Vorshlag 2011 Mustang 5.0 GT - track/autocross/street Project

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Project Update for Jan 27, 2011: Well, just wrapping up prep for the first "real" track event of 2011. Got some funny news last night - apparently our 2011 GT is contagious. An old friend/racing buddy Paul M drove our car once... that's all it took. He tried to order a car earlier this week, and we had his build all worked up on the computer: Brembo package, CS lower valance, GT500 rear valance, the 4-pedestal wing, 401A interior, Kona blue, SAT/NAV - all of the optional performance, functional, and cosmetic bits he wanted that aren't too tacky.

Then he saw this NASA "OEM options adds points" silliness...



So instead of getting the car he wanted, he found a car that fit NASA TT better. The car he bought was equipped with the "base" trim level GT wing (saves 4 points), base front and rear lower valances (saves 4 more), but still had Brembos (+2), had the NAV/SAT/Sync (I cannot overemphasize how AMAZING this system works), and was at least the color he wanted (and gorgeous). Its got the 400A leather interior, not the 401A kit like he wanted (different materials/dash), as well as the HIDs - but it was close as he could get. With this car he's now only starting with +2 points for NASA in TTB, instead of +10 like he would have been with all of the (cosmetic) options he wanted. Lesson learned. (more pics)

Anyway, Paul's car is still bone stock and looks pretty TALL parked next to mine... Attack of Godzilla!



It looked even more exaggerated in person. We measured the height differences back at the shop, and it was 2.0" in front and 2.25" in back, at the same points on the body. Some of its in the the coilovers, the rest is in the tire height differences (265/40/18 vs. 255/40/19 = 1" shorter tire, so 1/2" lower CG). The overall effect, visually, is huge. Our car isn't "Stanced-out" or anything, and you can't argue that a lower CG isn't better for grip and aero.


Left: Old and busted. Right: New hotness

Paul already has a SMod Subaru GC project underway, which will be his dedicated autox/TT car when it gets done (someday!), but for now the Mustang will step in and hold him over for track use + make for a fun street car. He traded in his '08 Subaru STi (TTA prepped) yesterday for this Mustang, which was probably a good idea seeing how much warranty work the Subie needed under his heavy right foot (engine problems - it go boom). We'll really see how strong the Coyote 5.0 and Getrag MT-80 are with Paul driving them, heh.



Anyway, Paul is building this car up a bit differently than mine, as Solo use and SCCA classing is not a concern for this one. He will instead focus on NASA TT use and build it to the limit of TTB... with no SCCA rules and autox compromises to limit it for TT use. But its still his primary street car, so its not a full-out track-only build, by any means. This will probably be closer to what a lot of you out there might do a 2011 GT, really.

We're going to first swap in some Eibachs springs (+2), Vorshlag plates (+0), and get lowered down by 1.5" next week - just for openers. ASTs will go on soon enough, but it will likely be using the new bits we're working on with AST. Then he's going to sit back and watch my car's on-track performance, and then see how the new aero bits and exhaust system planned work out, before moving much further into more mods. Should be a fun street car. Welcome to the Dark Side, Paul!



Just a few pics of installing the NASA TT required numbers (10") and class letters (4") on my car, before we load it onto the trailer tomorrow. NASA Texas is cracking down on number requirements in TT this year, and stated "no more taped numbers!", which is fine by me. Its hard to tell much about the car your passing (or being passed by) when they don't have proper numbers/class letters. This decal set-up shows class and number on the front, rear and sides, as well as SCCA classing on the sides (we're adding the required NASA decals at the track, plus a shout-out to GRM with their decals). Its just a temporary decal set-up, as we have our own vinyl plotter coming soon - so expect a more wild, completely tasteless graphic set-up soon.

NOTE: If anyone out there is a good graphic designer and can help us come up with new and unique Vorshlag livery for this car (that scales up to others car models - like our E30 & E46, plus some tester/customer cars), please PM me. Since we're getting a plotter we can try more stuff without racking up hundreds of dollars in vinyl bills anymore, until we get the look perfectly tasteless.

Thanks,

[Fair]

Project Update for Feb 3, 2011: A little late, but here's the report from the track event last weekend (NASA @ MSR-Houston, Jan 29-30).

