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

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Project Update for Feb 6th, 2013: Its been over a month since my last post in this thread but so much has been going on I cannot hope to cover all of it. In the red 2011 Mustang alone we've done a track test/TV shoot at ECR (Dec 28th), rebuilt the front splitter mounts, made an all new exhaust system, ran in the 2014 season opening NASA Texas Time Trial at MSR-Houston (Jan 18-19), then the following weekend we ran the car in SCCA Club Trials at the the Polar Grand Prix race weekend at MSR-Cresson (Jan 25). And the next weekend we drove it out to Cars & Coffee (Feb 1). Somehow this became my largest EVER single forum post, took a week to write, and I had to break into 5 parts due to post length limits (and up to 10 parts on some forums).


Left: The first mock-ups of the 2013 FR-S LSx look good. Right: Cage wrapping up on this C4 Corvette

And that was with just one car of many we are working on... Something has been going on every single weekend since my last post - looks like we won't get a "winter break" from racing this year. I won't go into the Scion FR-S LSx swap we're knee deep into, or the Corvette race car build that consuming lots of time, or the half dozen other cars we've been working on. Or the fact that we just broke a monthly sales record for the 10 year history of the business... in a January (traditionally our slowest month of the year). Everything feels like its going by at 1,000 miles an hour lately.



See, we're not "just a Mustang shop", or "not just a suspension shop" as we work on a lot of BMWs, Subarus (including a '95 Impreza with an '07 STi swap, above left), Miatas (including the LS1 Alpha). And we're doing a lot more than suspensions - like seat and harness installs (above right), chassis work, roll cages and roll bars, brake upgrades, wheel and tire fitments, and more.



But yes, we're knee deep in Mustangs. I just bought another one, the former stage rally SN95 Mustang shown above left. We have some fun ideas about what to do with this car that involve a big motor, rallycross and a lot of hoonage. So I've really got to get rid of one of our two S197 Mustangs, and I've slashed the price on the 2013 Mustang GT to $25K. That's an amount I've had and turned down more than once for this car, but all of the other higher priced offers went "poof" and the buyers flaked out. So if you wanted to see me bleed with this car, mission successful. I don't think it can last long at that price, but I've said that before, too. Check the ad and give me a call if you are interested.



We should have a new 2011-14 5.0L external oil cooler kit available very soon. We developed this on a 2013 Boss302 that was seeing some very high oil temps at the track. We junked the factory Boss/Track Pack "oil heater" system (that uses hot radiator coolant to "cool" the oil) and replaced it with a big Mocal heat exchanger, custom bolt-on mount, BMRS lines, a Canton oil filter sandwich adapter with thermostatic control. This same car has also received a Mishimoto radiator, customized Maximum Motorsports 4-point roll bar, Schroth Profi 2 harnesses with customized anti-sub belts, front brake cooling, a customized set of auxiliary gauges in a Ford Racing 3 gauge pod, and a custom built front tow hook. This Gotta Have It Green Boss is turning into one slick track toy.



So that was some of what's been going on in January - a small slice of the craziness that Vorshlag has become. I've also been looking at larger commercial properties to move the business into, as we've completely run out of room with our company's growth. I hope that by October we will be somewhere new, so I need to finalize the deal on the new place by about June... we looked at 15 properties last Saturday, after Cars & Coffee.

Let's back up and cover the S197 Mustang development for the past 5 weeks....

Track Test & TV Shoot @ ECR, December 28th, 2013

There is a new "car guy" TV show that has been created and been filming in the Dallas area for a few months. This show is supposed to debut in March 2014 (don't know what channel or markets yet) and while I don't know much about the show, I do know a lot of the folks involved. They are all track folks, and we go to a lot of track events so we have run with all of them many times. So when I got a call about being part of a TV shoot for a sketch about a "street car vs. race car" track segment, I was on board in an instant. The only question was... did they consider our Mustang the street car or the race car??



Yep, our big red 3770 pound Pony was going to be the race car. Uh-oh. Sure, while our street legal Mustang can be quick, there are some still "street cars" that would give us fits on track. I've run against some C6 ZR1s and Z06s that were fookin FAST. So I asked what we'd be running against? Turns out it was to be C6 Corvette. Uh-oh, those can be fast. But luckily it wasn't a Z06 and it was "a nearly stock 6-speed manual convertible", whew. But the driver was pretty good and he was going to be running "slicks". The car had a mix of 305 Pirelli P-zero racing slicks up front and 345 Hoosier A6s out back. That could be pretty fast, if the two compounds worked together. Oh well, we would find out later in the day when we did some head-to-head stuff...

320mm Continental Rolex Race Tire vs 315mm Hoosier A6 Track Test

Before the filming began we used much of this day at ECR to test some tires on the Mustang and some shocks we're developing for another chassis.



Some of you that have been following this thread for a while remember the big gaggle of Continental slicks I purchased at the end of last season. Got a bunch of 305/650/18 and 320/650/18 Contis for a good price and we stuck them on our clearance page.

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305/650/18 on 18x11" wheel fits the S197 very well front and rear

These Rolex series Continentals are measured like real racing slicks and are very different tires than the CTSCC Series Contis that are measured like passenger tires, which are very similar to a DOT Hoosier R6. The DOT type tires have a LOT more steel belts in them and tend to weigh a good bit more. The real racing slicks tend to have the spring rate of the tire measured and marked on each carcass.


The same 305/650/18 on an 11" wide wheel (at left) is much more square than when on 10" wheel (at right)

We really don't know much about these Rolex Contis yet. What we have are the "GT-O" compound/series tires, which I have been told were made for the high banks of Daytona and are different both structurally and in compound from the GT-R and other versions that are used on Rolex DP cars. Technically our Mustang is heavier than these tires are designed for, but we don't make a fraction of the downforce of a DP car so it likely all evens out.



These 305 and 320 Contis were such a good deal it was hard to NOT buy them, and we've sold a couple of sets and so far everyone has been happy with them. I wanted to see how they'd fare head-to-head against the A6s, so we mounted a set of 320s to one of our 18x12" Forgestar sets and left some well worn 315 Hoosier A6s on the other set and brought them with us to the track that day.



Amy and I got to ECR at 9:30 am that Saturday right as the film crew guys arrived. As we unloaded the Mustang, Brandon showed up, then Olof and his buddy Steve arrived. Sofi rolled up in her truck towing a trailer with two of her motorcycles, too. So we had a big Vorshlag contingent early on.



We also had some of our testers/customers join us, so we could do some shock testing and car set-up work with them. Mike, Jan and Shannon brought one of their Mustangs and a Miata we had some new prototype Bilstein Motorsports shocks on. This racer family has 5 track cars between them, and we see them at tons of track events every year.



The day started off a little cool (46°F) but quickly warmed into the high 50s then low 60s, with the sun shining bright. I went out at about 10:30 am on the Contis and tried to get them up to temperature, to see how they felt and hopefully get in some lap times. After about 4 hot laps they just were not working, so I came into the hot pits and Olof took tire temps and bled the tires down (We tried from 30-38 psi, with little luck). The hottest we saw the tires get to was 109-110°F, which is not nearly enough heat. So I went back out and tried another 5 laps, grip was terrible, and I couldn't barely run a 2:00 lap. Came in hot and again, still around 110°F on the touch probe pyrometer for the tires. WTF? The A6s would be boiling after a run like that.



I guess the only conclusion we can say is they don't work in 60 degree temperatures with only a handful of laps. It is an endurance tire, but we didn't think they were that hard. I was driving on these like a wild man, trying to scrub them in and build some tire heat, but the Contis just laughed at my attempts at hoonage and stayed dead cold. I was not at all happy with the performance of the Continental GT slicks and could not wait to get them off the car. We punted on the remainder of the test, but I vowed to try them again in the warmer months - maybe then we can get them warm enough to work? The March 29-30 TrackGuys event at TWS is likely where they will get used again. There was zero visible tire wear on the Contis, as you would expect.

