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

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Project Update for April 11, 2011: We had a lot going on the past 2 weeks (prep on 4 of our cars and very busy Vorshlag business) but we still managed to make several changes to the Mustang and then autocross it this past Sunday. Let's take a look at the latest round of mods in this post and talk about the autocross in a post to follow.

First up was the Steeda Cold Air kit that finally arrived, along with the SCT Tuner. This combo-package from Steeda was chock Full Of WIN.



The stock 2011 GT's air inlet box is pretty typical - lots of restrictive accordion style tubing, a closed-element air box, a flat paper element air filter, and weird sound muffling chambers in the inlet tube. There was also the separate "sound tube" silliness that piped sound from the inlet track into the passenger compartment. The stock car is so quiet (81 dB wide open, as tested at an SCCA event!) that this helps you hear the choked up engine sound. The Steeda cold air kit consisted of an all new aluminum MAF housing, a new air inlet tube/elbow all the way to the throttle body, a heat shield that tied into the lower air inlet scoop, a larger lower air scoop piece, and the conical/open element high flow air filter. The kit came with instructions and everything we needed to install it.



I was impressed with the craftsmanship. I've made most of the "cold air" kits on my own personal race cars in the past 20 years, but this car looked a little more complicated with the integral MAF housing in the OEM plastic tube. And with a new higher flowing MAF comes the need for a tune - this has been the standard for Mustangs since the earliest MAF equipped Mustangs 5.0L Mustangs I raced in back in college (MY1986-up). This Steeda kit was not an inexpensive kit, and I am leery of high priced parts that are heavy on the bling and lacking in performance, but this was money well spent. The inlet bell for the MAF housing was a beautifully machined and welded part, and much nicer than I had expected to see (or than I would have made!), with a smoothly tapered inlet bell that has to help air flow. The aluminum heat shield was also very well made and fit perfectly to the new MAF housing, lower inlet scoop, and to the chassis.



AJ had the stock parts out and the new bits back together fairly quickly, but Matt and I snapped some pics of the parts and the install while it was going together. He cleaned up the stock inner fender section under the OEM airbox while it was out (I like my engine bays uber-clean), and it all fit together perfectly. Since its STX-class legal and holds in a little engine heat we removed the plastic OEM "5.0" engine cover piece as well - then cleaned up the hoses and looms underneath. Looks good under there and has less clutter. We did not re-install the OEM inlet air "sound tube"; I consider that part of the OEM cold air system, so its STX-class legal to modify/remove it, in my eyes. That stupid tube weighed less than 1 pound and is more of a marketing gimmick than performance anything. Plugged the hole in the Steeda inlet tube with a a big rubber plug and hose clamp. Again - less clutter under the hood.

Will it be too quiet now without the sound tube artificially pumping engine sound into the cabin? Not hardly! This car SOUNDS GOOD now, and external sound testing shows about a 9dB increase in sound at the SCCA Pro Solo (between my Mustang with OEM airbox and Paul M's identical Mustang with this Steeda cold air) 2 weeks back. See the in-car autocross video below for sounds. We'll plug the 30mm hole in the firewall with some grommet plugs, that Paul found and ordered online, when they arrive.



The SCT Tuner was loaded with a custom Tune Steeda developed for Paul's car as well, which has a more linear throttle response for the drive-by-wire throttle body. Paul was the guinea pig on this mod - he bought this same package and had Steeda tweak the tune a couple of times and we just had them load the same tune for our SCT programmer, as I had driven his car with the same cold air and SCT tune and REALLY liked the improvement. Uploading the tune via the OBD-II port was easy, if not a bit time consuming the first time around (its not nearly as quick as say... a COBB AccessPORT upload, but it has a few more customer-tweakable settings, too). The adjustable speedometer feature (for gearing and/or tire height changes) is a nice feature on this programmer, as is the adjustable rev limit. The OEM limiter is around 6800 rpm and I raised it to 7400 for autocross use (quick bursts up to that limit to avoid a 2-3 shift on some courses), which is plenty safe (the new Boss302 has a 7500 limit). Lots of '11 "Coyote 5.0" Mustang racers are revving stock motors higher than that, but I won't push it further. This ain't no M54.



We then put on a heavier part up front - an Eibach 2005-2010 Mustang GT adjustable, hollow swaybar. They supposedly have had a 2011 GT swaybar kit (with 1mm larger front and an adjustable rear bar) coming out since SEMA 2010, but all we have heard after 6 months of trying to buy one is delays and excuses, and I was tired of waiting, so we ordered the adjustable front '05-'10 bar (but not the matching rear, as it wasn't adjustable; we might make our own rear bar at some point to work with some other mods we have planned). Now this front bar is still 35mm OD, which is the exactly the same as the stock 2011 GT front bar, but as you can see the Eibach tubular unit is 3.4 pounds heavier than the stock non-adjustable front unit, so it has to have thicker wall tubing, which means it should be stiffer at the stiffest settings. And it feels as stiff or stiffer than stock in the "middle" setting we started at - but we need to test this properly and post the numbers up. We'll test the settings on the bar on course at a test-n-tune event later this month. I made sure our tech got the bar installed with no bind in the chassis mounts, which I checked to have "pinky finger effort" to rotate with the end links off. Perfect.... well, almost.

