Project Update for Feb 17, 2012: We've been buried in work in the shop, but we took a couple of days off from customer work to attack the Mustang (while doing an M52 longblock swap on an STX prepped E36 328is, shown below). We are cutting it a little close (I leave for the track event down in San Marcos in about 4 hours) but the last few bits are going in the car now (seats and new 6-point harness mounts) and it should all be wrapped up by AJ and Ryan in time to load at 1 pm...
Rear Suspension Updates
We've installed the Spohn upper control arm and Panhard bar, both of which are equipped with their Del-Sphere joints (Delrin encased spherical). And yes, this is all legal in SCCA Street Touring - thanks to copious allowances for solid axle RWD cars - since none of these have proven remotely competitive in any ST class. Basically STX and STU have the same torque arm/upper control arm allowances as ESP.
So all of this has been installed, and yes, the non-adjustable OEM upper control arm made for a wacky 0° pinion angle at the lowered ride height. Basically FUBAR for a solid axle car. You want pinion to be at 0°
under acceleration loads, so you try to shoot for -2 to -3° at the pinion
at rest and at ride height (according to Spohn and many others). At the lowered ride height the fixed length OEM panhard bar resulted in axle offset, which we also corrected with the adjustable Spohn piece.
Can't say enough nice words about the Spohn UCA and Panhard hardware - its top notch. These Del-Sphere joints are super slick - they rotate and pivot with almost no resistance - so no binding - but are still wrapped in Delrin for less crashing than an all-metal spherical. Plus they have grease zerks and are fully rebuildable. I'll see how it rides with these in the UCA and Panhard shortly.
Weight differences between the OEM UCA and Panhard vs the Spohn hardware looks like a wash. We also used a new bolt-in UPR Products upper chassis mount - made of plate steel vs the stamped steel of the OEM bits. Yes, its STX legal - we can go hog wild on the upper control arms. I am now more worried about the factory lower control arms - they are far from parallel at ride height, and this plays hell with the Instant Center. We're going to measure that and come up with a solution to test soon (likely offset bushings).
Safety Gear Upgrade
I have been skimping a bit on safety for the various track events we've attended. For autocrosses in 2011 we have been using the fixed back race seats with 3" harness lap belts only - not a big deal when driving around a parking lot. We did most of the 2011 track stuff with OEM seats and seat belts (which is safe), but I admit to doing one track day in December with the race seats and lap belts. I did double-up with the OEM 3-point seat belt, but that's still pretty hinky. So for this weekend's track event I wanted something a little better...
That is a Corbeau harness bar I picked up from Stuart at AST/Moton. Nicely built piece, pretty hefty tubing used, and better than mounting harnesses on the lower rear seat belt locations. No, I'm still not running a 4-point roll bar, and likely won't ever do that to this car... don't want to mess-up the rear seats to make that fit. I'm sure some of you will reply with the "you are going to spontaneously combust!" safety concerns, and yes... I hear ya.
Again, this is not the perfect safety solution... so "don't try this at home".
But this is NOT a race car, its a daily driven street car that I don't want to cut up for a roll cage. If the only other alternative is OEM seats and belts, then I'm going to stick with my FIA approed seats and 6-point SFI approved harnesses hung from this 1.5" dia piece of DOM, and mounted to the floor with proper G-Force clip-in floor anchors.
Hey, if business keeps exploding like it has been since our move to the new location I'll push forward with my S197 chassis race car plans later this year. Keep buying shocks and camber plates from Vorshlag, folks, so I can go American Iron racing in a proper race car!
Left: Here are the seats, about to go in. Right: All of the various pads we've got to test
I put a picture up above showing the various brake pads we've got for the Mustang. Going away from the Hawk options (HP+ for autox and DTC-60 for track) and moving to Porterfield (R4 for track and R4S for autocross). The R4s are on the car now for the first time so I will report back with my impressions from Harris Hill Road's tricky little road course.
We also bought a bunch of 3" high temp brake duct hose, and made some quickie brake ducting for the car that ties into the CS Lower Fascia, but its not complete so I'm not going to show all of the work this time around. Making brake ducting
that is SCCA ST legal is damned near impossible - they have reworded the rules in such a way as to make it incredibly complicated to stay legal. Might just order a 2nd set of fender liners that we can modify for proper ducting installation and just swap this on/off for autocross events.
Thanks SCCA! 
click for video of 0-60 testing
I did a "before" acceleration test this week. I made three 0-60 sprints on concrete with the 275mm Bridgestones and the OEM UCA and Panhard, + the AST 4150 shocks. Best of 4.41 seconds, with a 4.45 sec and a 5.0 sec first blast (wheelspin). Once the weather clears I'll do an "after" test on the same tires but with the new Spohn gear and proper pinion angle setting. I'll post that and the video from this weekend's Pro-Touring track event / Time Trial. I've got to run on these 275/35/18 Dunlops, which have seen better days. These tested great in April of last year, so hopefully they won't suck on Saturday. And hopefully it doesn't rain - I'm bringing the Bridgestones just in case.
Oh! We are having an Open House here at Vorshlag on March 10th, all day. Tour the facilities, see our new capabilities, and check out some cool race cars. The Texas Region SCCA is having their annual Solo Inspection here that day as well. Check our Vorshlag Facebook page for more details about the open house. First autocross is the next day, March 11th.
More soon,