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Other things we noticed and worked on included the brakes. After this entire day of racing the new Carbotech XP22 pads looked brand new. Normally we can see a sizable amount of wear in one day of racing, and neither Amy nor I are "easy on brakes", but they still looked very good. And even after the next TWS event (which I'll talk about next) they still showed very little wear. Finally - a brake pad we cannot kill in 2 days! This 3800 pound car (ballasted up for TT3, w/ driver) normally chews through pads at a rapid clip, so this is good news.
So if you've read this thread from the beginning you know we've tried a number of rear Upper Control Arms (UCA) on the 2011 GT here and the last iteration (Spohn arm, UPS upper mount, with custom Vorshlag bushings and new, larger mounting bolt) worked out pretty well, but still had some noticeable clunking. When a friend PM'd me about a Boss 302-S UCA set-up for sale on a Boss302 forum, new in box, I jumped on it.
This set-up is made by MultiMatic out of Canada and costs over $700 USD. It is based on OEM upper mount and UCA assembly, strangely enough, but it is
heavily modified. Gone is the rubber mount in the UCA itself, as it looks like the lop off the rubber bushing end and weld their custom machined spherical bearing holder end in place. The also reinforce the factory upper chassis mount and machine their own bushings to actually fit their own spherical and the bolt - wow, what a concept, right?! That's what we did with the Spohn arm and UPR mount piece, neither of which fit each other or the factory bolt. This is a very nicely made set-up and we put this in the car before the TWS event. We don't sell this set-up, and there's of course a few little things we'd change, but overall it is a great unit... for a race car. Most folks will see the $700 price tag and laugh. But if you saw the parts in person, felt the fit between the components compared to most of the stuff out there... you'd likely understand. Very, very nice parts.
Another nice set of parts made by another company is the Maximum Motorsports 4-point roll bar we ordered and received for the red car. Wow, this is a nicely made piece of kit! Sure, it is 1.75 x .134" wall DOM and not the normal .120" wall tubing you see in most road racing cages, but it is stout and put together with very fine tolerances. The MIG welding is great and the Laser cut, CNC bent, and welded lower platforms are amazingly well done. Just click on the images below, and look at the factory stamped steel bits they replace.
Ryan spent about 5 hours fitting, installing, and tack welding the bar in the car before it came out for final welding. The rear bars are shipped loose, with stubs welded in place for final fitting. This way the entire unit ships flat for big cost savings, and it likely makes for a much better, custom fit to the car this way. I think he said he had it in and out of the car 4 or 5 times but that is normal - patience is your friend, as you don't want to rush a roll bar or roll cage install if you want it to fit well and base safe, or scratch up interior bits. They include great instructions and a "fit-up bar" made of PVC for marking the side panels that have to be trimmed and a hole cut, to fit around the rear downbars.
Due to time conflicts with other customer work and an upcoming race we left the bar in raw steel and hooked up the harnesses and reinstalled the Cobra seats for the TWS event at NASA. This bar mounts right onto the back seat "shelf" so it is behind your head, for 100% safe use in street driving. Having steel tubing near your head (roll cage or a closely mounted B-pillar main hoop) is just asking for major head trauma in a street crash, sans racing helmet. But in the two pictures above (taken in the past 48 hours) you can see that we have since removed the bar, powder coated all 5 pieces (bar + 4 mounting plates) and weighed it all at 63 pounds (which is almost exactly what I predicted it would weigh, and nearly identical to the Kirk Racing 4-point bars we've installed in BMW E30. E36 and E46 cars). The gloss black powder coated roll bar is going back into the car as I write this, with the back seat, rear interior panels, and the Cobra seats are going back in.
Speaking of Cobra seats...
Vorshlag now Authorized Cobra Stocking Dealer
We bit the bullet and made a big WD buy-in for Cobra seats. We have needed to become a dealer for this brand for years, as we have used their seats in too many of our own builds, not to mention installed customers' Cobra seats. That buy-in also gave us access to Puma, Aplinestars, OMP, Sparco, Momo, Schroth, Bell, Arai, Peltor, and much more. We're still sorting through this big shipment of Cobra Suzuka, Sebring, Evolution, and Imola seats and do have plenty of inventory.
Installation of Cobra Suzuka Pro GT Kevlar seats, custom sliders, Schroth harnesses, and Sharkworks harness bars into a C6 ZR1 at Vorshlag
Ryan is going to build some display stands for a few models of Cobra seats that we want to keep on hand, so pretty soon you will be able to stop by and test out various Cobra models in the Vorshlag lobby. We already have two different Cobra Suzuka sizes in the 2011 Mustang GT, which stays up at the shop now almost all of the time, too. Two more will go into the BMW E46 Alpha car, also kept here at Vorshlag. And we are making better chassis bracket solutions for several cars as well, and hopefully can make produciton runs of these soon. I have
yet to see an Off The Shelf bracket solution that fits a given car without putting the seat into the roof. Look for more info about these various seating products on our website soon.
SCCA ProSolo at Mineral Wells, TX - April 13-14th
Now we didn't enter this event (the car was still being repaired, and it isn't legal for pretty much any SCCA Solo class), but Vorshlag sponsored the welcome party on Friday. We bought and cooked food for 150+ people, with Amy and me at the grill for about 3 hours. Glad we were there, as we got to talk to a lot of friends, fellow racers, and even chatted up some SEB members. Some encouraging hints at the changes to Stock/Street class for 2014-15 and beyond. Can't wait for the next FasTrack to be published...
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