Pictures: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...ouston-012911/



On Friday morning we mounted two AMB transponders to the car: one wired transponder was registered for me in TTB as #193, and a second wireless transponder for Amy was entered as TTB #93, mounted straight to the front grill. The battery powered AMB mounted to the grill had a straight shot down to the ground, with no metal in its path. The wired unit was mounted to the inner fender, behind the strut on the RF corner, and also has a straight shot at the ground. We made an aluminum panel for the lighted switch panel that worked nicely.

AJ loaded up the car into the trailer Friday and Amy and I left at 3 pm; we made it from Dallas to MSR-Houston in about 5 hours, at a hair under 300 miles for the tow, of course with some traffic in downtown Houston. Somehow we managed to snag a good pit spot, in the dark, then unhooked the trailer and unloaded the car, and took it through tech at 8:30 pm Friday night. We got a logbook for the car and met a few NASA people while waiting in line, several of which mentioned reading this thread build-up. Reloaded the car in the trailer than went to find our hotel (luckily nearby - the race site is fairly remote).



Next morning at dawn we finally got to see the facilities at MSR-Houston, and they were pretty impressive. Lots of buildings, nicely paved parking pit areas, a concessions stand, several buildings of garages, Sunoco fuel pumps, and even an active kart track that was running all day Saturday. The weather was a bit chilly off and on, but not bad, with overcast skies most of the day. We had our drivers meeting for TT and then another for instructors, and I was assigned an HPDE2 student. He didn't have a passengers seat (CMC2 race car) but he already knew the track well, and pointed out some areas to me to watch out for, since I'd never seen the track. Other than checking in with him all weekend, and keeping an eye on him when I was riding through with other students, there wasn't much for me to do there. This let me work with Amy directly most of the weekend.

The Time Trial group was merged with HPDE4 for the weekend, which made for a 27 car session (24 TT drivers). Ken O had his very well prepped TTB E46 M3 out on Friday testing, so he was very quick in Saturday's TT session one, running a 1:44.049 on Hoosier R6s, which was faster than all other TT cars except one (and his fastest time of the weekend). We only got 4 timed laps that session, due to session scheduling catch-up (the NASA folks did a great job of keeping the event on schedule), and the best I could get in traffic was a 1:58.907 (11th fastest). Since I was an instructor I was able to take Amy out and let her see the track while I ran that session, which let her see the track before she drove it.



Amy took the Mustang out in HPDE3 all day, but their small run group (about 8 cars) was combined with HPDE 1 & 2, just for the first HPDE session. This was a mess, as a very slow going HPDE1 student held up the entire field for the whole session, with 17 cars trailing in a train at parade lap speeds. This was because they forgot how to give a point by - and so did his instructor (we brought this up at the instructor meeting shortly afterward). We even came into the pits, waited, went back out, and still caught the train in 2 corners. Wasted session, but by session 2 they had HPDE3 all on its own, and Amy had clean laps the rest of the day.


Video of me driving in Session 2 - click to view

After the first session, T&S had times for everyone in TT so they were able to grid us up in order of lap times (fastest first, slowest last), which made it easier to get cleaner track time - well, as much as you can get with 27 cars in the session. It helped a little, and I managed to knock off over 7 seconds to a 1:51.199 in session 2, and managed a 1:50.503 in session 3. I was still 6 seconds behind the TTB leader Ken O, which is an eternity. Without real tires I suspect the car always will be. There were several other 2011 GTs out there, but all of them were in TTA running on Hoosiers or Continental Challenge slicks, and one of them was pretty damn quick at a 1:44.502 (TTA #50, shown below)



I was gaining less time per session, but I was still learning the track and getting the tires and shocks dialed in. The Radical that was holding me up a bit in the session 2 video found some serious speed in session 3 so he was ahead of me on the grid for session 4 (and considerably faster on track). Since he wasn't getting quicker times, Ken O switched to his Dunlop Star Specs for this session, so I gridded up behind him. I got some clear track time but Ken slowly pulled away from me this session. His best time on his street tires was 1:48.314, and I managed to meet my goal of "running in the 1:49s" by ticking off a 1:49.999 on lap 7, my last hot lap of the day. So Ken was still a solid 1.7 sec quicker in the M3 on similar tires in the same session, but at least it was no longer 6 seconds, which didn't completely crush my ego. For Ken on that day, his 275/35/18 Hoosier R6s were worth 4.3 seconds per lap. That's a huge chunk of time for one mod, but that's why its +11 points for his TT classing.



