GT Mustangs compete in a number of GT1 and GT2 classes rather well. If you take it stock, the back end has 1 inch of lateral travel.....which is very driveable, but you need to have the feel for it and get used to it to be effective. I didn't see a road course time for it but I imagine it would be 2 secs slower than the Cobra.....or on par with the S2k......not because it doesn't have more torque or power, but because poor anti-roll bars and weak control arms/bushings come as factory equipment. If in your example it would be ok to put better anti roll bars in the GT it would shave off time and allow it to put the power to the road better......and faster than the S2K. It already is faster in the 1/4 mile because it has more power and torque. You can also add the cobra's independant rear suspension to the GT. This is like I mentioned earlier about "street cars" there is a lot of varation in factory equipment. Put that Honda engine in the GT and race.......then the torque suddenly becomes an issue......or find a way to put the Mustang engine in the S2k and then the torque issue suddenly becomes a factor.....bacause you are running with equal bases and can have a serious comparason............just like Nascar.........

Now about Nascar, or late model stock car racing in general it is the best example of competition you can get. All chasis start out the same (a tube frame) to which you add a STOCK (as in production) rear end, differential and gears. (Ford stock car teams use the same 9.9 inch rear end you can buy from Ford for a Mustang. Then you must use a PRODUCTION block, heads and components. Ford Racing makes the 351 sportsman block, and heads which Nascar or whatever late model series approves. Chevy teams use the 350 powerplant. Teams can only have a maximum of 358 cubic inches. Daytonia and Talledega have air restrictor plates, so the teams need to find other ways to gain power. Sterling Marlin for example was dominant in the mid 1990's for using an X-Pipe from Dr Gas (the same one you can buy for late model V8 cars) to give him and edge.

Anyway, I'm not going to go through everything but they must use factory production parts. Machining techniques, piston and rod combinations are up to the teams. Much the same as if you built a hot rod engine, start with the sportsman block and heads, then chose your top combination. All those parts are available for your Mustang or hot rod.....see what I'm saying when I say that big racing series really do impact the street? And while the bodies and chasis of nascars and late model stock car series are prefabricated, the heart of the car is built from production parts. They are high performance parts yes, but not every car company offers this type of extreme diversity.

So back to the point, once you have equal restrictions on building an engine, put it in the same weight car as your competitors........it truely becoms a competition of massive scale between manufacturers. Make sense? What I'm saying, is that when you make all things equal such as with nascar) you can not compete without stump pulling torque because of the low end requirements. Street driving is similiar to this where low rpm is often used. BUT the big difference on the street is what you have to work with from the factory. At some point in the upgrade process you will be runing with somewhat equal bases (I would lighten the Mustang and cure the rear handling and you would add a turbo and maybe gears to the S2K)......once the two chasis were fixed to handle and weight was as good as it could get, it becomes an engine challenge........to which more CI's and torque always prevail. For the same reason, when you have equal bases like in nascar, 4 cyls don't race 8 cyls no matter how high they rev.

HOWEVER, put a Ford 4 cyl against a Honda 4 cyl and see how uncompetitive Ford is in that arena.