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Fair · 08-16-2013, 02:23 PM

Project Update for May 18, 2012: We've made some additional changes to the car and had an autocross since my last update after the TWS NASA Time Trial event. After we received the new Vorshlag camber-caster plates and the re-valved Moton Club Sports, we scheduled time to install all of it onto the Mustang, then went looking for an event to test the new set-up at...

New Parts for our Mustang

The newly revised Vorshlag camber-caster plates were finally complete at the electro-plater a week ago and after we fulfilled customer back-orders, we built a set for our own S197 Mustang (shown below).

I was looking forward to the much easier camber adjustment these new plates would allow us. Plus we could potentially use the added range of positive caster, if we felt the need to add more than the +6.4° the car came with stock. The next bits that were finally ready to install were the Moton Club Sport 2-way coilover shocks. The AST 4150 prototype coilovers had served us very well the past year, but we were really pushing the envelope on grip levels in an S197 Mustang with 315mm R compounds at all 4 corners. Adding compression adjustment would be a tuning improvement and the additional fluid from the remote reservoirs would also help stabilize performance on longer track stints.

These Motons had been purchased a while ago and were a bit unique in that they were built before the Moton acquisition and were an old design. The front struts had lower mounting flanges with massively slotted upper holes, which are not part of the current Moton S197 spec. I'm not a fan of slotted mounting holes as it reduces wheel/to-strut clearance and can allow the lower setting to slip under hard cornering. So after test fitting the front struts and new VM plates to check the available camber range (more camber travel than before), Ryan filled in the slotted holes.

There was enough range in the camber plates and strut tower opening that we could actually use the stock sized upper strut mounting hole on the Moton struts, so the slot was filled with a steel "slug", fully welded, then ground smooth (on all four slotted holes). Again, this isn't something that needs to be performed on this S197 strut any longer. Moton-USA also installed custom valving and their new DDP digressive pistons for some extra rebound force at low speeds.

Click to see the full sized dyno plots for these. Left = front struts, right = rear shocks

Well, if you know much about dyno plots, those actually make a LOT of extra rebound force at low shaft speeds! That area from 0-2 in/sec shaft velocity is crucial in both autocross & track use, and being able to alter those numbers to this extent with the turn of a knob makes for better racing performance and a much more comfortable street ride after rebound is turned down. These DDP pistons are evil - we had them in the AST 4150s on this car before and loved them! Now with these double adjustables we can adjust low speed compression as well, for more tuning ability.

Vorshlag's Step-By-Step Moton S197 Install Gallery - http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Instruct...stall-Mustang/

Installing the Motons and their accompanying remote reservoirs, then aligning and corner balancing the Mustang, took the better part of ten hours. About two hours of that was the fabrication work Ryan had to do on the slots, but that's still eight solid hours of install and set-up work. These were far from a "just take it out of the box and bolt them on" affair - just like all remote reservoir shocks, which add their own mounting complications.

The front strut installation was relatively straightforward and didn't require any cutting or surgery since the hoses were long enough to route under the frame rail next to the brake hard lines. This allowed the remotes to mount right up into the engine bay with no fuss. The struts were bolted up to the Vorshlag plates with stiffer 550 #/in Hyperco springs (up from 450 #/in) and went in fairly quickly. Of course we fabricated custom front and rear reservoir mounts, like we've done on some other installs here recently. These brackets bolt to existing factory holes and keep the remote reservoirs away from engine heat, but keep the compression knobs accessible.

The rear shock on this Moton kit is a standard for race cars - an "eye-to-eye" shock. That means it has a spherical eye mount on both ends, unlike the stock shock which used an eye lower and pin upper mount. To make it fit the S197 chassis without modifying the upper mounting hole, we found some "eye-to-pin" adapter mounts made for the S197 from Ford Racing. These mounts bolt to the upper eye mount, along with some bushing adapters from Moton, and then slide into the hole in the stock sheet metal. The lower eye mount also has bushing adapters (included in the Moton kit) to fit the stock lower hole.