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TTB was around 8 cars, and I was still 2nd quickest in class for the first 3 sessions, but that black Exige might have slipped past my best time in session 4 Saturday? Its hard to tell where I ended up, because the online event results that NASA uses (MyLaps) do not show class, car, or anything other than the driver's name, number, and lap time. These are without a doubt the worst online event results I've ever seen for any competitive event I've entered in the past 23 years. I mention this because at the event you could go up to T&S and beg for a copy of the printed results after each session, and these results showed the class and (sometimes) the car listed. For some reason this data just doesn't make it to into the MyLaps listings. Seriously - look at these EOD results for TT for Saturday and tell me who won what class: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1778791. You need a secret decoder ring (a printout from the event) to figure out who is in what class, and what car they were in. Event results should stand on their own, always. Other than this complaint, in my eyes the NASA folks did an excellent job, and kept the event on schedule, even with lots of racers pulling some on track shenanigans.

Amy improved throughout the day Saturday during her four HPDE sessions, and I pushed her in the 2 sessions I rode through with her and instructed. She got down into the 1:55 range with my hand timed laps, as MyLaps only captured her times on Sunday when she ran TT (HPDE isn't supposed to be timed). She was nailing every heel-toe downshift like a pro, and only lacked a bit of confidence to get into the gas sooner. I was using the Costas method of yelling "Gas! Gas! Gas!" at every corner exit, and pretty soon she had it down. Still, staying in the throttle all the way to at the end of the long straights (into Turns T13, T6 and T2) were the only things holding her lap times back. As she gets more comfortable in TT I'm sure she'll be right on my times, like she is in autocross.



Saturday night the NASA folks had a great party at the track, with a nice meal and cold beer, and the 2010 Texas Region Class Winners were announced. We got some good rest that night and made it back out Sunday morning, to the beginnings of a rainy day. For Sunday's first TT Session, Amy ran the car in TT (her first official TT session) and I rode along. It was starting to spit rain, and times in TT were markedly slower. Ken O was quickest, running a 2:12.574 on the Hoosiers, and Amy was 10th quickest at a 2:24.551. After that session it really started to rain and the track started to get slicker than snot.

I ran session 2 of TT in a downpour and only got a 2:27.572, which was 3rd quickest in the session. I did have a slight issue at the exit of turn 17, after making a pass coming in to this turn. I got a last second point-by from a slower car (otherwise I would have waited to pass) and braked deep into T17 over a patch of standing water, where I managed to put the car into a slide that... ahh.... turned into a gentle 360°. I stayed on track and never lost momentum (slid it in 1st gear when the car was backwards, and slipped out the clutch and back into throttle when the car was pointed back straight - the car never stopped moving forward on track), but this is technically called a spin, and a spin or an off gives any TT driver a DQ for that session. At least I gave the crowd something fun to watch in this session, heh.



Since we aren't planning on staying in TTB in this car too long (and therefore don't need to try to bank points for a shot at an annual NASA regional class win - not that anyone is going to beat Ken O again this year), and we both felt like we wrung out the times we were going to get back on Saturday, we loaded up the car for the trip home later that day. Soaked to the bone, and dead tired. This means I got no official session time for Sunday, of well. The rain didn't let up for hours, but I stuck around to help with instructing and we watched the Spec Miata/Spec 944 race and then the CMC/AI race, both of which were entertaining in the rain!



In Sunday's HPDE session 3 I was assigned a new student, an HPDE2 entrant, who wanted some tips for running in the wet. He was trying to move up though HPDE ranks so he could hopefully get his Comp license later this year (he's building a Spec 944 race car), and we worked on some rain driving techniques. He was an autocrosser and had some track experience in Germany at the 'Ring. He picked up on my rain driving tips quickly, and I signed him off to HPDE3 with permission of the Chief Instructor.