Hoosiers On + Filming for the Show



So while Olof and I swapped over to the Hoosier A6 scrubs we brought, the rest of our big group was out tracking their cars or motorcycles; they run the bikes and cars in different run groups every 30 minutes on these Member Days. Mike was pounding miles on the prototype Miata Bilsteins, Jan and Shannon were both having a blast on the MCS equipped Mustang, and Sofi was running both of her bikes.


Left: Olof and Steve assisted with a coolant leak on Mike's Miata. Right: Our Ops Mgr Sofi had fun running her 2 bikes on track

Amy ran a couple of sessions on the Hoosiers, giving rides to folks and ran some 1:59 laps. I then took over and ran a couple of sessions, failing to get a single clear lap. It was a member day so there weren't a lot of cars out there, but there were enough to clog up any given lap, all while we were out there with two cars and a camera car trying to get footage (that ended up being really tough to do). With everything from full on race cars (nearby Pinnacle Motorsports had a few cars out there testing) to very clearly street cars on the track, and lap times from sub 2 minute to 2:30s and beyond, it was impossible to get a single clear lap. But it was fun anyway, and they likely got some footage to use.



We tried some lead-follow stuff where we were supposed to change places (Corvette street car vs Mustang race car) and not lose the camera car, but that didn't work out so well. We needed a much faster camera car. And both of us wanted to occupy the same space on track and both cars had similar acceleration rates, so needless to say there was more than one off that day, heh. Mine was pretty good and I stuffed it off the entry to Turn 6, pretty hard, and dug a trench about 70" wide in the soft dirt. Tore up the splitter mounts and dislodged the lower bumper cover, which kept Olof busy for a bit doing some hasty track-side repairs. He got it put back together well enough that you wouldn't know it was borked know unless you crawled underneath.

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After losing two different camera cars they tried to use, we eventually just had a bunch of POV cameras slapped on both cars and onto a quadracoptor camera rig to shoot some aerial stuff. In the afternoon they wanted to do a 3 lap head-to-head shootout with a side by side green flag start. I will wait and see if this sketch airs on the show, but the other car had its off during this shootout and it was a good session for the Mustang. Here's a tip: fast heating A6s come up to temp and overheat by the time Pirelli slicks get up to temp, which can make for a handling nightmare if you use both tires on the same car.



During the "3 lap challenge" I was really trying to run consistent laps, which isn't something you normally strive for in the "I just need one lap!" berzerk 10/10ths driving I do in Time Attack/Time Trial competition. I was worried that a small driving screw-up might put me on the defensive then I'd never stay ahead. Turns out that wasn't a worry, and I ran fairly consistent if a little conservative laps at 1:57.0, 1:57.1 and a 1:57.4.

Those times were pretty good considering the age of these tires, but a solid 1.5 seconds off my times here in November, when these tires were brand new (it was the same set). And that 1:57.0 lap was a solid 3 seconds faster than I could manage on the 320mm Continental slicks. Again, the GT-O compound isn't their softest and the track needed a lot more heat for these to get up to temperature. So I guess that tire test proved that running the 315mm Hoosier A6 is still a good choice, compared to the GT-O compound Rolex series DP race tires.

We were supposed to do some track side interviews after that portion of filming was done but they had some technical difficulties with the other car and the quadrocoptor (it flew away, right as the filming started). They said the whole day of filming might have to be redone, and later invited us back for a reshoot to be held on New Years Day. Yikes, I didn't plan to be awake that day, since we had a big NYE party planned and knew we'd never get any of the crew to join us that day, so we bowed out. Long story short - we may never see any of this footage and my dreams of being a TV star were dashed, heh. Oh well, it was still a fun day and we got a lot of testing done.


Left: I fit in the Mustang fine, with the Cobra seat lowered down. Right: In the Miata's stock seat, I don't fit so well

I got to drive Mike's 2000 Miata later that afternoon. We shot some video while I drove it on track for about 5 laps, all the while talking to the camera and giving my feedback of the feel of the Bilstein Motorsports shocks we built and then custom valved with Maxyspeed & Co. I was pretty happy with the feel of the car as a whole but I had to re-tune my brain to drive without the aid of ABS! It has been a while since I drove a car with "old school brakes", but I managed some 2:17 laps on some worn out Kumho XS tires and that lopped about 10 seconds a lap off the car's previous lap record with the stock shocks. It rode great, too, so I think we might have a good damper setup.

Mike has since installed an aluminum UltraShield seat (and Vorshlag is now an UltraShield dealer, to go along with Cobra, Corbeau, Sparco and Momo) and Schroth harnesses into the Miata. He says that lowered the seating position about 3 inches, which would have made my head not stick above the roll bar, as shown above. That seat change would have made driving his car not only safer but less tiring. After 5 laps of being thrown around on top of the stock seats and 3-point belts I was ready for my trusty Cobra racing seat again.

More CEL Problems and Traction Control Faults

One thing to mention is that all day the Mustang was fighting me. Amy didn't have a lick of problems, but it seems whenever I drive the TT3 Mustang lately it is throwing Check Engine Lights, laying down under power or resetting the Traction Control. Obviously it is something in my driving style, but as I told Amy, while it seems like I'm whipping this thing like a rented mule, that's producing the faster lap times.

That happened all day on me: with the Continentals it reset the Traction Control into Fault Mode twice; so bad that I had to come in the pits, shut off the motor, and reset the whole sequence while holding the brakes. During one semi-clean A6 equipped lap I was running a high 1:56 predictive and the motor laid down after Turn 11 and I limped across the line to a 1:57.5 lap. Even during the final 3-lap shootout segment it laid down right before the Start/Finish line on the last lap. We noted several CELs for the O2 ("stuck open rich"), and now one for a Cam Sensor, too.

We have been chasing these CEL issues for months, especially at ECR, and I felt like we needed to make some exhaust system changes to try to alleviate this. I had hoped we had the issues fixed after True Street found the Throttle Circuit wiring short and we later replace the throttle body and integrated TPS sensor. Sure, anything under 3/4 tank will fuel starve now, which is not an easy fix, but something else is still borked in the O2 circuit/exhaust system. I felt like it was time to remove the catalysts and see if we had one that was broken and/or plugging up one side of the system.

New Lightweight Exhaust System for TT3 Use

Turns out that was the case, as we did indeed have one broken catalyst matrix when we changed the exhaust two weeks later. Before we attacked the new exhaust the guys fabricated new rear mounts for the splitter, which I bent badly with my off in the soft mud of ECR at the TV shoot. That took a couple of hours, as I had really done a number on them and the old ones had to be junked.



The old exhaust layout (shown above) we've been using on this car for the past 3 years is rather traditional - dual 3" pipes from the ARH 1-7/8" long tubes, ARH cars and X-pipe, and a custom dual 3" over the axle system we built using rear mounted large case mufflers (Flowmaster Series 44) and some tips in the stock location. This system was lighter than most off the shelf systems but still pretty lengthy and had a lot of tubing. It was modified once back in early 2012, but has remained untouched ever since. The slip-ft joint that comes with the ARH headers had a tendency to leak so it was spot welded in place and each time the exhaust was removed we had to cut the tacks. My curb incident at Hallett last June broke the tacks and it was a little leaky ever since.



We knew we had at least one catalyst that was smashed and possibly both had a broken matrix inside and needed to be replaced. But I wanted to get some weight out of this car if possible (we can always add ballast to the trunk) so we went with a system layout we had used before, on Mark Smith's Boss 302-S race car (shown below).



That system above proved to be about 42 pounds lighter than the stock stuff it had before and it picked up so much power he had to have a restrictor added. When we sound tested the new system it was louder but not unreasonably so. The result was lighter and more powerful? Sign me up!

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The old X-pipe was removed and the cats were inspected. Yep, both of them were clogged up. Driving over some curb somewhere probably smashed the internal matrix and ruined them both. So they were cut off and the Magnaflow stainless 3" mufflers were acquired (we're a Magnaflow dealer now, in case you guys need anything). We also added 3" V-band clamps and flanges to the header collectors, which made me happy as they are the least leaky type of exhaust junction.