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We also switched the 2.5" ID x 200 #/in Hyperco rear springs to a longer 2.25" ID x 175#/in rate Hyperco, and I machined the AST rear ride height adjusters (made for 60mm and adaptable up to 2.5") down to fit the 2.25" ID springs. Problem was there's not a lot of lengths or rates available in 60mm ID or 2.5" ID, but TONS of choices in 2.25". We do this on all sorts of cars when the choices move us to the smaller ID spring. The 2.25" spring is lighter, but costs more than 2.5" or 60mm, and we usually stock and sell 60mm Hyperco springs if possible (most AST struts are made to fit 60mm springs). We have played with no less than 5 different rear springs in the past few months and we finally got a winner in a softer rate with the 2.25" ID that works with the new rear shocks, rate and lower ride height. A lot of trial fitting went into this. Long story short - we now have 3 different rear spring length/rate packages that should please a wide range of the autocrossers and track guys, and we're trying more front rates as well.



The new lightweight WedsSport TC105N 18x9" ET50 wheels arrived from Vivid Racing this past week. I immediately weighed one wheel, and at 17.4 lbs on our scale it came in only 1/2 pound more than the claimed 16.9 lbs, which is better than normal for claimed weights, from our experience. With their high prices its easy to understand the confusion, but upon inspection I noted that the WedsSports were simply a one-piece "flow formed" wheel (like D-Force, SSR, some BBS and others) and not a "forged wheel" as some folks like to think. I mounted the 265/35/18 Toyo R1Rs to this set for the coming autocross weekend and weighed them together; the wheel and tire package came in at a scant 43.1 lb per corner.



Putting these pricey WedsSports on for the first time was a pucker moment - the spokes only cleared the Brembo front caliper by about .040". It was a close one but it works, and we've run with wheels this tight to this caliper in the past. It definitely fits inside the stock fenders with inches to spare - this is definitely NOT HellaFlush. For an autocross car I prefer a narrower track width, as this makes the car easier to navigate (and faster though) a tight slalom and allows the rear differential to work more efficiently. For road course use I'll let the track width push wide as you please, well, hopefully without disrupting aero (which will if the wheels push out past flush).



The wheels are fairly simple but very well made looking, and look damn good on the car, and so does the now lower rear ride heights. We tried these heights on 150#/in rear springs (and even 1/2" higher) and it bottomed the shocks (and nearly touched axle to frame) too often on the street, so we're scratching that one off the list of rates we recommend. The 175#/in rates worked well for daily driving and autocross both, and we're VERY happy with the performance improvements. You'll see this in the autocross pictures in my next post - its finally squatting well under acceleration (from the new ride height + new spring rate + new shock length + new piston and valving).

This WedsSport+Toyo package is now 13.8 pounds lighter per corner than the 56.7 lb OEM 19x9" wheels and tires, and remember: this is both rotational and unsprung mass. That's... just HUGE. We could possibly get the front rotors 10 lighter, too. We'll get the lead out of this Pony Car, by damn! The 18x9" Enkei FP-01s are still mounted with the 265/40/18 Yokohama AD08s (and weigh in at 48.2 lbs, or 5.1 pounds heavier than the Toyo/WedsSport combo) which we'll test back to back with the Toyos at an upcoming test day, and we'll share what we learn here.



We also had AST-USA put in some more compression in the base valving in the front struts, which was very noticeable and more matched the new rear shock valving added earlier. We weighed the AST + Vorshlag + Hyperco bits from the front suspension while it was off, and AJ cleaned up the rear of the chassis which had been covered in rear axle lube (new aluminum catch can and bracket parts are here and will be installed soon).

Costas asked what changes were in store for this coming autocross on Sunday, which he was scheduled to co-drive the Mustang in. I rattled off that we had new rear spring rate (450F/175R) and lower ride heights (14.5" F&R), new front strut valving, new adjustable and stiffer front swaybar. New cold air and SCT tune, with probably +35 whp if not more, a new rev limit 600 rpm higher, lighter 18x9" WedsSport wheels with a slightly narrower track width, and went from the taller Yokohamas at the last event to shorter and stickier Toyos. We also had planned on running 10 psi more tire pressure front and rear. "So... not so many changes?"

Race write-up is next...

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Project Update for April 12, 2011: This is the autocross recap from Sunday April 10ths SCCA event at Lone Star Park.

The LSP site with an asphalt parking lot surface and lots of weird hills and valleys, and the surface comes apart badly if you even look at it funny. Not my favorite place to race but that's where the competition was this week. The Texas Region event workers work diligently to clean the racing line before the runs begin but it doesn't matter much - it starts dirty and ends VERY dirty, with bad marbles evident offline after just a handful of runs.



Still we had lots of parts and set-up changes to test, and this event would have good STX class competition in the form of Chris Ledbetter and his co-driver Brian in the white E36 328is below (VTPP Tester, AST 4200s, car has placed at Nationals) as well as the debut of Brad Maxcy's black E36 328is (AST 5220s, also very fast driver), among others. Costas and I were to drive in STX and Amy in the PAX-factored "W" women's class. We had been placing pretty far behind both Brad and Chris (both driving in Chris' STX Bimmer) so far at the 3 autocross events we've done in the Mustang, and Amy had yet to place well in "W" in the car either. With all of the changes to the Mustang from the last 2 weeks we wanted to see where we now stood.