After session 3 the sky looked as bad as ever, and the crowd was thinning out considerably, so we headed back to Dallas and made it back in 4h 45m, driving through some rain and a hail storm (?!) at one point. Apparently it dried up at the track considerably for the 4th session, and the TT guys all went much quicker, which changed up the results considerably for Sunday. Again, if you can make any sense of these results, you're a better man than me: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1778792



So that was our first "real" competition track event in the Mustang. We had a blast and really enjoyed the event, even with the rain on Sunday and the utter trouncing we took in TTB at the hands of Ken O (he's a Vorshlag/AST tester, so its all good. Congrats on setting the TTB track record!). Hope this post wasn't too wordy and boring. Since its getting a bit long, I'll post some specific observations about the car in another post to follow.

Thanks,

[Fair]

Update for Feb 4, 2011: After looking at my notes and in-car videos, I've compiled a list of ten observations about the 2011 Mustang GT and its on-track behavior. I've heard rumors of overheating, oil usage, and questions about the stock brakes. After our 2 drivers beat the crap out of our 2011 all weekend, one day in the dry and another in the wet, I figured I'd comment on the cooling, oil usage, fuel consumption, and track worthiness of the stock Brembo brakes (some of this might look familiar to one forum, but I've expanded this considerably since I posted that).



1. The water temp never got over "the middle of the gauge" warm. Sure, its a stock gauge, and I'll replace it soon with a trio of real oil/water/pres gauges, but so far I'm pleased with the results of the OEM cooling system (I may be singing a different tune around June here in Texas). It got a little warm outside on Saturday and Amy and I were running it in back-to-back sessions, for 8 total sessions on Saturday.

2. Oil consumption was minimal. We checked it after every other session and I added 1/4 qt of oil each day. That's minimal, and nothing like the 1 qt a day usage most of my LSx powered cars use on a typical track day. Not bad.

3. Fuel consumption on track was 6.8 mpg all weekend. On the street it has been averaging 19 in town, about 23 on the highway. Not bad, especially considering how I've been driving it (like it was stolen). On track consumption was not stellar, but it only drinks 93 octane, so it was cheap to fuel up at the track compared to the guys paying $8.75/gallon for Sunoco 98 or 110 octane. We accidentally let it get down to under 1/8th of a tank on track and it never fuel starved, not once. That's a relief.

4. The brakes were very impressive and confidence inspiring, and the ABS worked like a champ in both the wet and dry. They are bone stock other than the stainless braided lines we built for it. One of the other 2011 Mustang GT TTA guys had beautiful 2-piece ($800/pair) rotors up front, mostly for weight. He also had the CS lower valance on with ducting to the front rotors (see pics, below). Not a bad idea. Still, I think the stock rotors, pads and calipers worked fantastically at this track, at least for the current grip and power levels of the car. People that have driven with me say I am a pretty abusive to brakes (lots of left foot braking, trail braking, and late braking on track) yet I was pretty happy with the stock brakes all weekend. You'd think with 2 drivers running the car double duty we would have cooked the things, but the pads took a beating and kept diving deep into each corner. I complained once on video of a bit of smell from the brakes, but that was it. I don't know what pads these Brembo cars come with, but I like them. Minimal dusting, too.



5. Overall handling and balance was good with the AST 4100s and Hyperco rates we chose, but I had some trouble with rear traction. Many of the higher speed corner exits were tricky in 3rd or even 4th gear in the dry (and this is with the tallest available 3.31 final drive ratio), and we were running wider and stickier than stock 265mm Yokohama AD08s. I guess that's to be expected with a factory 380 whp. We've more than tripled front spring rate but rear rates went up only 63%: Hyperco 450#/in front, 200 #/in rear. The stock spring rates on the 2011 GT are 122 #/in front, and 154 #/in rear. The added front rate really cut down on brake dive and is helping control roll and heave from the over 1000# per front wheel. The relatively soft rear rate was chosen (with the help of AST-USA) to help rear traction. We have some more spring rates to test with (350# front, 250# rears), but I don't know if I want to lower the front rates much, and increasing the rear may make it have less corner exit traction.

Both track events we've run in the GT so far were noticeably bumpy: Harris Hill Road had several bumpy corners and straights and was wet, and MSR-H had lots of bumps going into turn 13 ("The Launch"), where braking would have been compromised without quality monotube dampers, especially in the wet. Once I figured out where to brake into T13, I was able to run down a lot of cars by staying in the throttle longer and braking later, whereas I noticed some other cars were skipping and hopping over the same patch of track. The shock valving we're testing with felt great and took only minor knob adjustment to get the car sorted.