On this system we moved the mufflers further back and set them under the recesses made for the exhaust under the saddle style fuel tank. Yes, there is a fiberglass heat shield between the mufflers and the fuel tank, and we added some DEI gold foil reflective insulation there as well. The turn-downs are also pushed further back and now dump just under the axle housing, with the heat of the exhaust not near the axle. We've run the car at two race weekends since and had zero rear axle heat issues.



The guys made some custom rear exhaust hangers and the system was buttoned up in less than a day. Ground clearance is still excellent and the sound is... well.... it sounds like a race car now. I certainly wouldn't recommend this for a street car or daily driver, but we don't need ear plugs driving it on track, so it is appropriate. The Magnaflow mufflers should last for years to come, too. Listen to the in-car videos from the race coverage below to hear the sound.



There was some weight savings, of course, but also some extra room around the rear axle. We run the ride height at back of the car very low and it was getting tight between the axle tubes and the over the axle 3" pipes under full bump travel. Parts of the old system will be reused at some date on another S197, as that 304SS custom over the axle section still looks great.



As I drove the car down to the corner gas station to fuel up (and a police car pulled somebody over right behind me, yikes), the "System Fault" message above showed up on the touch screen of the car. WTF? This happened right after we fired up the car, so the rear O2 data was likely wigging out with no catalysts upstream to affect the exhaust stream emissions. We kind of figured that would happen (and we will have the car in for a retune at True Street soon enough), so I hoped this wasn't an issue that would pop back up (it didn't all weekend). A full tank of 93 Octane Shell fuel went in the tank and we loaded the car in the trailer.

NASA at MSR-H Jan 18-19, 2014

We didn't do many improvements to the TT3 Mustang for this season opening round of NASA Texas, but if you've been reading this forum thread for a while you know why. We only just decided to stay in TT3, after the red Mustang didn't sell in November and the 2015 Mustang was delayed likely until August. I had planned on making some upgrades, but as you read at the top of my post, January got a little insane around the shop and left very little time to work on our own cars. So we're just sticking with the existing TT3 set-up and the classing formula has changed for us. The exhaust change was done more to eliminate the CEL issues we kept running into, which we hoped would mean less trouble on track. I doubt it added any power, but we will re-dyno the car soon to make sure. We've been down 10-11 whp for the last year and a half, from the highest tested 430 whp dyno number the car made back in 2012. Plus we tend to run 30-40 pounds over minimum weight, so we're safe if we accidentally unlocked 3-4 hp.

Back in November I had blew my last set of Hoosier contingency tires on a new set of 275 A6s for the ST2 car, which meant I had no fresh tires to use for TT3 on the Mustang in January. Hmm, that wasn't too smart, but I didn't make a good guess on what we'd be doing 3 months later. Instead of forking out $1400 for a fresh set of sticker 315s we decided to just run some used scrubs and hope for the best. Fresh tires can be worth 1-2 seconds per lap, so I knew going into this race weekend we were venerable. But the TT sign-ups were a little light, and some TT3 competitors had last minute problems, so we thought we might get lucky and sneak in the win on used tires (2 race weekends old).

The other mistake we made this race weekend was NOT bringing any of our Vorshlag crew members with us. If we would have had Ryan there wrenching and Brandon shooting pictures this would have been a smoother race weekend, for sure. We get so buried with the "other stuff" during a NASA weekend that I overlooked some issues with the car. But Amy and I went down there solo, and the results were as predicted - a bit of a mess.



The track configuration at MSR-Houston is run once a year on the NASA Texas race calendar and every year they change the direction, as this track can be run Clockwise and Counter Clockwise. Amy and I looked and we hadn't run this 2.38 mile course CCW in... ever? Hmm, that's strange, we've run here a half dozen times, but it has always been CW. So we'd be learning as we drove, and sharing sessions since we're running the same car together again this year. At least we only pay one entry fee this year, from our new "Team Vorshlag" team entry. We will keep doing this until we can afford a two car trailer and two race cars, which might not ever happen.



Our crew finished up the new ligthtweight exhaust Thursday night and loaded the trailer so Amy and I could leave Dallas by about 2 pm for the 5 hour haul to south Houston on Friday. We had planned on meeting up with some friends who had scoped out a good paddock spot and got there just at the sun was setting, unloading the car in the dark and getting our 2014 Annual NASA tech performed. Our paddock was shared with two other enclosed trailers and racers, Paul Costas' GT1 Camaro and Matt White's Coyote powered SN95 Mustang ST1 race car. We were all parked right where it is marked "Grid", as our TT track map had one mistake as the actual grid was held much further down the main straight. Our trailer grouping was right there at the pit wall and when standing up on Paul's trailer's observation deck we had the best views of the track in the paddock!



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I had looked at the old track records for this track layout and of course there was nothing for TT3, as this class was new in 2013 and this CCW MSR-H layout had not been run since 2012. I was hoping we could slot in between the old TT2 (TTS) and the old TTA class records, if we won. Setting a track record on old scrubs that had seen 2 previous race weekends on them might be tough, and without running Friday to learn this track layout or work on the set-up, we might be in trouble. I was also worried we might run out of tires for day 2, so we brought another mounted set of scrub 315/30/18 A6s, just in case.

2012 TT Track Records for Motorsports Ranch Houston (2.38 CCW) (prior to this race weekend)
Class Driver Car
TTU Eric Purcell Radical 01:41.896 Jan-09
TT1 Joe Woodhead Chevy Corvette 01:38.402 Jan-12
TT2 Sean Farrah Nissan 350Z 01:40.172 Jan-12
TT3 .... n/a
TTA Josh Smith Mistubishi Evo 01:42.914 Jan-12
TTB Wynn Suebhongsang Honda S2000 01:43.134 Jan-12
TTC Norman Wilhelm Subaru WRX 01:47.241 Jan-12
TTD Blake Clements Mazda Miata 01:49.319 Jan-12
TTE Josh Price Acrua Integra 01:50.969 Jan-12
TTF Ken Brewer Toyota MR2 01:58.367 Jan-10

Our car sailed through annual tech (and we're a NASA approved HPDE Tech shop, so I suspected it would) and we had a good dinner in town with Costas and his wife Anna, then bombed up to our hotel for the night. We got to the track early Saturday morning and the weather was a bit brisk, but the forecast looked good. Amy rode with me on the first TT session, which we call the "Warm Up". This session does not count for times and is used for gridding purposes in TT session 1 only. I was pretty slow in the Warm-up, as Amy is a terrible passenger with me, and fumbled my way around an unfamiliar circuit. I was 9th fastest in TT with a 1:45.5, not a good sign.


Saturday TT Warm-up (at left) and TT session 1 (at right)

I was planning to only run Saturday in the TT Warm Up and TT session 1 only, leaving Amy two sessions later in the day to get her up to speed. So that meant I needed to lay down my best lap of the day in the first timed TT session, which luckily I did. I found about 4 seconds from my laps in the Warm Up, probably from figuring out the proper line and losing a passenger, and dropped to a 1:41.457. That ended up being the 3rd fastest TT time of the session, behind Weather's TT1 C6 and Costas GT1 Camaro. It also proved to be our fastest time of the weekend, which I will explain below.



That 1:41 lap felt pretty good, but it was far from perfect. I knew there was time left in a few corners that I had hoped to work at on Sunday. For the rest of the day Saturday, Amy took over in TT Session 2 and 3, as planned.



Meanwhile our paddock area was pretty busy all day, as Costas dealt with some coolant leaks and other issues on his GT-1 Camaro and Matt had to rebuild the front end of his car after a big off. Later Costas was forced off on the back straight during a GTS/Super Touring/Super Unlimited race and tore up his splitter as well. A lot of us were pitching in to help get that car put together as he re-did the intake gaskets, repaired the splitter (using two piece of plywood and a truck tire to flatten the metal), and chased a few other fixes. There was never a dull moment in our little mini-paddock all weekend! Costas' write-up on his website better describes all of the race incidents and repairs that he and Matt had over the weekend.