We had several options for routing and mounting the rear shocks' reservoirs. I wanted them away from exhaust heat/rocks/rain/debris and since there is no spare tire with this car, I decided we should mount them in the spare tire well inside the trunk. We routed the hoses through sheet metal, so there was some cutting involved with the rear reservoir pass-through hole. This is the first cutting or drilling we've had to do to the chassis, so we took great care (Amy does not want us cutting or drilling on her street car!). We like using these 2-piece "Seals-It" brand grommets for reservoir mounting. They can be unbolted and the entire reservoir can pass through the hole in the chassis when removing the shocks, without having to discharge the nitrogen and remove a hose. Even with "quick connects" (a very costly option) you still have to discharge the nitrogen in a monotube shock with remotes. If installed the way we did them, you don't ever have to discharge the pressure and potentially lose fluid when removing the rear shocks. We tested the fit of these seals at the autocross in the rain and not a drop made it into the trunk. Perfection.

Other New Bits Coming?

While we were doing this Moton CS install, AST Holland was posting Facebook pics of the new and improved but much-delayed AST 4150 coilover strut housing for the S197 Mustang. They let the cat out of the bag (or the wooden shoe out of the closet?), so I am going to repost at least one picture. Now we could be seeing the first 4150 test sets for this S197 chassis, the BMW E36, BMW E46, and the Subaru BRZ at Vorshlag before too long. We will be contacting local Dallas/Ft. Worth testers (so we can install them here, to verify that everything fits perfectly) for all of these cars when we have the first 4150 shocks on hand. Once we've verified these fitments, AST-USA can have AST Holland proceed with full scale production. Don't hold me to any dates, because so far I've been failing miserably on ETAs for these shock models.

Speaking of overshot ETAs on new products, we finally have a gaggle of D-Force 18x10's for the S197 chassis now in hand. There have been a dozen sets sold and shipped so far and I've been seeing pictures on social networks of them on cars - very cool. We only have a few Flat Black sets and plenty of Silver sets in stock - give us a buzz if you are interested. They were 19.5 lbs exactly when weighed here, just as predicted.

continued below

Fair · 08-16-2013, 02:24 PM

continued from above

Autocross Test - NTAXS Event #3

With the Moton Club Sports and new camber-caster plates finally on the car, it was time to test them out before switching to Hoosiers the following week. With the Moton install completed over Thursday and Friday (May 10th and 11th), the car was loaded onto a trailer and Amy and I autocrossed it on the 12th. This NTAXS event was a non-SCCA club that is run by the SCCA regulars, with the same course designers we see at Texas Region SCCA events. They used the same sealed asphalt "TMS Bus Lot" site we test at often. They do have twice as many runs in a given day (4 morning + 4 afternoon runs), so it's great event for testing.

Results: http://www.vorshlag.com/documents/NT...results.htm#3R
Photo and Video Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...XS-TMS-051212/

The day started off with a freak rain storm that wasn't on any forecast or radar and caught everyone off guard. Nobody was set-up for wet conditions, including the event organizers, and a small percentage of people left the event after getting soaked during the course walk-through. They delayed the start by 15 minutes and got all of the equipment dried out, while attendees dried off and made adjustments for the rain. The Mustang was still running on the 18x11/18x12 Forgestars mounted with tread-less 315/35/18 Kumho V710s, so we knew we'd be slipping and sliding until it dried out - if it dried out.

Luckily, we worked the first heat when it was totally soaked and continued to sprinkle a bit more, but when we made our four morning runs in the second heat it was beginning to dry. It was so wet somebody still managed to take out a timer at the finish. This club is a bit more informal than SCCA and you can grid up in paddock on your own, with the folks more experienced with this club wisely waiting until the very end of heat 2 to make their runs. Then they take 7-8 cars to the starting area at a time to make all four runs back to back. I wasn't so smart and was one of the first cars to the line, driving in slopping wet conditions. And yes, we left the wing on the rear since this wasn't an SCCA event.

