continued from above
Boy was I ever wrong. The other changes (wheel, tire, and DDP pistons) must have combined to do something magic to the car - it had corner exit grip in 2nd gear like NEVER before. As long as I kept the outside/loaded tires on the clean line it was clawing out of corners, and the car was FAST. I was running in STU since it was +10mm out of spec for STX, but I still compared times to the serious STX we have in our region, with some outside region drivers arriving as well (Paul Carrig's DSG/AWD VW). So STX ran in heat #2, and I ran in heat #3, at the end of the day when the course was the dirtiest possible (there were piles of gravel just offline). Still, for the first time all year I was able to beat Ledbetter and his co-driver Brian in their 328is, and was only .018 sec behind Maxcy in his 328is STX car. That was nice, and we have still
barely scratched the surface of the prep on this car. Amy won the PAXed "Womens" class, having to put an extra 1.1 seconds on Jen Maxcy in her STX car to win by a scant .075 sec on PAX, since the STU factor is so much worse (Jen won the W class for the year - congrats!).
Left: Terry's Run 4 in-car video Right: Amy's 4th run (timer borked). Her 3rd run is here, which won "W".
So in the end, I PAXed 13th overall, which was my best PAX finish in a long time; Amy PAXed 31st, which is far from her best. She was a full 2 seconds back from my times but I think the unexpected corner exit grip, lateral grip and braking traction from the new tires/shocks/wheels threw her
way off. She needs more seat time to adjust. The car just WORKED like it never has before, and my spaz-monkey driving style of throwing the car on its nose under heavy Left Foot Braking and being super aggressive on the throttle on exit
finally worked for me. It was just...
hooked up. I dunno. I was also extra careful to keep the outside tires on the clean line (driving on gravel with the inboard tires, and she seemed to get caught out in the marbles on one showcase turn on every run. We don't know what she ran on her 4th run (timer error) but I hand timed the video at a nearly identical 62.3 sec time, so there was no hero run lost for her.
Two odd things
didn't happen at this event: the steering never got into its feedback loop on me, and the brakes are completely ICE mode free, and I pushed the HELL out of the brakes. Amy said she noticed one steering shudder moment coming out of one slalom but that was it. The HP+ pads were rock solid but are getting below 1/2 pad thickness. I noticed some brake pedal squishiness in runs 3 and 4, and mention it in the video (I remind myself of these things in verbal "notes" when I am driving on camera; had totally forgotten about that until I watched it today). We will bleed the brakes soon and keep an eye on the fluid change intervals (Motul600). Still gong to keep working on a steering rack solution, which will happen over the winter (probably just buy a new electric steering rack and stick it in the car).
Results and Links
Obviously an STU car should have been a full second quicker than STX, but this was still a monumental showing, and I have
plenty of excuses!
One, this is hardly maxed out for STU - I'd be running an 11" wide wheel with a 285mm tire for that class. We also didn't have the race seats in for this event (took them out for the winter), which hurt us sitting in the
barcalounger stock seats. Lastly the front camber was set to minimum on one side, which
really didn't help. Long story there: basically there was a very busy week at the shop and the Mustang didn't get
any pre-race preparation this week except for me mounting the wheels/tires and adding Bridgestone decals when I came into the shop for a bit on Saturday, between other fires I worked on that day. We had removed one corner of the front suspension this past week to take measurements for an all-new S197 camber plate design, and we never re-set the camber on that corner. Doh. It was set on -2.0° on the RF and -3.2° on the LF, so it cornered better one way than the other. I guess we push my cars down to a lower priority due to increased amount of customer service work.
Anyway, it was an encouraging event when compared to STX and other classes with very talented drivers in them, more than the "near win" autocross in September, which was on the freagin TMS Road Course (where I should have easily won STX with the +200 hp advantage, but drove like an
ass). These STX cars I'm running against are FAST, and a good gauge. We had Mark Sipe in his STX RX8 there as well, running in "X" class (with a 60.5+1), and fast STS drivers running in the 59.5-60.0 range (also in X). So we are at least "in the ballpark" of where I think we should be, for STX. If we can get the rear suspension tweaked to put power down like this on the 265s, we might actually have a shot in this big pony car pig (
40 series 265s).
Oh! We finally got the 3" 304L mandrel bent exhaust bends built and in stock this week, so we're busy building our first customer dual 3" mandrel stainless exhaust with the new bits. Ryan has TIG welded up a nice system so far, and I can't
wait to let him loose on the Mustang here, which still has the OEM heavy/restrictive/stupid quiet "after cat" exhaust. Once that is on I will take the car back to True Street Motorsports for another custom dyno tune, and finally get the "street" tune" we didn't have time for before. I think it will exceed 430 whp, in STX legal trim (last dyno pull was done in 107°F August temperature). It could be knocking on the door of 500 crank hp, which is pretty cool. We're going to hit the 1/4 mile dragstrip right after that, and I better see some low 12 second ETs @ 115 mph (it ran 12.9@109 mph in
bone stock trim). Then we have LOTS of rear suspension development and even some STX legal aero bits to build for the car over the winter. Hankook just came out with a big 265/40/18 RS-3 that needs a look and I still have yet to test on the rear 17x9/265/40/17 Dunlops.
I'll check back into this thread as soon as we have something new to show... probably December. There's also a track at at ECR on Dec 10th we might take this out for a few laps in. PRI is Dec 1-3, and a LeMons race Dec 17th.. its looking like a hectic month.
Cheers,