Amy took her time getting up to speed and ran a 1:48.2 in the TT session 2 but was already down in the 1:44s in TT session 3 when she had an accident in the end of the final session.



She said she missed a 5th to 3rd gear downshift (rev matching wasn't close enough - she normally goes through each gear in a downshift) which locked the rears at high speed and sent the car into a spin. That spin sent her up and over the high curbing on the inside of Turn 4, where the car got beached and was stuck for a good half hour. She spun at the very end of the TT session and the track crew (3 trucks worth!) worked hard to get the car off the curb without ripping the splitter off or tearing up the underside of the car. They used a lot of boards and ramped the car down, but at one point it was stuck with 2 wheels in the air. We now call Amy by her new nickname "Curby", hehe...



I was watching from a half mile away and knew something had gone wrong. I couldn't see any damage but the car was really stuck. Amy finally borrowed a phone to call me, and said "I broke a wheel. Bad. Bring a spare, quickly." So I borrowed a vehicle and grabbed an extra front wheel and tire and a jack and zoomed out on course, which at this point was closed for racers during the extraction (there were 2 race groups left for the day). They had the car extracted and were flat towing the car VERY SLOWLY on a broken wheel and flat tire, dragging the splitter, but I quickly stopped them. Using two jacks we got the wheel changed in about a minute while it was parked out on the back straight, but the car wouldn't start so they flat towed her in. Once we got the car back into the pits it was getting dark fast (these pics have been brightened up a lot) and it was getting very hard to see.



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After a long day in the sun and wind, talking to lots and lot of folks, and helping Costas with his many repairs, we were all dead tired. But with some volunteer help (thanks Toth and Robert!) and a borrowed LED drop light (thanks Marc!) we pulled the RF wheel again, swapped it to the left front (the spare set of scrub tires were really bad) so we'd have the freshest A6 on the Right Front once again (most turns were left hand). On jack stands it was hard to get under the car and see much but it looked surprisingly OK, so I spent the next half hour fixing the front toe problem - it had almost 2" of toe out. Again, it was pitch dark by now and I was there without our normal crew of Ryan and Brandon, so I didn't see the very obviously badly bent RF Lower Control Arm. I really should have asked for another set of eyes, as this was a major piece of damage that was missed, which was on me. I would have put the car in the trailer at that point and just called it a day.



The broken wheel was obvious, and it failed exactly as it should have considering the massive curb hit the car took. The wheel absorbed a lot of energy as it deformed. Once we had the toe more or less back to zero, it still ended up with the steering wheel at a 90 degree angle to its normal setting (covering up the tach and gauges while driving), but it was getting too late and COLD that I punted and figured "we'd just drive it and shift by ear". We wrapped up our paddock for the night and walked over to the Saturday night NASA dinner and annual awards banquet. We had a great time there eating and drinking and catching up with friends, listening to this "School of Rock" band made up of a bunch of kids. They rocked the house, no lie.



They handed out NASA Texas regional awards for all of the W2W and TT classes, with Amy getting a 3rd place trophy for TT3 while I got 1st for 2013. We wrapped up at about 9 pm and then hit the hotel, exhausted. By the end of Saturday several folks in TT had picked up some speed and we fell from 3rd to 7th fastest, but stayed about 6 seconds ahead of the other two TT3 competitors and had another new track record set (this car's 9th) for the weekend. Here's the end of day Saturday TT results in PDF form.



We rolled out Sunday morning and the entire area was blanketed in heavy fog. You couldn't see 100 feet and traffic on the highway was doing about 40 mph. The fog delayed the first session by half an hour, until the corner stations had enough visibility to see each other. That morning Costas was bugging me to take a closer look at the car and slap on some caliper heat indicator decals at the same time (more on this later), but I was too damned tired to do it.


What's wrong in this picture? The RF wheel should have -3.5° camber but it was more like at -0.5°. This wasn't super obvious to the naked eye

I went out cautiously in TT session 1 on Sunday more as a shake down test than anything else. I was pretty slow but I just wanted to see how the car felt, as I had a feeling something else might be broken. The car had a wicked push in left hand turns, but it was manageable. I came in early and was not all that fast, but the car was in one piece. Obviously the RF lower control arm was badly bent, and we were "missing" about 3 degrees of negative camber. This made the RF wheel go into a slight positive camber setting (see picture above) under load - not good for grip!

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The brake temp indicator strips on Costas' calipers showed how much one caliper got hot in a session after a brake duct hose came loose

I went out again in TT session 2 and was pushing hard for another 1:41 lap, or quicker. I had watched some other drivers doing some CRAZY lines (some of them well outside the marked boundaries of the track) and noted a few places where I could save some time, while still staying on what I considered the track limits. I knew that there would likely be some pushback once people started sharing some of their videos and pictures of cars going waaaaay off course (that did happen later, as predicted). I will always show all of my best competition laps so I stuck with the "conservative line" that did not go around the outside of any curbs, over the line of the marked pit out lane, or using the paved runoff "beyond the paint". This statement will ruffle some feathers, but so be it - I think that we should all stay on the course as marked and not go 4 wheels off to gain an advantage. The TT director and Regional Director met about this and then issued a letter after the event. They noted that all future NASA Texas TT events will have supplemental regulations to clearly define the course limits for the TT group.



So back to the race weekend. I was mired in traffic in TT session 2 on Sunday but I finally got around a TT1 Corvette that held me up for two laps and was good to go. I finally had some clear track and was pushing on hot lap three, hoping to finish the lap without catching the back of the field. About halfway through this lap I noticed two cars slowing rapidly ahead of me - a TT1 Corvette and a TT2 EVO, who were now on their cool down lap. I caught them fast heading into turns 8-9-10. The Corvette saw me at the last second and jumped out of the way to let me by, which opened up the mirrors for the EVO. He tried to get offline in the middle of Turn 10 but it was too late and I was pushing too hard. I had a quick 4 wheels off and on trying to get by him while saving the lap and leaving enough room to pass. Stupid mistake, and nobody got close to anyone, but I shouldn't have tried to go two wide in that corner, even with the point by. Trouble was I could see we were catching the back of the field and knew this was my only shot at a fast lap, due to the early traffic I ran into.



Well crap, 4 wheels off DSQs the whole session for me, and the grass packed up the lower grill so it would have run hot, so I quickly came into the pits. I was on a low 1:41 lap on the predictive timer, too. I negotiated with Amy to let me take another shot and I eventually took two laps in TT session 3, then we performed a hot pits driver change and she took another 2 laps in the same session. Why would we do that driver change? Well honestly we were trying to get out of town early (and skipped session 4). She wanted to get some laps in, but I wanted to try to set another fast lap to secure the win for the day, too. Because in TT sessions 1 and 2 we had nothing but junk lap times. Turns out you are not allowed to swap drivers in a single TT session - we had asked the TT director beforehand and he said it was OK, but he since learned that isn't allowed. Oh well, live and learn.

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Terry riding along with Amy, trying to pass along some pointers

Somehow I still ran a 1:41.5 that day, about a tenth slower than Saturday. And after seeing the damaged front Lower Control Arm I'm shocked we were that close with the extreme lack of camber on the RF corner. Of course if we would have seen the bent LCA we would have NEVER run the car like that on track. That was simply a stupid oversight. Oh well, gotta credit Ford for making a tank of a control arm that took a curb impact like that and still raced all day Sunday! Craziness...


photo by John Roberts

After the 3rd TT session we let the car cool down, packed up the trailer and headed on our 5 hour journey home. We missed the crazy 4th TT session where a lot of records were broken, and one driver made a mysterious 4 second improvement. There was all sorts of controversy that led to an official investigation and new rules regarding track for future events. Didn't affect TT3 so I mostly stayed out of it, but I was getting calls and texts for a week about this. And looking at the pictures and some videos of TT cars after the event, many were clearly exploiting track limits to gain time. Like I said, this is something that will be addressed at the opening meeting next time so there are no magic laps at the very end of the weekend (without any scales checks).

