2003 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra 'Terminator' With 2,500 Miles Hits The Dyno

The supercharged V8 still makes plenty of power.

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Chris Bruce

By: Chris Bruce

May 7, 2020 at 9:03am ET

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When you nickname an engine the Terminator, it has to have enough performance to justify the aggressive name, and the 2003 and 2004 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra has all the muscle of a T-800 hunting for John Connor. It packs a 4.6-liter supercharged V8 with a factory rating of 390 horsepower (291 kilowatts) and 390 pound-feet (529 Newton-meters) of torque. This video from Late Model Restoration shows that those numbers are underrated.

Late Model Restoration's car is a 2003 Cobra 10th Anniversary Edition with a mere 2,476 miles (3,985 kilometers) on the odometer. It's completely stock. The vehicle is in pristine condition, and they only take the muscle car out on the road on nice days.

Gallery: 2003 Ford Mustang Cobra Dyno Video

The 10th Anniversary Edition was a 2003 package that celebrated a decade of SVT Mustangs. They featured different wheels and red brake calipers. Inside, there was dark gray and red two-tone leather upholstery.

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At the wheels, the dyno shows this Terminator making 370 hp (276 kW) at 6,300 rpm and 380 lb-ft (515 Nm) at 4,200 rpm. This amounts to 5 percent driveline loss in terms of horsepower and a 2.6 percent loss of torque. The generally accepted figure is a roughly 15 percent drop for the figures between the crankshaft and the wheels, so single-digit numbers for this test further indicate Ford underrating the factory specs for the '03 and '04 Mustang SVT Cobra.

In addition to being powerful, the Terminator Cobras are relatively rare. Ford Performance quotes the company making just 13,476 total examples. Of those, 8,394 are coupes, and 5,082 are convertibles.

Source: Late Model Restoration via YouTube