STX ran in the first heat so we lined up first in the 2 driver lane. Costas was one of the first cars on course, but with cold tires we knew that run wouldn't be his best. Even still, he was hopeful and our times were on par with the class. But he mentioned a loud BANGING that was evident in transitions. Hmm, that was worrisome. I made a run and noticed the same banging up front. Spooky loud. I pulled back around and we ran to the trailer for tools. Asked for a "mechanical" and we pulled the front wheels off. Costas noted a loose wheel bearing nut - very loose. The wheel would rock in-out by 1/4". WTH? That hub hasn't been off in many months (when we installed the long wheel studs).

• http://autocross.com/tr/2011_2_final.htm - Final Results
• http://autocross.com/tr/2011_2_pax.htm - PAX results

We managed to get the 36mm wheel bearing nut sort of tighter (with all the wrong tools) and figured "that had to be the noise". Costas made his run #2, then so did I. Noise still there and VERY loud. We asked for a 2nd mechanical, pulled the front wheels back off, and checked more things hurriedly. Nothing evident. Costas took half of a 3rd run and aborted it from the sounds and a touch of ABS ice mode into one turn (only happened once all day and only in the worst of the gravel). I took a tentative 3rd and felt just as uneasy. We decided it was wise if skipped our 4th runs and avoided any potential damage. Drove the car back to the trailer and began a thorough tear down, hopefully getting the car repaired before the 3rd heat when Amy was to make her runs.



Impressions: My driving had lots of mistakes I can see on the videos, but I felt like the car was handling better than ever before. The brakes finally WORKED again, even on this gravel covered lot. The Toyo R1R tires seemed to like the new, higher tire pressures we were running (42F, 38R) and we ran the shock adjustments much higher per Brian at AST-USA's suggestion. That made the various transitions feel faster (but WOW the noise it was making) and front brake dive (and rear rise) was also down dramatically. The rear of the car was squatting well under acceleration (softer rear springs) and it was putting power down much better, but driving the car still involved varying degrees of wheel spin. Fun, and to be expected of ~400 whp on 265mm street tires. The new Steeda cold air made the engine sounds much nicer and finally audible to the driver, and the higher redline (7400) from the SCT Tuner was a welcome addition - all 3 drivers touched the higher rev limit just a tick on course, so we would have been shifting to 3rd with the original 6800 rpm limit.



Costas and I both noted some understeer at the two 180° turn-arounds, but Amy said it was a LOT better for her, so maybe the swaybar repairs we did fixed that. She said the car pivoted beautifully, which was not what we felt, as we were both resorting to "driving into corners on the brakes" to get it to understeer less at low speeds. At higher speeds the car was very neutral for us, though. All 3 drivers sprayed the tires with water after every run except the very first - we saw ambient temps of 88°F in the afternoon. That seemed to work fine, which was surprising given the weight of the car and the heat.



So before our run heat was even over Costas drove us in his B4C Camaro into glorious down town Grand Prairie (sarcasm) to find an AutoZone. We located a 36mm socket (needed to properly tighten the wheel bearing nut), and a few others we were missing. This allowed us to tighten every nut and bolt on the front suspension, and that's when Costas found the swaybar chassis mounts painfully loose. The brackets were shifting up and down under load, which explained the loud clunking in the slaloms. Wasn't really hurting anything but it wasn't allowing the swaybar to do its job properly, either. I had a talk with our tech here about the importance of tightening nuts and bolts properly on Monday morning, of course.

After we had everything tight and double checked half an hour later we went for a test drive to see that we did indeed fix the glitch. We had maybe 10 minutes of down time when we ate so by the 3rd run heat the car was prepped and ready for Amy. She worked course in heat 2 and we were assigned to course in heat 3, so as I passed her during a worker change and told her "Its fixed - drive hard, go fast, and let us know how it goes!"

She did just that, and put a solid second on the both of us in her last run. The car looked even better in the turn-arounds and she said it pivoted around them perfectly. Damn, wish we could have driven it like that. Oh well, she showed finally us that the Mustang has potential in STX. She won the "W" class and her raw time in her last run (where she ran over the base of a cone) would have placed her 2nd in STX, .3 sec back. She said she was pushing the car harder each run and was amazed at how well it handled transitions and the tight stuff, as well as the brakes finally being right again.


Click these two pics above for in-car video and Runs 1 & 2 result analysis

Since we were working course in heat 3 we didn't get a single picture of Amy driving, and she never turned on the video camera (doh!). Costas and I got a couple of our runs on video, and the quickest is linked above. We were within a few tenths of each other, but Costas only took 2 full runs, and all of our drives were before we fixed the clanging and banging swaybar. As you can see in the "results analysis" (linked here) we were still in the hunt after 2 runs, but the rest of STX class got quicker in runs 3 and 4, as we fumbled in the pits trying to find the source of the banging. Ledbetter had a 47.9 (+1) and his co-driver Brian had a 48.0. Brad Maxcy had a 48.5 and Amy had a 48.3 (+1) and a 49.0 (clean). She didn't have any noises or issues to deal with and all of her runs were quick, but she felt like there was more left.