• Vorshlag Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...-MSR-H-011814/
• NASA Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...uston_January/
• Paul Costas' race write-up at WDMS: http://www.witchdoctormotorsports.com/ch215.htm

One thing we didn't have problems with (for the most part) were CELs and traction control faults, yay! I think I had one fuel starve moment but no Check Engine Lights, and the engine ran STRONG all weekend. This is the first time in many months where we weren't chasing CELs, so the busted cats were likely the cause of some of our recent troubles. The motor pulled solid from 4000-7000, but on Sunday without any visibility to the gauges it was hard to tell when to shift. I watched some of our Sunday in-car videos and I was short shifting at like 6200-6500 a lot, and Amy was shifting at around 5000-5500. There was simply no way to see the tach with the steering wheel cocked 90 degrees out and it was hard to discern the RPMs from the much changed exhaust note.



We ran a good old chunk of ballast in the trunk (and were scaled twice at 40+ pounds over each time) to make sure Amy wasn't going to end up light when she ran. We really need to look at a "quick change" ballast system so we can switch the weights between the 2 drivers quickly, as it is easy to forget that on grid. The lighted and switched transponder circuit was much appreciated and we never once made a lap with it turned off or unplugged. Should have done this switch panel years ago (see above left).

I'm glad we made it out of there with as little damage as we did, and was thankful that we could score two class wins and a track record on such worn out old tires (especially the mis-matched set on Sunday). Looks like our 1:41.4 lap time fell right in between the old TT2 and TTA records, but it is clear that we left a lot on the table - since I was able to nearly match my Saturday times on Sunday with a bent control arm and three degrees of missing camber on the right front, so that new lap record is fairly soft. I suspect with better familiarity with the track, better driving and fresh tires this car could have run a 1:39 or so, but who knows? NASA Texas won't run this track configuration again until 2016, and I have no idea what car or class we'll be racing by then, but at least the new TT3 record is safe for two more years. Still can't believe this heavy stick axle Mustang has 9 standing TT3 track records now.



With only 3 cars in class we didn't have enough in TT3 to get Hoosier contingency (you need 5 cars to pay to 1st place and 7 to pay to 2nd) but that's not unusual for this first event of the year, with potential sketchy weather in January. The race weekend went smoothly and the weather cooperated, so we got lucky there. Amy and I both had a blast and talked to probably 75+ people who came by and wanted to see the Mustang closer. The car sounded GOOD and the times were OK. Our yardstick class American Iron (with Spec Iron) was about 3 seconds back, with the top car posting a fastest race lap in the 1:44.2 range.



The wide variety in the TT field was fun to watch, with Costas GT-1 Camaro just accelerating like nothing else. I didn't see him much on track with the 5 second lap time gap between us, heh. Track records were broken in seven classes (TTU, TT1, TT2, TT3, TTB, TTD & TTE), so people were driving fast down the entire roster.

Overall I don't feel like I drove all that well at this event and should have been a bit quicker. The layout in this direction was trickier than I expected, as you really had to respect the pit wall near the edge of the track at the exit of turn 17, and we saw several cars back into that wall in W2W races (mostly Spec Miatas, and always with "help"). Being 5 hours away from us it is hard to get a lot of seat time at this course. compared to the other tracks within 1-3 hours of us (ECR, MSR-C and TWS). I really wish we would have done the Test and Tune event here on the Friday before, which would have let us both get more seat time on this unfamiliar layout. Oh well, don't always get to take that extra day away - especially on the busy month we were having at the shop.

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Post MSR-H "Curb Repairs" and Track Prep

We didn't have a lot of time after we got back from Houston before we had to get ready for another Time Trial type event the following weekend. So we looked at the damage on Monday, explored any potential upgrade ideas, and then bought another stock Lower Control Arm and inner and outer tie rods.



Of course we looked at the Ford Racing 302S/R front LCA with a taller ball joint and new rear bushing, but that was an expensive set of parts ($1300+) that really only made sense if we had the stock rubber rear LCA bushings still on the car. The new Ford Racing bushing is much smaller than the normal beer can sized fluid filled mush, but it is still rubber. We had already replaced both LCA bushings with the Energy Suspension polyurethane long ago. There wasn't a lot of time to evaluate other options, and we were so impressed with how the stock arm failed (non-catostrophic, and that LCA's deformation saved the subframe and steering rack) that we ordered another stock lower arm instead.



The problem was that the new arm came with an all new hydro bushing attached to the ends, which had to be removed. Kyle and the guys spent a couple of hours burning off the old bushing and getting it off the arm, then prepping the stub for the Energy poly bushing, but they got it on and it works like before. The inner and outer tie rod were also replaced, as they were bent. We couldn't know how the $1000 Ford Racing steering rack fared until the next race weekend. One front stainless brake line was pulled a bit too far when the bent LCA was unbolted and it POPPED down (it was preloaded badly) so that line was replaced with another from stock. A couple of V-band clamps that were smashed on the curbing were also replaced, the car was inspected thoroughly by real techs (not me!) and they found nothing else wrong. Another 8 quarts of Mobil1 15W50 and a Wix filter were changed and that "junk" set of old A6 tires on the white wheels were mounted up. That set of tires had 3 race weekends on them and were long past the "good" rubber, but oh well.

SCCA Club Trials, MSR Cresson, Jan 25th, 2014

This was a new event held by the Texas Region SCCA during a normal Club Racing weekend (Double Divisional, Super School, Club Trials) that they called the Polar Grand Prix. The Club Trials event was only being held on Saturday but the low cost promoted several to enter, once the word got out. $75 for 5 sessions and $125 if you didn't have a transponder. All sessions were timed and there would be a "competition" of sorts. We didn't know much more than that, but Amy and I signed up in the first hours it was opened, 3 weeks before this event was to be run. The weather on Saturday morning started out COLD (27 degrees in the morning!) but it warmed up into the low 60s by days end. Amy and I actually towed out to Cresson the night before, got teched by the SCCA Regional Executive Bob Neff, and scored a great paddock spot early.



The SCCA is trying to court new club racers by having a PDX/Club Trials group run at their Club Race weekends. I am very much in support of this and hope they can take the extremely good turnout for this event and do it again, and not as a separate event as they are thinking of doing - to work as a ladder system you have to keep your DE and Time Trial folks running at the same track weekend as the Wheel to Wheel folks. I am going to keep reminding them how well this works in NASA every time they bring up excuses of why its "so hard" to have 30 extra people at a race weekend of 100 drivers.



The entry cap for this event was set at 30 cars so we quietly promoted this to many of our local customers. Of the 28 entries they got about a third of those were Vorshlag customers and testers. Everyone arrived with some track background (for the most part) and there were five NASA TT licensed drivers in attendance as well - me, Amy, KenO, DaveW and Eric.



The reason they kept the entries so low was to keep all of the PDX/Club Trials folks in the same run group, and running the 1.7 mile course at MSR only allows for 30 cars to fit on track at once. And with 26 out there at the same time (we had a couple of no shows - one car broke and another was stuck in an ice storm in Austin) of wildly varying speeds, it got a little crowded. The first Club Trials run session (of 5?!) was a lead-follow at 60% speed with the experience TT folks leading smaller groups to show them the line. It was 32 degrees and there wasn't much grip on the cold and dusty track anyways.



Our second CT session was a bit of a clusterfox, as there weren't any established times to grid cars in order. I went out first and KenO was behind me. We tried to bunch up the field but we caught the back of the group at the tail end of the first hot lap. We were passing 3-5 cars per lap and couldn't get any clear track. In the driver's meeting that followed we more clearly defined point by signals (some folks were confused) and it ran smoothly for the rest of the day.

Now I'm not super familiar with the MSR 1.7 mile course, as NASA TT always runs the 3.1 mile configuration - because we have too many entries show up to fit on the 1.7. With 40-50 TT entries we need the extra course length to spread out and have enough room to drive at speed safely. But most of the 1.7 is part of the 3.1 course, so I knew the basic lines and such - just didn't have any good 1.7 mile course times to compare against from the past. I had run the 1.7 course many years back when we had the BMW E36 LS1, and I remembered some 1:20 lap times from that light, V8 powered race car. So when I saw the 1:23.103 lap from the 2nd CT session I was a little bummed. Still, that was with passing 2 cars in traffic and the car was a bit bouncy.



