2006 Ford Mustang – SpecFab Racing’s Track Monster
A show build, turned drag car, turned track racer — this is Sal Molinare’s 2006 Ford Mustang track monster. The closer you look, the more details you find on this car which has been completely transformed. Best of all, it’s been a father-son project through its entire evolution.
When Sal first picked up the brand-new GT he put the blue stripes down the body and started going to shows. Since he kept it properly clean, people would often ask to see what’s under the hood.
Initially it was just stock (and an automatic); but Sal started looking under his new buddies’ hoods at shows and began to get the itch. He upgraded this bit and that bit until he finally realized that even a late model car is never finished.
While even the GT model was relatively tame out of the box, Sal has certainly fixed that. The car has evolved over the years; at Sacramento Raceway Sal pulled a 10.22 second run at 136mph before he started cutting any weight from the car. We’ll get into how that was possible in a bit.
From the outside, flared fenders and aggressive aero give the car a nice, clean, functional look.
The muscular carbon fiber flares are courtesy of TrackSpec Motorsports, while the rear wing, canards, and headlight blanks are pieces from AJ Hartman Racing. The fender vents were purchased from MMD and are an awesome addition to the car.
Sal went ahead and made many of his own parts at his shop, Specialty Fabrication in Pleasanton, California. Seeing as he’s been addicted to racing for decades a spin-off has evolved over time, resulting in SpecFab Racing. The splitter, struts, side deflectors, undertray as well as many of the aluminum bits under the hood were all made in house.
Since we mentioned it, let’s see what’s under the hood. Seeing as how the car was capable of a 10 second quarter mile with the interior completely intact, it will come as no surprise that there’s a supercharger force-feeding the 4.6 liter block which has been stroked to a 302.
Stage 3 CNC heads and custom ground cams help keep up with the extra fuel and air the 2.6L Kenne Bell huffer provides. For road-raceablity, the blower has an 8-rib conversion and a thumper tensioner. Advanced Engine Development out of Shingle Springs, CA developed two custom E85 tunes for the car; one at nine 9psi which is good for 650rwhp and 575rwtq, and another at 15psi which develops a massive 700 horsepower and 677 lb ft of torque to the rear wheels.
An ATL fuel cell keeps everything safe out back with a custom return style system which uses a combination of Lethal Performance and Weldon parts to keep the corn coming. We can confirm it smells just as sweet as it sounds when Sal is warming this thing up.
The explosive yet exotic-sounding exhaust note is due to a 3-inch X pipe fed from custom American Racing long-tube headers and finally sent out the back end through Dynomax mufflers. As you climb the rev range, the exhaust does its job well enough to keep it all under 90db so Sal can meet the dreaded sound requirements at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
All that power is sent into a light-weight Fidanza aluminum flywheel then transferred through a McLeod RXT double disc clutch to a 6-speed Tremec Magnum XL. A Mark Williams aluminum driveshaft takes it from there and sends all the horses into the 4.10 Tru-Trac gears housed in the 8.8” rear end.
Of course, with a build like this it’s important to keep the temps at bay on the track. This part of the puzzle has been solved with a Fluidyne radiator and a Meizierre electric water pump with the coolant flow re-configured to the 2006-style routing.
Those glorious hood vents, which are pieces from TrackSpec Motorsports, help suck the hot air out at speed. A fluid cooler, along with the custom-built and fully baffled power steering reservoir and engine breather tank were also all made in-house at SpecFab Racing.
To handle all this quick-revving, fast-shifting power, you need a suspension and brake system that can keep up. Sal went with Cortex coilovers with JRI adjustable shocks as well as a Watts Link and torque arms to keep everything settled. A Ford Performance “Blue Bar” coupled with an 18mm rear sway bar from the six-cylinder version of the car further help keep things flat through the corners.
When Sal needs to quickly slow down into a hairpin at the track, a big Brembo CLUB RACE system has him covered. The Ford Racing ABS module helps to not flat-spot the big rubber when things go south.
The brake cooling ducts are another item dreamed up by Sal himself at SpecFab Racing. While these four-inch units are really only necessary on the racetrack, it’s pretty obvious that this is exactly where the car spends the majority of its time.
Of course, a build will only be as good as the tires it rides on around the track and Sal went all-out here too. Hoosier R7 tires in 335/30/18 have been mounted to 12-inch wide Forge Star wheels on all four corners.
You can’t take all of this to a road course without matching the performance with some solid safety equipment. Sal has done just that with aluminum Kirkey road racing series seats with harnesses and a 6-point roll bar that will soon be replaced by a full DOM cage.
This is really just scratching the surface on an amazing, thorough build. Sal told us it would have never come together like it did without the help of his friend Kevin Patten, who has earned recognition on the deck lid.
If you’re in California and you’re one of those guys who likes to hang out at the racetrack on your weekends, keep an eye out for this Mustang. Now that it’s finished (at least for now), Sal will continue hitting the road courses every chance he gets.