So we feel like, even as bad as we did in STX class, with the bolts and nuts all tight the car has potential. Amy proved that for us on her runs. Costas and I will autocross the car at an event (and maybe two) this coming weekend and report back again. This time I'll make sure every bolt that has touched on the car is tight, and we'll use Costas' DL-1 to data log the runs.

More soon,

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Project Update for April 20, 2011: So we don't end up with 8 events and a lot of modifications in one thread update, I'm trying to do them more quickly. Over the last week we only did one suspension update to the car, but it took a sizable amount of work over 2 days. Then I took the car to a local autocross last Saturday. That was a train wreck for me, with a course layout that was super tight/narrow, and the Mustang was a bear to fit through the gates. Pretty much wasted a day, but I did get some cold and warm weather data on the Toyos (none of it flattering). Then this week we've located some 18x10" track wheels, bought another set of STX tires to test with, and another new part for the Mustang arrived. Read below for more.



The front suspension on the S197 Mustang is pretty basic stuff: McPherson strut, spring mounted on the strut, with a beefy steel Lower Control Arm (LCA) that has two big rubber bushings. These bushings are very mismatched in size, with the rear unit being as big as a beer can and the front somewhat smaller, but they are at least lined up on the same axis. This means they are single axis of rotation bushings, which is a good place to use poly or nylon materials, especially if the bushings are large, rubber, and soft.

Our durometer hasn't arrived yet so I wasn't able to measure how soft the LCA bushings were, but the OEM rubber depressed easily by hand. Feels like a giant marshmallow, and I read somewhere that it was full of fluid as well. This is great for ride comfort and quiet, but will deflect badly under load, and we had noted some wheel deflection in some close-up pictures of the suspension under heavy loading. Toe change, camber loss - its never good for dynamic suspension geometry and overall handling to have super soft, large, compliant suspension bushings on a car. We began to look at solutions for the LCA bushings and more bits of this chassis months ago.


S197 poly Mustang bushings we now carry (click thumbnails for larger images)

Since there was almost no model coverage overlap between Powerflex (which we already stock/sell) and Energy Suspension, we went ahead did a buy-in with Energy a few months back. The initial stocking order had all of their S197 Mustang bushing kits in it, and they finally arrived a week ago. Energy had no idea if their "2005-2007" Mustang bits and pieces fit the later cars, so we bought everything to check for ourselves. We have been testing these bits on our 2011 and I can report this so far: Their front LCA kit works on the '11 GT, as does the track bar kit (panhard bar bushings), and it looks like the upper rear control arm kit might work (but we might go another route there). The shifter bushing kit most certainly does not fit the new Getrag 6-spd on the 2011, however.

Poly LCA Bushing Install - http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Instruct...y-LCA-bushing/



So the lone modification we did to the Mustang last week was the bushing replacement on the front LCA. Let me tell you up front - this was not a quick, easy or fun job to perform. Our tech AJ fought with this install for part of 2 days, and we had the right tools, a lift, a press, had all done poly bushing installs many times - everything stacked in our favor. The OEM Mustang front LCA bushings (especially the fluid-filled, gigantic back ones) are some of the nastiest I've ever seen.



Just getting the LCAs out of the car took a good bit of work. The front bushing bolts are blocked by the giant electric power steering unit, which had to be unbolted and slid forward (he left the steering shaft installed). Even then the bolt barely came out. For the bushing swap, we followed the Energy's instructions. This says to "apply heat to the outer shell", to break the bond of the rubber to metal, but we resorted to cutting and burning the bushing out of the outer sleeve. Then cut the bushing remnants from the inner sleeve (both sleeves are re-used). Nasty, messy work. The damn fluid was under pressure, too. We used heat, then fire, then drills and a saws-all. Maybe spent 5+ hours getting the first LCA done. The second LCA went a lot smoother...



This time AJ and Matt teamed up and used more heat and brainpower than we did the first time. With the LCA held in the vice, one of them used the torch on the metal while the other pulled on the bushing housing (with a water bottle nearby to put out the small flash fires that flared up). This process took some time but eventually, with enough heat and pulling, the outer sleeve pulled clean off the bushing. No time wasted cutting the bushing up or cleaning up the outer sleeve. The inner sleeve worked almost the same way, with careful heat and pressure.



The inner sleeve has a knurled section that has to be sanded off, as the bushing slides over that when its installed. We also went the extra step and, after the bushing was pressed into the outer sleeve (only) we drilled a hole and tapped the outer sleeve for a grease zerk. Then installed the inner sleeve (which can stay pressed onto the LCA the whole time). Now we can go back and grease the bushings easily - to keep them from squeaking later (a common complaint on poly bushings when the original grease gives out). We don't show the front bushing in this install gallery but it was smaller and easier to swap.



After a quick check of the toe (nothing changed) AJ and I loaded the Mustang into the trailer by 8 pm Friday night, ready for the autocross the next day.

