Insane, Turbocharged Shelby GT350 Casts A 1,600 HP Voodoo Spell

Designed to rule the road course and cast a spell on the street, the 2015-2020 Shelby GT350 sports a finely tuned MagneRide suspension and a high-revving 5.2-liter Voodoo V8 engine highlighted by the unique sound and performance of a flat-plane crankshaft. With 526 naturally aspirated horsepower from the factory, these cars are a blast to drive, but who wouldn’t want more?

You can hear the car sounds absolutely awesome when you fire it up and it goes into ghost-cam mode.  Ben Stoner, Fathouse Performance

If three times the factory power sounds just right to you, the crew at Fathouse Performance created a package with your name on it. Having offered comprehensive upgrade packages for all manner of S550s, the company’s top-tier 1400R upgrade for the recent GT350s has seen some upgrades of late, which are highlighted by this recent customer build that rocked the rollers on the company Dynojet to the tune of 1,604.51 horsepower and 1089.56 lb-ft of torque while burning E85.

To achieve this insane output, these cars receive a laundry list of upgrades (see sidebar), including a fortified engine, 68mm turbos, and the top-level tuning offered by a Motec ECU upgrade calibrated by Johnson Tuning. These cars became even more capable thanks to some new technology, including an ECU Masters power distribution unit that allows controlling when and how briskly the intercooler water flows through the system to tame the air-intake temperatures on the 1400R.

“One of the reasons we put that on here is because we’re running a new brushless water pump and the reason we’re running it is that we have our new billet intake manifold with an intercooler built into it,” Ben Stoner, Vice President at Fathouse Performance, explained. “We designed this to fit underneath the factory strut bar. It’s got the power capability to support over 1,600 horsepower. It’s a very tight compact package that mounts right on top of the engine. We use an upgraded, GT500-style heat exchanger that bolts right in the car.”

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This 1400R-spec GT350 puts the power down, thanks in part to Motec’s advanced traction control, via Toyo R888R tires working with a suspension featuring an anti-wheel-hop package, a tubular subframe, and IRS supports.

 

Equipped with the full Fathouse billet package, which includes the aforementioned intercooled intake system, the turbo inlet temperatures are tamed without requiring a constant supply of ice water.

“We have an ice tank reservoir mounted so that you can run this car, which made 1,600 horsepower on the dyno, with only water in the system,” Stoner said. “You can take the lid off drain some of that water out and fill it up with ice when you’re racing to get even cooler intake air temperatures, but I believe we only had about a 12-degree temperature rise only using water, so if you put ice in it that’s going to knock that down even lower, but it’s a very efficient system.”

This combination makes the 1400R-spec GT350s insanely powerful but retains a high level of streetability. Moreover, the custom turbo system and intercooler intake require no modifications to the factory K-member or strut-tower brace, so restoring a GT350 to stock form is completely doable. That said, after hearing one run, we’re not sure who would ever want to go back to stock.

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This particular car is optioned with the full Billet Package, which includes the billet coil covers, billet valve covers, and a billet intake manifold with an integrated air-to-water intercooler.

“These cars sound amazing this car has our free-flow exhaust on it there are no mufflers on it so there’s no active exhaust anymore,” Stoner said. “You can hear the car sounds absolutely awesome when you fire it up and it goes into ghost-cam mode. Driving down the road, you hear the turbo spool a lot and it gives you that really, really, really exotic sound.”

You can see and hear the car in action in the video above, and check out more on the 1400R upgrade option at the company’s site. If too much sounds just right, the GT350 1400R might just be the upgrade you’ve been seeking.