continued from above
Left: Radiator ducting coming together and air inlet looming above. Right: Ghosted image showing the insides.
These changes seem like trivial things, but it took a good bit of fabrication work to re-route the inlet tube and to relocate the coolant reservoir. The added "real estate" behind the radiator and in front of the engine will have some "waterfall" air deflectors we create down in there. These will help push the incoming air aft of the radiator up to the hood openings. These will not be 100% perfectly sealed, but it doesn't have to be to still gain some significant front downforce.
Left: Upper grill block off plate and new "sacrificial bumper cover". Right: Cold air inlet plumbed through radiator ducting.
We have two modifications in store to reduce drag. First, proper fender flares for the larger 12" wide front wheels. Second, we've sealed off the entire upper grill area with all of the cooling air coming into the lower grill opening in the CS lower fascia. A sealed aluminum radiator box has been fabricated to force air from the lower grill to the entire frontal area of the radiator (actually, to the a/c condenser - yes, this car still has A/C. Hey, we live in Texas!). A smooth grill cover will be made to help reduce the drag on this huge, "inverted" factory front grill. We have an aluminum grill cover for now, but it will hopefully change shape soon.
Left: Front rework is getting closer. Note the relocated coolant reservoir. Right: The blue hood is clearanced (and photoshopped red!)
The splitter we made is from sheet aluminum (6061-T6) that we had water jet cut to our drawing. It is very big. The picture below shows where Ryan was with the fab work on Monday the 12th, but we've gone much farther than that by the time you read this.
Ryan is deep into the middle of this fabrication work and I will hopefully have time to show a more polished look before we roll out to Utah on a 22 hour tow in three weeks time. We're mocking up the front flares tonight and we will have a surprise in store on how we make them. We are showing more of the TT3 Mustang's front aero work in real time on our
Vorshlag Facebook page, too.
Tires - What To Use, What Is Affordable?
The number one budget busting item on our race car is still tire costs. We've been using Hoosier A6 and R6 tires this year, and with Hoosier's generous contingency program plus a string of wins we have won about 16 tires so far, but we've used more than that. We didn't have any TT3 competition at Hallett, which means no tire payouts, so we were out of luck for more fresh tires to take to NASA Nationals. I found a close-out deal on some Continental tires, quickly read the TT rules, and bought a pallet of them.
Left: 320/650/18 fits perfectly onto an 18x12" wheel. Right: Mountain of 305mm and 320mm Continental GT slicks.
The mountain of Continental tires arrived last month. I had hoped to use them in TT3 events and in testing, with the Hoosier A6 still being our ringer tire we'd use for one session per day. The A6s don't have more than one hot lap in them at a time, so when I need to learn a new track, a harder tire like these Continental GT tires work better. These Continental slicks are actually made and sold by Hoosier, and I have been told they are pretty close to an R6 in terms of grip and wear.
Left: The 305/650/18 Continental slick fits perfectly on an 18x11" wheel. Right: Note the "tuck" on the 18x10" wheel at right. Too fat.
Well... it turns out I didn't read the TT tire rules very well. All non-DOT slick tires take a
pretty hefty penalty over the DOT Hoosiers in TT1-TT3, even if they are harder and slower than a DOT tire like the A6. There was an exception for the Continental slicks used in SCCA Grand Am racing - they are classed as a Hoosier R6 and do not take this penalty. So, I bought a pallet of them... but these aren't the same tires, and instead are from the Continental/Rolex GT class... so to use these admittedly slower endurance slicks I will have to take a
300 pound weight penalty. 4090 pounds is a bit too much to stomach for a race weight, so we won't be using these on a NASA race weekend. I will save some of the 320/650/18s and use them for HPDE events and testing, then sell the 305/650/18s on 18x11" Forgestars as a package. Luckily the 305/650/18s fit very well on 18x11" wheels, so I think these will make some weekend Mustang racers pretty happy. Look for mounted/balanced sets for sale soon.
Cars and Coffee Dallas August 2013
We brought 3 Vorshlag cars to a C&C event this month to show off some of our new shock offerings. I washed all 3 cars myself and we added some subtle decals here and there. Matt's blue BRZ was sporting Vorshlag camber plates and a brand new set of
MCS TT1 coilovers which we measured, spec'd and had built to our specs. Brandon's white NB Miata in the middle has our first set of "Bilstein Redline" coilovers that we built in-house, a few days earlier. Once we have the valving tweaked on the rears these NB shocks will go on sale, and I will talk about both of these coilover sets in more detail soon, inside our "
Shock Announcement Thread". And of course my 2013 Mustang GT has custom built AST doubles with remotes. We had this car here more to show it off to potential buyers than the shocks it had.
C&C August Pics: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Car-Show...e-August-2013/
Yes, the
black 2013 GT is STILL for sale. We had a few nibbles but none of the interested parties showed up to come test drive it. So please - spread the word. I need to turn this car into cash to help fund new Vorshlag product development.
For Sale Ad is here.
What's Next?
Some additional fab work is obviously needed on the TT3 car, and the final mounting of the new mega-splitter is happening now. A new, much thicker, all-aluminum fabricated radiator is due tomorrow, which will hopefully help with any other cooling issues (again - in three years of track abuse we have never had a single overheating issue on this car) that we might see from the higher altitude or the reconfigured grill. A track test is planned in the following week and we'll take photos and video using flow vis to see if we're on the right track. As always, I will share all of the progress and testing in this build thread. Hopefully we can add one more update right before we head out to Nationals, with the car all back to one color, after the final track test.
More soon,