April 16th NTAXS Autocross

We had found a local autocross on Saturday I could attend (co-driver's Amy and Costas were both out of town) so I tried to enter on Thursday... but it was full at 65 entrants already. I said as much on FB and within 2 minutes (gotta love the internet) had a friend willing to sell me his entry (thanks Jason!), so I was in. NTAXS is what remains of an S2000 autocross club, and they cater to mostly S2000 and Miata drivers. This event was to be held at Texas Motor Speedway bus lot (slick sealed asphalt I've autocrossed on at 40+ events in the past, so I know the surface well), and normally Jarrett J sets up their courses - who does most of the local autocross courses for other clubs as well (and does an excellent job).



So I towed out there early and it was pretty cold in the morning, mid 40's and 10-20 mph winds. The surface was going to be slick, but it was predicted to get into the mid 70's that afternoon. With 4 runs in the morning and 4 more after lunch, I'd at least get some varied track temperature runs on the Toyos. Walked the course with Chris Ledbetter and we both groaned at the extreme tightness of some gates and oddly tight corner layouts... this course was made for a NARROW car. Sure enough, another course designer had set-up the course (his first), an S2000 driver, who ended up hitting cones on 4 of his 8 runs himself. Lots of DNFs, lots of cones felled, etc.

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So long story short, the wider Mustang wasn't well suited for this course. At all. I was driving my ass off and just could not get the car to put any power down on this cold, slick surface. The uber-tight turn-arounds were also killing time, too. The tires didn't work worth a damn in the cold temperatures, yet after my first 4 runs (which are run in quick succession) the tires were badly overheated - front and rear. Tire pressures crept up by over 10 psi. Yikes. Another Toyo equipped STR Miata had similar troubles - no grip - and their tires made equally loud noises compared to the others (and they were uncharacteristically off the pace).



Watching cars in the 2nd heat of the morning, while I was then working course, they looked quicker as the track temperature began to rise. Sure enough, Ledbetter and Ken O were both running almost 3 seconds quicker than my heat 1 times. Not good, but not surprising.

After the lunch break the temps were in the 60's for heat 3, when I ran again. This time I moved my spray bottle, air gauge and gear over to the exit of the course, where I'd have about 60+ seconds between runs waiting in a short line, to pile out and spray tires/check pressures. Luckily I had some help this time (Ledbetter's co-driver Sherrie) and she bled tire pressures down while I sprayed and sprayed the quickly overheating Toyo R1Rs between runs. I held up the flow into the start line a bit, waving them around, but these tires were just boiling hot after each run - even with ambient temp still in the 60°F range. Rear wheel spin was still ridiculous but with lower pressures (dropped to 35 F/32 R for this lower grip lot) I could at least get some forward motion going on these runs. Still had some push in the tight turn-arounds but with this back-to-back run format there's no time to make real set-up changes (other than pressures and shock knobs, which I did). To me, running an event "the SCCA way" (with time between runs to make adjustments) makes for a more useful use of the time.



My 4 afternoon runs were 2 full seconds faster than my morning 4, which is an unusual gain for me at this site, even over that much ambient/track temperature change. I guess after 23 years you'd say I'm "a seasoned autocrosser" and don't tend to pick up huge amounts of time after my first 3-4 runs, so I chalk that 2 sec gain up to the set-up changes (lowering tire pressure), tire spraying (lots of water!), and warmer track temps. Still, I was well off the afternoon pace. Ledbetter's later 4 runs got .8 sec faster than earlier, and Ken O was almost 1 sec quicker as well. That left me still pretty far back from both...

• Pictures: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...XS-TMS-041611/
• Results = http://www.s2000.org/nts2koc/autox/2011_0416.htm

When I checked times on the computer and print-outs throughout the day there were only 3 cars in class 3, which I led to the end. It appears some Honda looks to have been moved into the class. Who knows? I couldn't hear a thing from the announcer that was useful - just a bunch of clowning. Just look at the the times from Chris Ledbetter (STX BMW 328is) and Ken Orgeron (STU legal E46 BMW M3), the only other competitive STX and STU RWD cars. They were both on different tires (Chris on 255mm RS3s and Ken O on 285mm Dunlops) and ran in hotter times of the day (heats # 2 & 4) but both of them crushed my times... Ledbetter was 1.7 sec quicker and Ken was 1.1 quicker. I worked course when they both ran and they looked so much more stuck down - still skating somewhat on the slick TMS surface, but not the excessive wheel spin and loudly squalling tires like the Toyos were doing on the Mustang.

Lessons Learned: My times on that tight-assed course were a bust, but I learned that Toyo R1Rs are not all that in the cold, yet they can easily overheat - even in cooler temperatures. I won't make a run on these ever again without massive water spraying afterward. We'll get more accurate (pyrometer) data on this phenomenon at the big tire test we're going to do in 2 weeks. I left my video camera mount at the shop, so I couldn't take any in-car video - which would have been good for a laugh. We now have an extensive "trailer load list", with this and many other items listed and checked before each event. Also, bring a co-driver or find a helper at autocross events that have back-to-back runs like this, if you hope to check tire pressures and spray tires between runs, or if you'd like to make even the smallest of set-up changes. Lastly - know who the course designer is up front, or find a course map before you go to the trouble and expense of making an event. The NTAXS event folks always put on a great event, but this particular course really didn't work with this 71" wide car (several other "wide car" drivers said the same).