Stuart and Doug Maxcy from Maxcyspeed & Co were at this event to support their customers and Stuart noticed some rear suspension things on our car. Between my 2nd and 3rd track session he suggested a substantial rear shock compression change (full soft) to allow the car to put power down better. The rear was very traction limited, partially from the old worn out tires and partly from the cold.

I was being lazy and not using the shock adjustments to their best advantage, for changing conditions with the car and track. We had the rear shocks tuned well for new sticker A6 tires being used in warm weather, plus using the full fuel load and extra rear ballast like we run in NASA TT. Since this was SCCA Club Trials we had no minimum weight to worry about that day, so we pulled the ballast and ran less fuel. In addition the used tires we brought didn't have the grip levels of the normal fresh tires we race on, and the track temps went from the high 20s to the low 60s in the span of a few hours. Stuart's calibrated eyeball spotted how the car was behaving from the side of the track, suggested that I use the adjustments of the shocks to help fine tune the car as the track warmed up, and he was right - his tip was much appreciated. It helped us find some of the five seconds that my times dropped from the 2nd to 3rd sessions (track temps and traffic played a part as well)

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continued from above - last one

I led KenO once again and we both got two full hot laps in before we caught the back of the field. We set our fastest times of the day in this session, which was in the high 50°F range.



Well that sure felt a lot better. With a little more familiarity with the course, a little more track temp, two clear laps, and the rear end settled down from the shock change, I managed to drop 5 full seconds in this session. My first hot lap was a 1:19.253 and my second lap was a 1:18.675. Looking at the other race groups, other than a few Formula Mazdas one GT car (a GT2 Corvette with a 1:18.414 on Sunday), this was one of the faster laps run that weekend. That lap felt really good and while the tires were a handful and rear traction was still limited, it was one of the better feeling laps I've driven in a while.

• Vorshlag event picture gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...CCA-MSR-01514/
• Event results: http://sowdivscca.com/raceresults/2014/20140125/

Since they don't really have any classes set-up for Club Trials yet they used SCCA Solo classing and even PAX factors for the results. I think the results kind of speak for themselves on how well that works, heh. Even with a terrible Street Mod multiplier my PAX time was still at the top of the list, seconds ahead of the rest. I was just happy to have the quickest raw time by 4 seconds, which is more than I was expecting. Amy ran in CT sessions 4 and 5 and had fun getting down to a 1:23 lap time. She finished 3rd overall in RAW and 7th in PAX.



Since we were sharing the car I worked with a couple of drivers in sessions 4 and 5 as an instructor. After hopping in with Mark Council in his 18x11" / 295 Rival / AST equipped Mustang I helped him find 2.5 seconds on his lap times. It was just small adjustments to his driving line, pushing his braking zones and actually having him short shift in one spot. Then I hopped in with Jan with her similar 18x11" / 295 Rival / MCS shock equipped Mustang and worked on a few things as well.



Kyle and Brandon from our shop came to offer track support for all of our customers that joined us. Kyle fixed a number of items on 4 or 5 cars as well as kept the Mustang fueled, pressures set, and oil topped off.



Brandon snapped a gaggle of great pictures and we kept many of the Club Trials folks warm and hydrated, as our trailer became the shelter from the wind and sun. All in all this was a great event and I really hope the SCCA can find a way to make this a regular part of their Club Race weekends. I feel that without this the W2W programs will continue to wither and die, and this region has admitted as much openly. We will do whatever we can to support racing in this area, and will be at whatever PDX/Club Trials events that they hold in the state, whether it be SCCA or NASA.

What's Next?

Luckily February is pretty dead - as the weather here in north Texas is nasty and unpredictable this month. It will be 70 degrees one day and 25 degrees the next; luckily we have a climate controlled shop, so we don't get bogged down in the cold or heat. Our annual Vorshlag Open House and SCCA Solo Annual Tech day is going to be held on Feb 22nd, plus we have some customer races and test days for race car builds going on this month, but nothing in our Mustang. Looking at March we have way more events than we could possibly enter. Some weekends have two or even three events to choose from, yikes.

Vorshlag's Upcoming Race Schedule (Feb-March)

• Feb 1st - Cars & Coffee Dallas. We drove the red TT3 Mustang to this event on Hoosiers, parked with the SCCA folks, I was interviewed for a TV show there, and I will cover that in my next post.
• Feb 22, Vorshlag Open House/ SCCA Solo Annual Tech day. Everyone is welcome, come by for a look at the shop and current projects, get some free food, talk to a bunch of racers.
• Feb 22, Open Track Day at ECR. I sure wish we didn't have our Open House conflicting with this event, because we have a lot of customers that will be out there on the 22nd. We might have a technician out there for trackside support anyway.
• March 8-9, NASA @ MSR Cresson. Time Trial will likely run the 3.1 whereas all other groups run the 1.7. HPDE and TT slots are open - sign up now!
• March 21-23, Ultimate Street Car Association, Texas Motor Speedway road course. We will beg/borrow/buy some big Rivals and run this autocross/track/speed stop competition in the TT3 Mustang.
• March 21-23, NARRA race at NOLA Motorsports Park. Man I really wanted to go to this but I promised Jimi Day I'd make his USCA event at TMS that weekend
• March 23, Texas Region SCCA Solo #1, Pennington field. We'd probably be doing this if we weren't already triple booked
• March 22, ChumpCar World Series at Texas Motor Speedway. 12 Hour Special Event, "The Cowtown Grand Prix". We will be there supporting a customer while we also run at this same venue with USCA!?
• March 29-30, Track Guys Event @ Texas World Speedway 2.9. We are signed up and will be at this Mustang-centric HPDE weekend with the TrackGuys crew, running the TT3 Mustang. Should be fun!

Running at TMS road course should be fun with the USCA

So that looks a bit nuts, with too many choices. We can't make all of these but we'll pick at least 3 weekends in March to compete in. We're also knee deep in a lot of customer projects, the FR-S should be kicking into gear, the LS1 Miata needs to make some progress, and I want to get the Rallycross SN95 Mustang started here pretty soon. It is all about time.... even working 12-14 hour days we cannot get it all done. And we cannot bring any more people on board because we're out of room, so my "new building search" is crucial. I'd really like to get some mods done to the TT3 Mustang, if we can squeeze it in. A new rear wing? The wider tires? Maybe a new set of shocks? We'll see what the budget and shop time allows.

Don't forget - our 2013 Mustang GT is slashed to $25K. Please spread the word!

More soon,

[garner]

Originally Posted by Fair continued from above The old X-pipe was removed and the cats were inspected. Yep, both of them were clogged up. Driving over some curb somewhere probably smashed the internal matrix and ruined them both. So they were cut off and the Magnaflow stainless 3" mufflers were acquired (we're a Magnaflow dealer now, in case you guys need anything). We also added 3" V-band clamps and flanges to the header collectors, which made me happy as they are the least leaky type of exhaust junction. On this system we moved the mufflers further back and set them under the recesses made for the exhaust under the saddle style fuel tank. Yes, there is a fiberglass heat shield between the mufflers and the fuel tank, and we added some DEI gold foil reflective insulation there as well. The turn-downs are also pushed further back and now dump just under the axle housing, with the heat of the exhaust not near the axle. We've run the car at two race weekends since and had zero rear axle heat issues. The guys made some custom rear exhaust hangers and the system was buttoned up in less than a day. Ground clearance is still excellent and the sound is... well.... it sounds like a race car now. I certainly wouldn't recommend this for a street car or daily driver, but we don't need ear plugs driving it on track, so it is appropriate. The Magnaflow mufflers should last for years to come, too. Listen to the in-car videos from the race coverage below to hear the sound. There was some weight savings, of course, but also some extra room around the rear axle. We run the ride height at back of the car very low and it was getting tight between the axle tubes and the over the axle 3" pipes under full bump travel. Parts of the old system will be reused at some date on another S197, as that 304SS custom over the axle section still looks great.