It was wet as can be when I ran and my 4 runs and they were all terribly slow, including a spin on my first run. I have video from these runs, but they aren't worth watching. Amy was smarter and ran a bit later in this heat when it was quite a bit drier - and she was 5 seconds faster than me in our morning runs. The people running at the end of heat 2 were getting an even drier course and were that much faster than her.

Thankfully it was completely dry in the afternoon heats 3 and 4, and we all got some better runs in. Unfortunately Amy left the vidcam on for 2 hours after her final morning run and killed the battery, so all we have are videos from the morning session. In the video below I was riding with Amy on her 4th morning run, and continually admonishing her to PUSH the car harder. She wasn't being aggressive enough with the throttle, but during my morning ride-along she managed to drop another 1.5 seconds.

In-car video on Amy's morning run #4 (she was 7 seconds quicker in the afternoon!)

The afternoon runs were a bit better, but I didn't learn from the morning sessions and ran in the first sub-group again. The course was dry, but now it was dirty from all of the mud that washed onto the course from the nearby construction. There was about one third of the course that was covered in dirt when I ran, which had markedly less grip. Amy wised up and waited until the end of heat 4 to make her runs and was the last car on course at the end of the day. She made her fastest run on her last, beating the entire 3R class, and set the 2nd fastest time of the day. Nice! The only car quicker was a BSP-prepped E46 M3 driven by KenO, who is one AST/Vorshlag's super-testers.

Terry (at left) was sliding around but Amy (right) was doing nothin' but winning.

In the dry afternoon runs Amy punished me by 1.3 seconds, so I was mired back in 4th place behind some SCCA regulars in SS Corvettes. But my placing didn't matter much to me - I was excited that the car was doing this well on a completely untested, new set of Motons. Getting skirted happens when your wife is this fast, and I'm used to it.

Observations from this Event

What good is going to an individual event if you don't learn something? At this NTAXS event we learned a lot about the new parts we had installed (Motons, spring rates), re-learned to never come to an event without proper rain tires (even the 275 Bridgestone RE11s would have been better on my first 4 runs than the bald R compounds), and I learned that if the club has "optional gridding" that you wait for the optimum time to make your runs! I also found out that if I over-pushed the Kumhos on 4 back-to-back runs that the tires can overheat and get very greasy. Again, watching more experienced folks that run with this club, they were pulling out of line to spray their tires with water to cool them off, something I needed to do. Oh well - live and learn.

One thing we could see from the spring rate and shock change was the front brake dive was less than before, as was front bodyroll. The extra 100 #/in front spring rate and increased compression and rebound settings we used (in the afternoon) helped there (ran the compression full soft int he wet session). Also, the new camber setting of -4.0° up front seems to be edging in to the proper amount, after looking at high resolution pictures of the outside front tire under cornering. As you know, a radial tire works best with a little bit of negative camber when fully loaded, so this picture is almost perfect. A tick more and I think we're there. I will keep an eye out at the next event (a week later at the same event site), when we've switched to fresh Hoosiers and see if it ever gets into to positive camber. If it does, we will add more static negative.

We've always run a lot of negative camber on this car, as learned from testing. Even with street tires it responded best with over -3.3° of front camber. Some folks like to argue that S197 Mustang's don't need this much camber, but I disagree. Again - as a camber plate designer, this is one of the only things I really know well.

Pyrometer data, pictures showing the tire loaded, and tire wear trump theory and internet wisdom, in my book. The S197 is not magical - it is just another strut car to me. And like many other McStrut cars we've raced and designed suspension parts for, this one needs more static camber the higher the grip levels go. With 315 R compounds up front we're seeing more grip than a GRAND AM or World Challenge race car, and we keep adding more negative camber than those race teams run to keep this big tire as close to vertical when loaded.

Another of the tests we did at this event was to look for any indicator of downforce at speed. I manged to snap the picture above when Amy was hitting over 60 mph on course and as you can see, the trunk was deflecting a good bit even at a low AOA on the rear wing (we can always make a LOT more rear downforce with a wing than a splitter can hope to match up front). We knew the culprit - the factory "trunk bumpers". These little rubber bushings are what set the height of the trunk at the rear when it is latched, and we knew from the TWS event they were deforming at speed.

