2020 2.3L High Performance Package Mustang | Stepped-Up Styling and Power

2020 2.3L High Performance Package Mustang | Stepped-Up Styling and Power

​

Technological progression can be a wonderful thing. When the 2.3L EcoBoost Mustang debuted for the 2015 model year, it’s performance potential surprised quite a few people. The all-aluminum mill came packed with a forged crank, steel ring-land in the pistons, and was topped off with a twin-scroll turbo. With basic mods we had our EB Mustang making 340HP and 440TQ to the wheels. That car could certainly surprise the occasional 3V GT.

Ford wanted to make sure the world knows this car isn't just another base model Mustang.​

Not wanting to be left out of go-fast game, Ford worked up a High Performance package for its base 2.3L Pony Car. This package is much more than a revised ECU strategy and some badges. Team Mustang made the trip across town to the Ford Performance garage to raid the Focus RS parts bin. They essentially snatched the entire engine. The die-cast aluminum block and high flowing cylinder head were modified and turned 90-degrees in order to drive the rear wheels. That’s all boosted by a larger 63mm water cooled twin-scroll turbo. The upgraded snail gives the engine a broader powerband that tops out at 330 Horsepower and 350 lb-ft of torque.

We got to spin the rollers on the dyno at 5 Star Tuning. Check out this video for results:


​

We recently got to spend a week with a fairly heavily optioned 2020 EcoBoost Mustang with the High Performance package. This thing was loaded up with the performance suspension package, Recaro seats, and the premium interior. That brought the sticker price up to an eye watering $43,165. The major options were priced as follows:

• Equipment Group 201A - $2,200
• 2.3L High Performance Package - $4,995
• EcoBoost Handling Package - $1,195
• Recaro Seats - $1,995

However, for that princely sum you do get a very nice car. IMO, the S550 interior has aged much better than previous generation Mustangs; and the higher trim-level versions are nice place to sit during a road trip.

The wheels included with the EcoBoost Handling Package are a toned down version of those found on the Performance Pack Level 2 GT.​

The EcoBoost Handling Package, which is only available with the High Performance Package and a manual transmission, brings a lot of driving excitement to the party. I’ve said it for years, the EcoBoost Mustangs offer a much more balanced driving dynamic than the V8 equipped models. This can be seen in this particular car’s 53/47 weight distribution. The handling pack gives you grippier semi-metallic brake pads, MagneRide dampers with a TORSEN 3.55:1 limited-slip rear differential, wider 19x9.5-inch premium painted aluminum wheels with 265/40R Pirelli P Zero Corsa4 tires, and a 24-millimeter solid rear sway bar. All this adds up to a competently handling car that is very comfortable to push into a corner, and has a broad enough torque curve to rotate around the turn.

Nothing like a test drive to sort things out. This car is great out on the road.

The 2.3L engine from the no-longer-sold Focus RS is the center piece of the High Performance package.​

On the road, this car’s combination of options add up to a great daily driver. It has the ability to soften the suspension and quiet the exhaust enough to be entirely civilized when it’s called for, but when the opportunity to relieve a little stress presents itself you’re just a switch flips away from Track Mode. You have a really great looking car that gets about 30 MPG on the highway while still being extremely fun in the twisties. If you ever get the opportunity to take a Mustang equipped like this one to the mountains and stretch its legs on a two-lane road, take it.

Ever wonder what the various exhaust modes sound like on an EcoBoost Mustang sound like? Here's your opportunity.​

The 63mm turbo is a solid upgrade over the standard 57mm unit. It is also water-cooled, which if you watch the dyno video above you may notice how important that is.

On the topic of styling, Ford gave the High Performance EcoBoost cars a few subtle cues that set them apart from the standard 4-pot cars. The side-view mirrors and raised blade spoiler are painted magnetic grey. The grills are finished in piano black and you get the Mustang GT brake package. The designers also made sure you wouldn’t forget what you were driving by providing a generous number of High Performance EcoBoost badges. On the interior we have a ton of blue stitching matching the awesome looking Velocity Blue paint.

This overview shows the highlights of this feature packed 2020 Mustang.

The blue stitching found throughout the interior is a really nice touch and matches the Velocity Blue paint perfectly.​

While this likely may not be the Mustang that every SVTP Member is planning to rush out and buy, it is a very fun and stylish car. Yes, it does pale in comparison to Coyote powered GT. However, if you need to save on fuel or insurance this car may be a good option for you. You get impressive styling and handling along with a decent bump in performance. If you love turbo-fours and serious up-side aftermarket power potential the High Performance EcoBoost Mustang is a solid choice. With just a few bolt-ons you could be cranking out 350 RWHP and 450 RWTQ, and that’s performance you will feel.