This set-up still has a bit of understeer mid-corner, so we'll play with the set-up a bit more, but we haven't even added aftermarket swaybars yet, which should help us make quicker adjustments at the track.

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I was wishing I had a rear wing installed, and in the wet the tendency to lose rear traction was comical (we were using 5th on the straights a lot to avoid wheelspin). We've got a couple of OEM wings here already to test with (don't expect them to do much), and a big CF race wing on the way. The car could benefit from real race tires, like Hoosiers R6s, of course. Watching video we were losing the most ground to the faster TTA and TTU cars in the big corners, like the Carousel (T2).



6. Tire wear was excellent - wearing the tread evenly from inside to out. This was with -3° camber up front, using our Vorshlag camber/caster plates. The roll control from the increased spring rate also helped in this area. Tire wear shows we're definitely in the right ball park.

7. Also, the rear axle fluid was spewing from the vent on top of the right rear axle tube and spraying everywhere... the underside rear of the car is douched with lube, and some even made it out to the right rear wheel, and made a mess of that. Need to find a solution for that. From the many comments on corner-carvers it looks like a remote catch can and hose is pretty much a requirement on Ford 8.8" solid axle cars that are tracked.

8. The stock exhaust is incredibly quiet for a car that makes over 400 hp. I was on the pit straight garage balcony watching one of Amy's sessions and all you could hear when she flew past was the car cutting through the air... wooooooooooooosh! There was zero intake noise when coming at you, and no exhaust sound when going past - this was at around 100 mph. Freaky quiet! You can actually hear more on the inside via the intake sound tube ported to the interior. The exhaust engineers at Ford earned their money on this car, but I'm certain there's more power to be found in the exhaust. I have the full length headers and high flow cats picked out, but the after-cat exhaust is still a stumper. Do I do the traditional dual 3" exhaust with the two 409SS FM Series 44 mufflers already acquired, or go for a lighter single 3" rear exhaust, like the one Buschur came up with? They are claiming a 65-75 pound reduction with their single exhaust.

9. I'm now even more impressed with the Getrag MT-82 transmission and stock shifter Ford came up with after running at at MSR-H, which took 9-10 up+downshifts per lap. The transmission never gave me grief with all of the gear rowing we did, never balking at the gate, and shift throws were short, quick and smooth. I am not looking to add an aftermarket shifter or knob to this car, for once. The transmission ratios are closely matched up, so we used 3rd, 4th and 5th gears a good bit on track, maximizing acceleration from the tractable Coyote engine. We could have used 2nd briefly in one spot (T5-T4-T3, "The Diamond's Edge"), but the added torque was too much for the rear tires when I tried to use that gear there. I wasn't trying to abuse the engine so I upshifted on most laps at only 6000 rpm, pushing the revs up to 6500 for shifts on laps where I had clear track. In the wet on Sunday, shift points were lowered to 5000-5500 rpm, otherwise the rear tires would just spin more.


Left: Stock 2011 GT "400A" seats are flat as can be. Right: Boss 302 Leguna Seca has Recaros, which look a tiny bit better

10. The stock seats are worth jack squat for driver control at the track, even with the street tire grip levels we're at now. Sure, they look pretty and are comfy for street and highway driving, but after a day at a dry track we're done with them. Amy and I are bruised and sore from slamming against the center console and door panels, and hanging onto the steering wheel. With the softer Eibach spring rates (nearly stock) on track (as we ran it at Harris Hill) it was even worse, even with only wet levels of grip. So much more brake dive and roll with the softer spring rates. Maybe the Recaros in the 2012 Boss 302 Leguna Seca will be a bit better, but it puzzles me why Ford went with a tilt-back Recaro in the Boss 302LS - as it doesn't even have a back seat? Must have been rollover concerns, without a roll bar or cage. Nothing beats a fixed back race seat on track. We've got a pair of Cobra race seats from my E46 that will find a new home in the Mustang very soon, which should help the driver experience immensely. The loss of ~100 pounds from the OEM power seats won't be a surprise here, either. We'll put in a suitable harness and harness bar at the same time. Its hard to "feel the car" when you're flying around inside like a rag doll.