What's Next?

The latest things we're working on include finding some man-sized track wheels (18x10" or wider) and better track-worthy tires (not street tires). Not wasting any more time running NASA TTB class on skinny street meat with the rest of the class on wider Hoosiers. We've finally stumbled upon some 18x10" wheels that came off of a GRAND AM Mustang FRC500, shown below.



I've purchased seven of these 18x10" Forgelines but I need to get them from North Carolina to Dallas, TX - anyone that wants to make some $ delivering the wheels from I-95 in NC to I-20 in Dallas, please PM me. UPS is pretty spotty on delivering wheels to me that aren't boxed properly (these will likely have tires) so I'll either try to find space on an existing traveler's truck or call a freight company. Thanks!

We'll check, measure, and possibly rebuild these 3-piece wheels after they get here and hopefully they fit the 2011 with some wider tires. I'm going to try the 275mm Continental slicks or something similar (R6), which will allow us to stay in TTB and hopefully lower lap times a good bit.



We also got in a set of 265/35/18 Hankook RS-3 tires to test with in STX. I'm not too fond of the Toyos after that fiasco last weekend. Figured since we have 2 set of 18x9" STX wheels, a private auto-x test coming up, and the Toyos and Yokohamas, why not try the Hankooks at the same time? I've even managed to borrow a set of 18x9.5" wheels with 275/35/18 Dunlop Star Specs mounted... we'll test those and ponder those numbers as well. This will be as scientific of a test as we can manage: durometer, pyrometer, data logging, and timers with 3 competitive drivers over many runs. I will share this test as a tech article. Yes, GRM does a very nice series of autocross tire tests almost every year, including one on the "140-200" hot street tires, but they always seem to use light, small cars with narrower sizes than the 265mm we need. And from the rumors I've heard some of the ultra-small sizes have "unique compounds" that are softer than the wider tires we use have. Our autocross data seems to sometimes prove some long standing data inaccurate, which is mostly based on the narrower sizes. So....we'll see. May the best tire win!

Last but not least, the APR GTC-300 CF wing arrived yesterday.



I'm working up a set of stands that will fit the Mustang and another to fit the E30. This wing could be used at track events like the UTCC in July (E30?) or for NASA TT events (Mustang). On the Mustang, in TTB I'm already taking a +4 point hit for a "non-OEM wing configuration" (the OEM optioned rear cosmetic wing delete), so with this carbon 6 foot wingspan perched up above the roofline, I will bloody well get my 4 points worth.

Sorry if I seem a bit grumpy in this post, but well... I am a grumpy old bastard. The bushing install made a total mess of the shop and took longer than it should have. At least we know the shortcuts for this one, now. And I can't disguise my disappointment in the results from the autocross, and the course layout was far from my favorite. I'm sure the predominantly S2000 & Miata guys loved it, as it worked great for those cars. And being that the club caters to those cars, I can't fault them for that.

Until next time,

[Fair]

Project Update for May 9, 2011: So since my last post we've learned a lot, made significant changes in the set-up, found a ton of time on autocross courses. And we've decided to never track the Mustang again.

*** No more NASA TTB for the Vorshlag 2011 GT! ***

I know some of you will be disappointed to hear this, but please let me 'splain.

First, dual purpose autocross/time trial cars are always at the mercy of one set of rules, and that was very much the case here. Building around NASA TTB was severely limiting our choices in the STX autocross class. Over time I've come to realize that NASA has put this car into a poor base class (TTB) and with the high base weight (3770) its saddled with + the "points" system for modifications, it is crippled into uncompetitiveness in TTB or TTA, and cuts out fully half of the available suspension and power mods we could legally do in STX. No two ways about it - we cannot get enough tire under the car in TT for the weight it has, nor can we get anywhere near the power-to-weight limit and still stay within TTB, or for that matter, TTA.

I had thought about buying wider 18x10" wheels and going to Hoosiers for TTA, but the numbers just don't look very good. The typical TTA type cars will all be hundreds of pounds lighter, and this car simply cannot get there with the points left for that class. I'm not blaming anyone or going to stop racing in NASA TT, mind you, just coming to the realization that this chassis isn't classed or suited for TT.


We will run our 2011 GT in TTB (or TTA) no more...

The ruleset in the SCCA's Street Touring category, however, allowed us to do SO much more to the suspension and horsepower mods on this chassis than NASA TTB or even TTA allows, which is pretty funny considering STX is one of the slower ST category classes. STU and STR are both faster, and sometimes ST and STS are as well - STX itself could not only be the slowest ST class, but is often the slowest class at a given autocross event. But hey, its a different ball game in autocross, and a different set of rules. Its not like the 2011 GT is going to be an overdog in STX, not hardly, but it has a much better chance there than in TTB. Took me too long to finally come to this conclusion.