Our final thoughts on the 2020 2.3L High Performance Package Mustang. A solid choice if you're not interested in a Coyote GT.

Another HP 2.3L badge. It's great to see Ford installing this strut tower base after we tested it out 5 years ago.

This car had the worst MT-82 trans I've ever driven. I have a feeling one of the press drivers who had it before me had no idea how to drive a stick and somehow damaged it.

This is easily one of the best colors you can get on an S550 Mustang. Velocity Blue looks especially good with Magnetic grey painted mirrors and spoiler.​

-SID297

 

Look here "BOY". I don't need to walk anywhere. I know what im talking about. How about you?

Did i hit a nerve calling you an "internet engineer"? You seem a bit salty. Should i have called you an armchair quarterback? Couch surfer with an opinion? Drivel-machine? Charlie Browns teacher(wah wah wah)? Garage loonie? Shade tree mechanic? Wanna be engineer?

are you often surprised people react poorly to you insulting them?

You also seem to not have a clue about what seam sealer is. As i said, this isn't a stitch welded car. They add extra seam sealer in key locations to increase rigidity on the higher tiered cars(V6 vs GT vs Cobra). Ford has been using this method for years on every single model line.

you said the seams were different, now you're talking about ford gooping extra seam sealer in cobras.

you need to brush up on your communication skills.

And your logic on all this would then equate into this.....
Cobra = totted up V6 Mustang
GT500 = totted up GT
ZR1 = totted up Corvette Z51
ZL1 = totted up Camaro V6

incorrect.

im speaking specifically to mustangs. the raptor, for example, actually has substantive chassis differences over the F150. more evidence that you're missing the point of my entire argument.

So because the BASE chassis platform of the car is the same that makes the chassis dynamics/construct-ability the same?

i can't answer that unless you define what "chassis dynamics/construct-ability" means. that could not be more convoluted.

I'm not talking about sound deadening(even though seam sealer is used for NVH purposes) on the 2000 Cobra R. I'm talking the bonding of the uni-body chassis parts together between the V6, GT and Cobra. They are different as much as you want to hate to hear it.

Truly just mind blowing the complete garbage being typed by those fingers of yours. There are some questionable people on this forum but you might just take the cake on people who have no clue what they are talking about.

I'm sure you will read pieces of my reply and comment back with something unkind again so this will be my last post. Ive more than made my point(which flew right over that noggin of yours) so ill just leave it at that.

yeah, you've made your point. cobras have extra goop in them in some "strategic places". meanwhile ford couldn't even install all the fenders correctly on my car.

i guess you'd have to own one and tear it apart to be able to see through the hype so i don't blame you for speaking without knowledge.

 

Keep the insults in SD.

 

are you often surprised people react poorly to you insulting them?
you said the seams were different, now you're talking about ford gooping extra seam sealer in cobras.
im speaking specifically to mustangs. the raptor, for example, actually has substantive chassis differences over the F150. more evidence that you're missing the point of my entire argument.
i can't answer that unless you define what "chassis dynamics/construct-ability" means. that could not be more convoluted.
yeah, you've made your point. cobras have extra goop in them in some "strategic places". meanwhile ford couldn't even install all the fenders correctly on my car.
i guess you'd have to own one and tear it apart to be able to see through the hype so i don't blame you for speaking without knowledge.

I called you an internet engineer. You decided to insult me with a pretty shitty non-PC term. Didn't even use the "it" at the end in reference to the old SD thread to keep it civil.

I'm sorry, i mistyped and instead of writing out seam sealer i wrote seams. I admit to that **** up. What i tried to type was that the SEAM SEALER which makes the base uni-body on the Cobra significantly more rigid than the V6 and GT uni-bodies. I tried to explain that after but i guess it didn't come across correctly. Either way, is it different construction method on the Cobra uni-body versus the V6/GT uni-body.

I'm also sorry Ford didn't get your Mustang right but that was 90's QA/QC for the time. If it makes you feel any better, my 2005 GT had only one bumper beam bolt in place when they delivered it. Found out after i wrecked the thing...

But back to the Cobra/V6 chassis. Yes, the SEAM SEALER additions make the end result uni-body stiffer. I would say that counts as being significantly different than a V6 Mustang even if it is just some "goop".

 

That raises questions though.

By what percentage was chassis rigidity increased by the additional goop?

Anything less than 5% is insignificant and you're gonna have a hard time convincing me some extra seam sealer made the car more rigid to the extent it could be felt without documentation to back it up.

You know seam sealer is rubbery right?