Interesting exhaust set up. Wonder how that would sound on mine since it's kinda the same(offroad h pipe and exhaust ends at the end of the over axle pipes, but I have factory manifolds)

[re-rx7]

I enjoy reading your post.

[modernbeat]

Originally Posted by garner Interesting exhaust set up. Wonder how that would sound on mine since it's kinda the same(offroad h pipe and exhaust ends at the end of the over axle pipes, but I have factory manifolds)

There are a couple videos out there of a 302S with a similar exhaust we did.

http://youtu.be/nI3QEhbs_h4

And here's a video of the Vorshlag Mustang with the new exhaust.

Vorshlag Laps With New Exhaust.

[Fair]

Project Update for March 5, 2014: After another extremely busy and record breaking month for the business, another 4 weeks has passed without a Mustang build thread post. I haven't had much "internet time", due to a lot of service/race prep work on customers cars. It got so backed up that I had to pitch in back there a few days, which is never a good sign. I hastily wrote this post, finishing it around midnight after a 12 hour work day, because this is the only time I can go more than 30 seconds without being called on by an employee, customer, PM, text or phone call. We've made some key changes to our red 2011 Mustang, the 2013 Mustang finally sold, and we are in the beginning stretch of 6 straight race weekend stint, including 3 days of racing this coming weekend. That means I will be writing at a furious pace with fewer edits - so if I sound a little loopy, and make some grammatical errors, that's due to the late hour and my compressed writing schedule.

2013 Mustang Finally Sold

Hallelujah! After 6 months of trying (or more? I'm afraid to count) the black '13 Mustang GT sold to a buyer out of state. I don't know if it was the latest of many price drops ($25K, ouch!) or the time of year was just right, but a mere 12 days after I lowered the price on January 31st the phones just all of a sudden lit UP. During a 24 hour period I had the car sold over the phone to an out of state buyer, sold and shown to a local buyer (first back-up), and then after we had 3 additional backup buyers lined up on the phone that same day - and the phones kept blowing up for another 24 hours. We finally just told the rest of the people that kept calling it was sold, before it was gone. We even had people offering $1000 over the asking price after I had accepted the first verbal offer, but we don't play like that, so I sold it to the first person who gave me confirmation and just waited for him to fly in and pick up the car a few days later.



The buyer loved the car when he arrived, then wanted to upgrade it to the full Bilstein StreetPro struts, shocks and camber plates. We had what he needed in stock, got them installed in a couple of hours, took care of the sale at the bank, and then he drove it 1400+ miles home through an ice storm that hit the east coast, with a smile on his face. Weirdest thing... so many buyers appeared during a 48 hour period, I thought I was being prank called at one point. I guess I won't ever try selling cars in December or January again, that's for sure. Probably the magic of Tax Return Season.




Was sad to see this one go, but with 8 personal cars and projects I needed to reduce the fleet a bit and this one just wasn't being used. Now it can be driven and appreciated by one of our S197 Mustang build thread's long timer readers, and with the new suspension and brake upgrades he should have a lot of fun on track.

Rear Flares Finally Happened!

So if you have been reading this Build Thread for the past 4 years you will know that I've complained about the 315mm tires we have run at all four corners are a bit on the small side and lusted for MOAR TIRE. While the "315s are skinny" statement sounds crazy to many of you, remember: we have been racing at 3770 pounds (with driver) in NASA TT3 class, and the "weight-to-tire" ratio isn't all that great with this many pounds and only a 315mm tire.


Typical TT1 C6 Z06 rear tire is a 345mm Hoosier, and these cars weigh around 3150 pounds stock, not 3550+ like our Mustang

Remember: the typical TT1 classed C6 Z06 Corvette (above) in Time Trial is on 18x12" wheels and 345mm rears under stock fenders, with the same power levels (440 whp) or maybe a tick more. And with a 400 (or more) pound advantage to our car, their "tire-to-weight" ratio is very favorable. We cannot run that light without removing large portions of the chassis, and bumping up classes, but have been making due with 315mm tires on a 3770 race weight, with similar power numbers as a stock Z06.


2012 SCCA ESP and NASA TTS wheel/tire set-up on 315/35/18 Kumho V710

Let's back up and cover the tire and wheel upgrades we've made since ditching the 18x9" then 18x10" wheels and street tires of our first 2 seasons, when we were building around STX/STU autocross classes. After a switch to ESP and TTS classes, we started running the 315mm R-compound DOT tires back in 2012 with a Forgestar 18x11" front and 18x12" rear, both of which just fit under the stock fenders (with some tricks out back to clear the 12's and 3 degrees of negative camber in the front to keep the top of the tire under the fender).


Early 2013 NASA TT3 wheel/tire set-up on 315/30/18 Hoosier A6

We have since perfected the 18x11" wheel fitment at both ends of the S197 and realize that, for most racers, a 295mm-305mm tire works and fits best with that wheel size. Fewer tricks are needed to fit the 18x11" rear wheel and that tire width, compared to the 18x12". But for our "ballasted up" Mustang making 420-430 whp, and with as aggressively as I drive the thing on Hoosier A6 tires, we were overheating the 315s within 2-3 laps. So I bought a pair of the widest DOT radial tires made by Hoosier: the 345/35/18 Hoosier A6. They fit the rear 18x12s "well enough" and looked liked they fit the car without any fender mods (but didn't really).



I did four autocrosses with these big 345 rear tires: a Pro Solo, a National Tour and two local autocross. It looked like it almost fit, until you started cornering and loaded up the read axle, and then they rubbed like mad and made billowing clouds of tire smoke. It was rubbing so badly on the rear inner fender sheetmetal that the car would bind up on the tires. It would start to load up in a corner, the tires would rub and slow down the car, unload the suspension and free up, lurch back into cornering then rub/slow down/lurch - rinse and repeat. But man, the traction off the line at standing start events was EPIC, and it cornered VERY WELL right up to the point where the rubbing started. Putting the 315s back on the car was a huge let-down, and I was determined to get them on this car again, eventually.


Failed experiment: 345 Hoosiers made tons of smoke from excessive rubbing under stock rear fenders

Back then we were using much softer spring rates (450F/175R) on the AST 4150s and a panhard rod, which of course doesn't control the rear axle location as well as a Watts Link. So why didn't we try the 345 mm tires out back after we went to the Whiteline Watts and upped the spring rates 3 different times on the Motons? Because it still wouldn't have worked on a road course. We noted that as hard as we pushed the car on TRACK with the 18x12" wheel/315/30/18 tire we still had a little whisper of tire rub, both inboard and outboard. It may have worked in a parking lot speeds, but no way would it have been safe on high speed road courses with long laterally loaded corners and the added speeds/downforce we see there. There's a big difference in some tire rub at 20-50 mph for 30 seconds at a time and then from 60-150 mph for ten minutes or more on track. We played with spacers and got it to a "pretty dang good" compromise spot with very minimal rubbing on the 12" wheels and 315s, but any addition of tire or wheel width would go back to the rub/lurch/unload scenario, which was terrible. And at road course speeds that would quickly destroy a tire and potentially cause a catastrophic failure.

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Ugly cut front fenders at Hallett 2013 clear the now wider 18x12" front wheels

Before the June NASA Hallet event last year we cut the front fenders (a replacement pair of OEM units - the stock front fenders are in my attic, along with the OEM trunk, front bumper cover and hood) to clear a new wider 18x12" front wheel, to make the wheel set-up more "square". We ran it this way for a couple of months and in August of 2013 we finally made over-flares for the front. We made these in our shop using a vacuum formed ABS plastic material just before NASA Nationals last season, and made them big enough to clear a 335mm tire. But with stock rear sheet metal we kept all four corners at 315/30/18 sizes.


"Ugly but Functional" front flares. We say that phrase a lot, I know...

