stuff to play with on the tech options to be honest or really any options aside from a few minor things I'll call your attention to the following first of all you've got a $1,975 option for 20-inch wheels the other like um er you don't I would want to preserve the ride quality of this car actually and stick with 19 just just my hunch the other thing to look at is the Recaro package which is kind of an odd one it's got a Torsen torque sensing limited-slip rear end and the Recaro seats kind of a weird combination of features but that's 2,000 bucks as well