Where was the goop applied?

 

I don’t know the exact numbers. I’m sure you can find an engineer to comment.

With that, how far down the rabbit hole would you like to go? Even if it’s 3%(just pulling a number), an engineer some where had to justify that extra cost to get it added to the final product.

 

I don’t know the exact numbers. I’m sure you can find an engineer to comment.

With that, how far down the rabbit hole would you like to go? Even if it’s 3%(just pulling a number), an engineer some where had to justify that extra cost to get it added to the final product.

more questions:

1. how much do you think a few tubes of seam sealer costs ford?
2. if you can't find the number (which I will contend doesn't exist because the thing you mentioned sounds like an old wives tale) then where did you get this information?
3. do you think that is more effective than actually connecting the front frame to the rear frame? (the correct answer is no)

i've been over every inch of this car. there is a lot of goop in the rear wheel wells and in the trunk area. most of that is above or behind the axles.

the stuff isn't rigid hard, either, its like a tough rubbery substance. you can cut it with a razorblade. ford literally used the stuff to just fill in voids where they failed to make the sheet metal line up properly.

respectfully, all jokes aside, provide a source or we're done here because i've spent the last two years of my life resurrecting a cobra and fixing a crapton of half measures ford didn't bother with precisely because of the bean counters which is fine given what these cars cost compared to GT's. i.e. not much more.

 

 

more questions:

1. how much do you think a few tubes of seam sealer costs ford?
2. if you can't find the number (which I will contend doesn't exist because the thing you mentioned sounds like an old wives tale) then where did you get this information?
3. do you think that is more effective than actually connecting the front frame to the rear frame? (the correct answer is no)

i've been over every inch of this car. there is a lot of goop in the rear wheel wells and in the trunk area. most of that is above or behind the axles.

the stuff isn't rigid hard, either, its like a tough rubbery substance. you can cut it with a razorblade. ford literally used the stuff to just fill in voids where they failed to make the sheet metal line up properly.

respectfully, all jokes aside, provide a source or we're done here because i've spent the last two years of my life resurrecting a cobra and fixing a crapton of half measures ford didn't bother with precisely because of the bean counters which is fine given what these cars cost compared to GT's. i.e. not much more.

1. A few tubes over a production run? Millions. And there are panel bonding agents that are hard as a rock. Did you debond the unibody or just scrape some crap off? Two different sealing materials and both can be called seam sealer. 3m makes a panel bonding agent seam sealer and a sound attenuation seam sealer.
Both are used in OEM manufacturing.

2. The number exists I just don’t have access to those files. If you would like to ask an SVT engineer I’m sure they could dig it up. I’m sorry if I don’t have access. Wish I could.

3. I didn’t comment on its effectiveness. I commented that if an engineer found that a certain percentage was worth the investment and a bean counter agreed then it was used.

Were done here. So I’m just going to leave it at that. I don’t need to waste my time any longer on you.




Sent from my iPhone using the svtperformance.com mobile app

 

Were done here. So I’m just going to leave it at that. I don’t need to waste my time any longer on you.

i agree, your time would be better spent learning something about building cars.

 

i agree, your time would be better spent learning something about building cars.

Just like you didn’t build yours.


Sent from my iPhone using the svtperformance.com mobile app

 

Just like you didn’t build yours.

more lies. great. anything else, boy?

 

more lies. great. anything else, boy?

Nope. Have a good day there slick.


Sent from my iPhone using the svtperformance.com mobile app

 

A neighbor of mine has one in that color and all. The sumabitch is almost as loud as my GT. The plate keeps throwing me off as it not being 5.0

 

It was seriously bad. I had a manual trans Bullitt a week or two later that was fine. It was just this one car.

I forgot to ask...how bad was the "rev hang" on this car?
It seems like a lot of late model small displacement cars have heavy flywheels that won't let the revs drop when shifting at max RPM.

I was really proud of my wife back in the day catching rubber on the 1-2 & 2-3 shift in her old '11 3.7 V6 Mustang...until I realized the rev hang at high RPM was so bad, you were basically power shifting.

 

I forgot to ask...how bad was the "rev hang" on this car?
It seems like a lot of late model small displacement cars have heavy flywheels that won't let the revs drop when shifting at max RPM.

I was really proud of my wife back in the day catching rubber on the 1-2 & 2-3 shift in her old '11 3.7 V6 Mustang...until I realized the rev hang at high RPM was so bad, you were basically power shifting.

I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Those 3.7 cars were not bad. You can probably get one pretty cheap now.

 

It's also a newly minted SCCA national champion care of Phoenix Performance in Pennsylvania