Well that's all ten. Just wanted to throw that list of observations on here as a separate post to the already cluttered event recap, posted previously. I will say this: definitely get the Brembo package on any 2011 or 2012 GT if you are going to ever track it. Ford did the brakes right. And plan on getting real monotube dampers (ASTs), more spring rate, and a lot more camber (Vorshlag plates) if you want your tires to last and the car to stay flatter in the corners - even with street tire levels of grip. This is story from this weekend worth repeating: we had an HPDE4 driver move up and join us in TT on Saturday. He had a quick E46 M3 with a nice set of Pilot Sport Cup tires, but his otherwise stock suspension (massive body roll) and a total lack of negative camber up front combined to shred his tires down to the cords - in a single day. Save yourself the hassle and cost of ruining a set of tires at the track by tackling the suspension first.

Cheers,

[Fair]

Project Update for Feb 21, 2011: We've been busy working on several things on the Mustang, such as adding the CS front lower fascia, adding the rear trunk panel cover, doing our first drive-by sound test on the car, and taking it to the drag strip to get a base line 1/4 mile time. Let's start with the Mustang's base line sound test.


Click the above pics for the sound test video

The sound test was quite revealing. I've complained about how quiet the car is at the track, and this test proved it. We had a Vorshlag tester come by on Feb 12th to test his car for sound (Ken O's E46 M3 with new BW race exhaust, which knocked down a 101 dB test run), so we left the equipment set-up to test the Mustang. Amy drove and Paul M helped snap some pics. It only peaked at 82 dB! This was driving by at wide open throttle in 2nd gear with the sound meter only 25 feet from the car, "A" weighting, fast sampling. We'll "fix" this issue soon enough (full length headers + new exhaust).



The CS lower front fascia became an option on all 2011 Mustang GT's mere weeks after we ordered ours, so we scooped up one of these bolt-on inserts to replace our plain jane lower piece and AJ here at Vorshlag installed it last week.



The entire front bumper cover has to come off to install this, but its not difficult, just time consuming. Looks great and now we have two nice 3" OD cooling vents we can tie into hoses to blow cooling air at the rotors with, too.



The rear of the 2010-up Mustang has always seemed a bit boring to me, and it bugged me having a GIANT fake gas cap (FGC) out back. I saw this panel from CDC and it was only around $100. Looked good in their video and it removes the FGC. Showed it to Amy and she hated it. So I bought it anyway. She can't always get her way, you know?! AJ & Matt got the old bits off and AJ & I installed the panel. Getting the FGC off took the most work, as its held in place with some seriously strong adhesive. The new panel went on in 30 seconds, with its pre-installed 3M adhesive.

We have a pictorial installation gallery for both of these items located here. The CS fascia is an obvious hit with everyone who has seen it and given feedback so far, but the opinion on the CDC rear panel is about 50/50. I think it will look even better back there with a rear wing installed.

This post is already too long, so let me cover the drag racing event in the next update.

Thanks,

[Fair]

Project Update for Feb 22, 2011: Drag racing action! Here's the pictures, videos and time slips from our trip to the drag strip last weekend.

Amy had wanted to go to the track for months, not only to see what the Mustang could do in stock trim down the 1/4 mile, but also to practice reaction times and 60 foot times for the upcoming ProSolo we are entering next month, right in our own back yard (this SCCA event is mirror image, dual course autocross, with a drag race start using a real ".500 tree"). At the Pro here she's working registration, I'm the Impound Chief, and Vorshlag is sponsoring the Saturday night dinner, so we can't really miss this event! We're both running the Mustang there, where she'll be in the Ladies class (L1 or L2?) and Costas and I are running it in STX. Since we will be running the Yokohamas at the ProSolo, we mounted them up the morning of the drag race and just drove out there on them. Its still just a street tire, so we do occasionally drive on the street with them.



We met for breakfast with McCall and Duck, then headed out to Kaufmann, TX to Dallas Raceway at around 10:45 am. First time some of us had been to this new facility and it was surprisingly nice, as McCall had told us. 100% concrete 1/4 mile drag strip, very new facility, and an all-concrete parking/paddock area! This got the autocrosser in all of us wishing they'd rent the facility to the SCCA and other solo groups... but at $5K per day to rent the parking lot, none of the auto-x groups can afford it. Oh well, at least we have brand new and beautiful drag strip about an hour away. We paid our entry ($15 to watch, $25 to race) and unloaded our helmets, cameras and junk.