We came to this realization over time, after running the car at several track events this year and after looking at dozens of cars in TT classing. Just last week after a friend asked us to help him work up the TT classing for a 1998-2002 Camaro LS1 car. This car - which has a similar stock power to weight ratio as the 5.0L powered S197 - has a base class of TTD* (TTD +7 points) and a base weight of 3439 lbs, allowed to run fully 331 lbs lighter. After some more searching we quickly realized that every iteration of the S197 Mustang (its classed in 4 base classes, depending on year and engine) is fighting a losing battle in TT due to poor base classing compare to this otherwise very similar Camaro, among other cars - like the TTB BMWs that are currently winning that class handily. We helped him put together a TTC build sheet for the 4th gen LS1 F-Body that looked pretty unstoppable, and on paper (and from personal experience owning/racing in these) it would be faster than we could hope to get our 2011 GT in the "faster" TTB class. Just one example, but you get the idea.

Building for TT competitively means you need to be able to hit the power-to-weight max for the class, and still have enough points for a large enough R compound (Hoosier) tire for your (stipulated by NASA) given minimum chassis weight, and the '11 Mustang just doesn't work out that way no matter how you build it. Not trying to say these cars aren't fun and fast on track - they are - just that for NASA TT, they are too far out of the hunt to be not worth the expense, the risk, the effort, or the limitation to our STX prep any longer.

Second, Time Trial use with a new $35K car, that is still under the factory drivetrain warranty, is unwise. Tracking any car you cannot afford to write-off after an accident is pretty short sighted, and since I cannot control all of the variables that can cause an accident on track (other people's fluid spills, others' diving mistakes, etc), this car is going strictly to autocross/street duty. I've seen some nasty crash videos lately that made me re-think tracking heavily in this the cage/rollbar-less car. I tell friends and customers literally every day this same mantra - don't track your only street car, or any car you're making payments on, or any car you cannot afford to crash. And having a full cage in a street car is not safe without a helmet.

But look at it this way - pulling this car out of NASA TT will let us concentrate on making a competitive shot at STX class, which hasn't seriously been attempted in a V8 RWD car like this. This also unleashes many potential mods we couldn't do because of TT points, and this car looks more favorable in STX after we found some MAJOR performance gains in set-up changes in the recent autocross test-n-tune event (see below).

I am already looking to acquire another S197 chassis for a competitive W2W track car, in a class that is much more balanced with similar cars like the 4th gen F-Body. If you know of a 2010 Mustang V6 or GT that is a salvage title/flood car/affordable car, please drop me a line. That's a whole different story for another day, another thread.

Latest Mustang Mods

We've done two things in the past weeks to the Mustang. The night before the Test event (see below) we built a fixed seat bracket and the 2nd Cobra Suzuka kevlar race seat was finally installed. So there's another 30 lbs dropped. Its a fixed mount floor bracket that puts the passenger Cobra seat as low and far back as we can get it - the passenger sits almost 2" lower than the driver's side and even tall passengers can't reach the firewall with their feet. Perfect. Since we're not tracking it anymore, nobody can complain that we have fixed back seats in a track car without a roll bar - for parking lot events it matters not one iota. Car's don't flip over in parking lots.



We've also taken all of the NASA decals and class/extra number markings off the car, and although the de-cluttered look is certainly appealing, its only temporary. I spent an evening cleaning the car up after these were removed, using the clay bar to get the adhesive off and getting the car free of cone marks as well. Long overdue. We're still looking for the right "Vorshlag theme" to apply to this and our other 4 race cars, so graphic designers that want to show their stuff, please send me a note. Thanks.

This got pretty long so I'll cover the Test-N-Tune results below.

[Fair]

Project update for May 10, 2011:

So, back to autocross performance of this 2011 GT. To say we have been struggling with the car in STX this season is an understatement: We've been getting beaten badly at both Regional and National SCCA events. The car started with off-the-shelf AST coilovers, our camber plates, 18x9" wheels, a 265mm street tire, and we just started autocrossing it. We've made a lot of updates since then but the results haven't been improving much. Sure, its faster, just not remarkably so. From day one we've been fighting to keep the rear tire spin under control - it was always a real motherf*cker to drive in a parking lot. As in - harder than anything I've autocrossed in the past decade. Rear traction under acceleration always severely limited every aspect of an autocross run. We also fought some other issues, but it always drove like it had 600 whp and 225mm mud and snow tires. It didn't matter how smooth you were on the throttle - it was always in a constant state of power oversteer, but we just came to accept that.

Costas, Amy and I got used to dancing that sideways dance, tip-toeing on the throttle at every corner exit, for months. On a road course (where you are in higher gears, and usually either WOT or almost completely off throttle most of the time) it was much easier to deal with, but in an autocross situation - where we are using part throttle so much more often than full throttle - we're slipping and sliding around like a greased pig. Also, on wet road courses it was also VERY difficult to control the back end of the car, and I had lots of oversteer issues in slow corners at both MSR-H and HHR in the wet.

April 29, 2011 - Riverside Annex Test-N-Tune

• Pictures: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...-Annex-042911/

Come to find out, we needed another set of drivers that hadn't been driving it since day one to give us some much needed perspective. Another set of eyes/hands/feet to see the issues clearly. We got that and more at this private test day on April 29th. Todd F set up this event with AST-USA and we got the invite, as did 5 autocross cars. This was an intense day of testing, on concrete, with AST's shock valving trailer on site to make valving changes to test and verify on the spot. Couldn't have asked for a more ideal situation, and we're thankful Todd and AST let us join them. We brought lots of tools: DL1 data logger, Chase cam video aimed at the front tire, timers, durometer, pyrometer, and more. This degree of testing on this car was long overdue, and much information was gained - I'm still sorting through the data. I'll give a highlight of what we learned in this post and follow up with more data and video as time permits.



