continued from above
Again, if you purchased a '11-14 GT with the smaller brakes, we've got that covered plus more in our Vorshlag 14" Brembo Upgrade Kit. Hugely important if you ever track your '05-14 Mustang and it came with the small stuff. I mention this again because we had some good examples of how
bad the smaller 13.2" Mustang brakes are that weekend at ECR, with one fellow getting all of
ONE hot lap before he called it a day. It took one lap for the fluid to boil, the brake pedal went to the floor, and off the track they went. Weee! We've since hooked him up with some proper fluid and Carbotech pads, and he's heading back out on track, but the 14" Brembo front brakes are on his wish list, and brake ducting won't be far behind.
The base GT's 13.2" front brakes are better suited to drag racing or autocross, not track use.
Ryan was there at this ECR event with me and Amy and he worked his butt off all day long. There were a lot of noobs at this event, driving new but mostly bone stock Mustangs, and some EVO and BMW guys, too. Even with instructors slowing them down, several of the new guys ran out of brakes in one or two sessions. Luckily we brought a lot of tools, a generator and an air compressor. We ended up doing full Motul RBF600 brake fluid flushes on several cars, one guy fried his pads, swapped some wheels for people, changed camber on multiple cars, diagnosed weird sounds and shimmies in half a dozen cars, and basically Ryan was wrenching all day long - he never even made it to pit wall to work on our two cars. Most of the work was on brakes.
In the first session of the day, a student asked one of the experienced instructors to take a few laps in his 2012 Mustang GT (non-Brembo car). The instructor took a warm up lap (driving 5/10ths), then sped it up a little on the beginning of lap 2 (7/10ths) and drove right off the end of the hardest braking zone corner. He was shocked - "Man, I was barely pushing the car, didn't have two laps on it yet. It just lost the brakes
completely!!! Pedal went to mush, I was pumping the brakes but nothing was happening."
Been there, done that. We looked at the car and both the fluid was boiled and the front pads were gone, turned to goo. Luckily no damage was done other than to ego. Student was really bummed, as he got ZERO laps himself (they gave him credit for a track day the next weekend). We brought spare track pads for S197s, but didn't have them for the non-Brembo front calipers in our trailer, so he called it a day very early. Amy saw him in the paddock later, all bummed out with no brakes left, and she stuck him in the passenger seat of our 2011 GT. After a session riding with me in the 2011 GT we
turned his frown upside down. He was so pumped when he got out of the passenger seat - hooked for life! He came by later the next week, picked up some Carbotechs and Motul from us, and I gave him some barely used 13.2" front rotors, and he was back at the track the next weekend - with no problems.
So the moral is - don't underestimate the basics. S197 Mustangs come with "low rent" brake consumables from the factory: the stock
brake fluid and stock
brake pads are really for street use ONLY. Even noobs can ruin the old/stock fluid quickly. Sure, some new students are rolling around so slowly that their brakes
might make it the day, totally depends on how hard they push it. I seem to find the weak link in any cars' braking systems very quickly, and apparently so do some other instructors. It doesn't take much to really need front brake ducting on these cars, too.
Time To Sell The 2013 GT
As much as it pains me to do this, it is time to let this car go to a new home, and it is now
for sale. We recently saw the extremely delayed ruling on the Watts Link/Diff Cover change for SCCA ESP class (a simple rule tweak took 8 months to write + 1 or maybe even 2 more years to implement?) and now it might not take effect until 2015? Basically this demonstrates that they don't care about Mustang owners with these needlessly slow rulings - delaying the "rules fix" to make the majority of the off-the-shelf Watts Link systems legal until after 2015. Progress within this club is painfully SLOW and frustrating. I'm not sitting on this 2013 GT for another year or TWO just so the rules makers pull their heads out of their back sides, so the dedicated ESP build we originally purchased this car has been aborted.
Vorshlag 2013 GT is FOR SALE. See more here.
Still, buying this car wasn't a waste. We got some testing done, logging good track data in wheel/tire changes, camber plates, shock/spring upgrades and brake upgrades. We developed a few unique to '13-14 parts, and made somebody a really cool track/street car, but for the most part I lost a lot of time and money on this car purchase. I won't forget this one for a while, and will think very hard about it before I build another car around SCCA Solo class rules again. Lesson learned.
Left: This is the lightest stock 2011-14 GT we have ever weighed. Right: Not much room left in my home garage to park this one
We have added a few more mods to the car since the 3rd track test day in June. We had previously installed a Spohn "Del-sphere" Adjustable Panhard Bar to this car but it just made too much noise on the street, so I had the guys yank that piece out and install a Whiteline Adjustable Panhard Bar instead. Ahh.... quiet and effective. While they were under there, I had them add Whiteline LCA Relocation Brackets too. These brackets improve the rear geometry for cars lowered like this, and makes it better for street, track and dragstrip use. This black on black 6-spd car is absolutely spotless inside and out and has 5100 miles.
It has AST double adjustable coilovers with remotes ($5000), WL Panhard Bar and LCA brackets, Vorshlag camber plates, D-Force 18x10" wheels, 295mm Nitto NT05's, 14" Brembos, Vorshlag brake ducting and SS brake lines, all synthetic fluids, and plenty of custom care done by the Vorshlag techs. Details like the Seals-It 2-piece grommets in the trunk for the reservoir pass-throughs, custom reservoir mounts, and more. A lot of car for the price - see the
For Sale page for more details (please don't post questions in this thread - PM me or e-mail us at
[email protected]).
If the price is still shown on the linked
for sale page, then this car is still for sale. If not, it is sold. Somebody is going to get a killer street/track car for a great price. We showed it at the last Dallas Cars and Coffee event and had some bites, and I suspect it won't last long. Again - I'm losing a lot selling it at this price, but having two track S197s right now doesn't make sense. We've got so many project cars being built and this 2013 GT is now just a distraction. If you want to come by and look at the car, please call Vorshlag a day before, so I can bring it to the shop from my home garage.
Cheers,