Deane was already there in his modded C5 Z06, and he even had some Nitto Drag Radials mounted, so we knew which car would be the quickest in our little group of autocrossers. He was car #1, so he got there right as they opened the gates, and already had some timeslips. We were there at 11:30 am and the place was still pretty much dead. After a quick trip to the restrooms we returned to see the Mustang surrounded by locals, all of whom had Mustangs themselves, and all of them wanting to run the flashy red Mustang with all of the decals. They told us about the other 2011 GTs that had been out to the drag strip already, and those had only ran high 13s or even 14 second ET's. Yikes...



We got McCall's TrailBlazer SS and our Mustang into the staging lane to be teched. That was the easiest tech ever - never even opened the hood. Didn't want to see our helmets and told us not to bother wearing them "unless we see you run real fast and then we'll tell you to". OK, works for me. He was quickly running on track against anything that would line up against him. The video above shows him against a supercharged CTS-V (LSA V8 motor, not "LM7" as I added in the title) that ran high 11's.




Amy, wearing a RedBull/Vettel/F1 shirt and confusing the locals, made several runs and got into the 13.6 range, many of them at 106-108 mph trap speeds. The trap speeds alone indicated that a 12 second ET was in the car, but she was focusing on the Reaction Times more than anything and not really launching the car perfectly. The 2.2 to 2.3 second sixties were a bit off the pace of what I'm used to getting on street tires at a drag strip, so we need to work on this in a test session at a later date where we can ride together. Like many skills needed when racing, you cannot teach yourself the skills - it always helps to be shown them first hand, and coached when you try it. Having done 1000+ drag strip runs on street tires I kind of had an advantage.

McCall continued to rip off a string of 13.6@100 runs in the TrailBlazer, which he would continue to do all day with extreme consistency. He had just taken this vehicle to GSS Speedshop to have Louis put a tune on the LS2, which came with Stainless Works full length headers, SW true dual exhaust, and a cold air. It made 367 whp and Louis fixed some lean-out and knocking issues in McCall's new-to-him SUV.




After Amy took a gaggle of runs we let it cool down with the hood up (10-15 mph head wind made quick work of that, but likely held back our ultimate times and trap speeds). I hopped in an took 3 quick runs, back to back, with a 13.6 against Deane's Z06 and his 12.5@112 (3rd gear balked a little on me), then another pass where I missed 3rd completely and backed out, then a final "by run" where I clicked off a [email protected] mph. That run had a 2.0 sec 60 foot time and perfect shifts. I was pretty happy with that time, especially considering that we were still driving into a steady head wind, and turned the car back over to Amy.

Deane, Amy and McCall continued to take runs back to back for the next hour and a half, since there was almost no waiting in the staging lanes. Amy and Deane lined up several times, but the Z06 always prevailed. Paul M arrived and then got in line to start getting his runs in. He was having trouble launching and kept hitting the rev limiter, but he got in some solid 13.6 runs @ 104 mph, but seemed to hit a wall and ent no faster. He was frustrated and really wanted to go quicker so I told him I knew what was holding him back - and held out my hand for the keys, mostly in jest. He threw them to me and I hopped in, took two quick runs, knocking down a 13.2@105 with a 2.0 sec 60' time. I told him the RPMs I was launching at and he got in and knocked off a 13.5@105, still bogging the motor a bit launching. After we left the track that day he realized that he never turned off the traction control, which is probably why my times in his car were quicker. He's ready to go back and redeem himself, soon.



At the end of the day Paul (who had been talking smack all week with McCall) finally lined his bone stock '11 Mustang GT up against the TrailBlazer SS, and it was a definitive win... for the 4500 pound SUV! We even have an after race interview, complete with excuses.


Crazy trucks at the drag strip. What can I say, this is Texas after all.

By then it was 2 pm and the staging lane was 20 deep, and more racers were (waking up and) pouring into the track every minute. We all had what we felt were our best times already run, so we packed up and headed out to lunch. I was very happy with 12.9's on our Mustang, especially considering the coilovers with stiff springs, lowered ride height, and -3° of front camber - none of which make a car faster at a drag strip.

Good times - we have to get more autocrossers together and do this again later this year!