They were not the prettiest things to look at, but they were functional and aerodynamically correct - you want to COVER the entire FRONT of a spinning tire, as that reduces drag, and you want to EVACUATE the rear portion of the tire by leaving it UNCOVERED on the back side. This helps pull air from the wheelwell and undercar areas, increasing brake cooling + engine cooling and reducing lift. This is a trick used in sedan car racing and was easy enough to emulate.


Testing the mega-splitter at ECR, August 2013, days before making the front flares

We added a MASSIVE front splitter to the car at the same time and integrated the front flares/wheel spats into it. I had wanted to flare the rear wheels at the same time, and switch to the 335/345 tire combo before Nationals, but we simply ran out of time (and Amy said NO!). After Nationals I wanted to attack that at our shop, as we've done steel flares as well as wide-body conversions in steel before, such as these cars below (but Amy said NO!).


Left: Boxed flared E30 we built. Right: Widening the OEM flares on this Pikes Peak raced 2005 Subaru STi at Vorshlag

Problem was we just got too buried in customer fabrication work, plus Amy absolutely REFUSED to let us "cut on her car". Yes, even after we made the ducted hood, massive rear wing and mega front splitter... Every other thing we had done to the car for 3 seasons could still be unbolted and replaced with the OEM sheetmetal, but cutting on the unibody was verboten. Plus it would take away our technicians from paying service work, and when you are trying to save $$ to buy a building, every dollar counts. So we had the new front areo and big flares, but no additional tire... we raced it like this at Miller in September on skinny 315s, and TWS in September, and ECR in November, and MSR-Houston in January, and Cresson with the Club Trials in January. ...I simply had enough...


This is just some of the custom bodywork Shiloh has done for us...

When we realized late last year that the all new 2015 Mustang was going to likely be delayed until Fall 2014, and decided to keep the 2011 GT and race it in the 2014 season, I REALLY wanted to do the Big Tire Upgrade. RIGHT. THEN. AND. THERE. But we were too busy to tackle the rear flares, so I called Shiloh at Heritage Collision in Sherman, Texas, who had done such an amazing job on the custom flares for McCall's Z3 LS1 project (above). He worked the rear fender contours to clear that car's massive rear tires, then made front flare sections that he integrated into a carbon fiber hood, then made flared lower fender sections to blend it all in, and even fabricated some little splitter sections for the nose. That car looked AMAZING, so I took him the 2011 Mustang...


Dropping the car off at Heritage Collision in early February - 345s installed and spaced out 1/2"

Amy was NOT AWARE that I had done this, of course, as I knew she wouldn't approve. I figured it would better to ask for forgiveness than permission in this case. So it was done during a very hectic time in the shop, hoping she wouldn't notice the red Mustang being gone for a couple of weeks during the ~5 week break between Race Events we had from Jan 31st until March 8th.



Our shop guys (Ryan, Kyle and Olof) had blown apart the front splitter, front grill block-off plate, bumper cover, and rear wing uprights to have all of the aluminum bits blasted and powder coated (no more rattle can black paint or raw metal), as well as the Gloss "White" wheels (which were to be blasted and powder coated Anthracite grey with a semi-flat clear coat) then we loaded the car in the trailer and I dropped it off at Heritage. I discussed the timeline, budget and look we wanted with Shiloh and he said it would take a week or two. Well in 2 weeks we had our annual Open House and SCCA Tech Day, and I wanted this car to be there, so that was the absolute latest deadline we agreed upon.

Behind The Scenes : Making Custom Steel Rear Flares

Trust me - you don't want to see this kind of bodywork being done on your pretty car. Here's are some pictures that Shiloh was texting me while the rear flare work was ongoing, and my near mental breakdown that ensued. At first he showed me a method (these two below) that might have worked with a narrower tire, if we didn't need the extra clearance for lateral movement of the axle (even with a Watts there is some movement + tire deflection).


Before and After - this was just the outer panel separated, moved out and massaged. "Looks great!"

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But by now Amy was getting suspicious, and I couldn't keep her out of the shop every night she came in (after her day job) to do our accounting work. Luckily, with end of year bookkeeping she was pretty busy and somehow never noticed her car being gone. Now I never lied to her, and if she had asked "where's the Mustang?" I would have fessed up immediately, but I dang sure didn't volunteer the information!



We took it down to the wire, as Heritage needed the full two weeks we had before our deadline to get it bodyworked, painted and buffed. They even painted the ABS front flare sections for us, as the red vinyl wrap job we had done was not sticking well and starting to peel off. Shiloh really wanted to make steel front flares for us, and I wanted him to as well, but we simply didn't have time.



As it was, I didn't get back to the shop 5 pm on Friday, with the car and the many powder coated aluminum bits picked up from Crosslink Powder Coating on the way back (another great resource run by another real car guy). We needed the car assembled for the Open House the next day at 9 am, and still needed to clean up the shop - which was a disaster! Our fabricators and techs have been working nearly around-the-clock on customer race projects for weeks and we had to clean until the wee hours that night.

Meanwhile, as I'm taking the trailer back to our remote storage lot Amy drives up to the shop right after I left. CRAP! I ducked down and hoped she didn't notice me... in the giant red F350 dually with 36' enclosed trailer behind me. See, I was hoping our guys would have a chance to reassemble the wing and front end parts before she showed up and noticed the massive rear flares and missing rear graphics. Nope, she walked right into the shop while four of our guys were standing right next to the Mustang, which had the front end exploded apart on the floor (below) in front of it...



They all looked innocently at the pallet racks or stared at the ceiling while she asks them "Where is Terry going with the trailer???" It took her about 30 seconds to notice the new J-Lo booty on the Mustang, then her jaw dropped. Luckily she really liked the work, but that didn't stop her from calling me and giving me grief. 10 minutes of expletives began, and she really lit it up. I thought was in the dog HOUSE, I tell ya... I was thinking about sleeping in that trailer that night. Finally then she cracked, started laughing, and I could hear the whole shop rolling on the floor. She told me it looked great, and let me off the hook. WHEW! Two weeks of panic and stress were lifted in seconds.



After I got back from dropping the trailer the entire shop was in full "CLEAN MODE". We still had to re-arrange all of the "Stuff" and throw out junk (the scrap guy came by three times and was all smiles), and we cleaned up for many hours that night. I had to help sweep, scrub and mop the floors in the shop, too. Somehow we managed to clean up the messy floors, get most of the ongoing project cars shined up and presentable, get the lobby looking good, and got a few hours sleep before I had to be there at 7 to get ready for the Open House the next day.

Vorshlag Open House + SCCA Solo Annual Tech Day, Feb 22

Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Car-Show...use-2014-SCCA/



This Open House event went even better than the two previous years' did, and we had 100+ people through the shop that day. Dozens came for the SCCA Annual Solo Tech, which saves them 15+ minutes during each of the 9 autocross events that Texas Region SCCA SOLO holds each year.



Lots of our customers came by, and we had tons of food and drinks. Breakfast was kolaches and donuts and lunch was catered Mexican food by Ryan's mom's place, Ojedas. MMM, mmmm it was good! We also had cake, cookies, chips, queso, salsa, and lots of beer.



I never sat down from 7 am until 5 pm, when it all wrapped up, and I talked so much I was hoarse. Lots of people looked at the Mustang's new flares, the C4 Corvette cage we had just built, the Scion FR-S and NB Miata LSx Alpha projects, a customer E36 M3 LS1, among other projects underway.



One of our customers, Tyler, brought his Unimog out that day and rolled up in line for tech. The SCCA tech guys just shook their heads and laughed. He then proceeded to drive up every incline in the surrounding property in front of our shop, giving rides.



All of the Vorshlag crew (9 of us) were there at the Open House, except two. Ryan was sleeping in after pulling a string of all-nighters at the shop the previous week, and Jason was co-driving the vintage 1963 Saab 96 rally car at the 100 Acre Woods Rally that weekend.


Left: Jason at 100 Acre Woods rally - Photo by Alex Wong of Emotive Image. Right: Kyle reassembling the TT3 Mustang

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