The Course

The site was the Riverside Annex, and the area was the 4-10 split, and the surface is concrete. The course laid out was typical for our Test-N-Tune events. It was 30 seconds in length, with a constant radius sweeper on one end, a decreasing radius on the other, with one long side of slaloms (60' spacing) and big offsets on the other side's length. The Mustang was only at WOT for maybe 2-3 seconds per run, so it was not a power course. To simplify testing it was run as a continuous circuit, with a start/finish line where we could mark consecutive laps, and each driver usually made 3-4 laps at a time with a running start. This minimized starting/launching variables, minimized driver learning curves, and made for quicker testing. So the driver would make a half lap before the start, then lap/lap/lap, then come in to look at times, adjust pressures, check data, and we'd shag any cones knocked down.

We used to hold 2-3 of these private Vorshlag autocross test-n-tune events for our own cars and VTPP testers every year, but haven't held one in 2 years, and it has showed. Our DSP run last year in the E46 was a train wreck, as was our untested E30 autocross set-up at the 2010 GRM challenge. Its hard to learn enough in a 4 run autocrosses to make speedy set-up progress or test things back to back, but when you can make 70 runs in a day (like we typically do at our test-n-tune events), you can learn and test a lot of variables much more rapidly. We had about 60 runs logged in the Mustang at this event, and we learned an enormous amount in only 6 hours.



So we got down to the site at around 9:30 am on that Friday, quickly unleaded the trailer, and helped set-up then mark the course - half of which was already up when we got there. We had 3 sets of wheels and 4 set of tires we had on hand to test (we ran out of time and didn't get the Hankook RS3s mounted or tested that day), plus we wanted to try some new shock settings and maybe even new base valving. As anyone running in Street Touring knows, there are a LOT of tires in the 140-200 treadwear range to test, and for this particular class & car there are at least 7 different potentially competitive tires we could choose from. We have very limited outside test data to rely upon for this somewhat unique STX car (heavier and more powerful than anything else run in ST so far) and max tire size (265mm), as we've been running in other classes (on Hoosier Rs) or on 245mm tires in STU for other cars in the past few years. Also, the ST tire tests done in GRM the past few years have been on smaller and lighter cars (Miatas and Civics), and the tires that are fast on those don't always "Scale up" to the bigger and more powerful cars like our 3600 pound mustang with 400 whp.



Baseline Set-up Testing

Before we could start putting the various tire brands to the test, we needed to play with a few things on the baseline set-up, and make the big shock adjustments. Before that, we had to get the driver familiar with the course, the site, and the existing set-up. A quick note about the existing setup: It has been a constant blur of changes, with never more than a few runs without some variables changed radically. That's pretty much a nightmare. We have never been to an autocross event where at least 3 or more major things had not been changed. Costas would jump in the car to make his run and if we were lucky, Amy and I might get a few miles around the block to test the latest round of changes. At the last event Costas drove the car at he had to quickly learn to drive with these changes: new Tires/Pads/Wheels/Front Swaybar/ECUmap/Coldair/etc. Whew! We were all very much looking forward to getting more acquainted with the car with a lot of runs today.

We came with 2 drivers, myself and Costas, but I had just run a LeMons endurance race the weekend before where I think I fractured a rib (3 weeks later it is still very painful). Long story short after one half of a lap on the 30 second autocross test course I was doubled over in pain and out of the car for the day. The race seat was digging into the injured rib on left turns, so this meant that one more variable would be removed from our testing - the driver. Costas took over as the main test driver for the day and I was on stop watch/tire pressure/durometer/camera duty. This would actually speed up our testing, as one driver could minimize the driver learning curve more quickly than two, and he's already shown to be super consistent, and we've typically been no more than .1 sec apart at most events.



So Costas ran half a dozen warm up laps to familiarize himself with the car and course, and his times quickly stabilized to within .1 sec between most runs. We then started "Baseline testing" the shock settings and tire pressures on the Yokohama AD08 tires, which are a very known quantity for us having run them on another ST car in 2009 and at most events this year on the Mustang. We also had Brian Hanchey and Stuart M of AST-USA on hand to closely watch the car as Costas got acclimated to the course and the Yokohamas, and Brian noticed something weird going on straight away. He made some shock adjustments and the car was a tick quicker, and we made some tire pressure adjustments (trying some radically new pressures) and found a few tenths more, but it was still the usual handful to drive.

Hanchey then hopped in and took a few laps, to see how it felt first hand (invaluable), fought it the whole way, then hopped out and said "How in the F*** are you DRIVING it like this?!!" We then asked Stuart to make some laps and he felt the same way, and has a 2006 GT that he daily drives and tracks as well. Later that day, former F Stock champion Casey Weiss took a few runs in it also; he's been running in S197 cars the past 3 years in F Stock. Same observation - the throttle is WAY too sensitive, car is too hard to drive.

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