We had a solution in mind and the day after this NTAXS event Ryan made up a replacement set of bushings from some round Nylon stock I had purchased the week before. Chucked them up in the lathe and made a drilled and tapped hole on the underside to mount them to the mounting plate. After tweaking the length to get the trunk height set properly, they were bolted down and now we have no more deflection there. The wing uprights sit right near the edge of the trunk lid (which has structure underneath) and this should now be a more firm mount, and still stay within the SCCA Street Prepared ruleset (normally you build bracing from the trunk floor to the wing mounts, but that's a no-no for ESP class).

My next update will go over the next week's prep, which included a change to Hoosiers and a gamble on rear tire size choice... using the largest A6 tire that Hoosier makes. I rolled the dice, so check back to see if that choice paid off!

Thanks,

Fair · 08-16-2013, 02:25 PM

Project Update for May 23, 2012: We've done a bit of work to the car since the last update, and had another autocross to test changes before the Lincoln "Spring Nationals" event this weekend.

The defacto R compound DOT tire in SP is a Hoosier A6, but we had been doing well with a Kumho V710. The Kumhos have plenty of life left but work better as a road course tire than in autocross, so we pulled the V710s off of the 18x11/18x12 Forgestars and ordered some HoHos...

Go Big or Go Home!

Looking at the 2012 Hoosier Tire Listing for the A6, the obvious choice up front is the 315/30/18 size, which has 11.8" of tread width and 12.5" of section width. The problem is the height, which is only 25.6". That's short for this car, and even with our "tallest Ford made for it" 3.31 rear gear ratio, this height shortens the speed range in 2nd gear significantly. The goal is to at least be able to reach 70 mph in 2nd, and with the relatively short 2.43 ratio in 2nd, this means we have to watch rear tire height closely. When we ran STX last year (*twitch! shudder!*) we saw noticeable improvements going from 265/35/18 tires to a taller 265/40/18 size, which softened the rear ratio and extended 2nd gear speeds a noticeable amount.

The real goal for me is to avoid EVER having to go to 3rd gear in an autocross run (which inevitably means another downshift to 2nd), as the up/down/up shifts cost so much time. Gear the car right, including tire height, and you never leave 2nd. This 5.0L engine has torque everywhere so even if it doesn't have as much "snap" at lower speed corners it still has "more than enough". So, all that said...

I picked a pair of 345/45/18 Hoosier A6 tires for the rear and a 315/30/18 for the front. The 345 is the biggest 18" tire Hoosier makes in the A6 and has 13.25" tread width, massive 13.9" section width, and a big 26.8" tire height (the stock tires are 27" tall on this car). That's a 14" wide rear tire... the same relative size that CP cars use. This tire height allows for an insane 77mph top speed in 2nd gear at 7800 rpm, and 75mph at 7500 rpm. No more 3rd gear in a parking lot with this tire, ever.

Trying to fit a 14" wide tire under factory sheet metal car sounds insane... and went against my own better judgement as well as the recommendations of others. But I've taken some leaps of faith on this build using the "bigger is better" mentality that have paid off already. The car was also experiencing enough wheel spin in slow speed autocross corner exits with the 315mm Kumhos that I was willing to give this larger 345 mm wide tire a chance out back. Of course this tire would never fit up front without major fender surgery, so I went with a non-square 315F/345R combo - again, against my own recommendations. We had to space the 12" rear wheels outboard another 10mm to have the same clearance to the rear swaybar and inner fender structure as the 315 had on the same wheel as before. It was a gamble but I tossed the dice, hoping we could make them fit.

Yea, not a chance. These things are redonkulous. HUGE. So now the rear tires needed more spacer and protruded past the fenders a solid 1/2 inch, which I dislike both aesthetically and functionally. First, it widens the rear track, making the differential work that much harder and making slaloms/transitions that much more difficult to navigate. Secondly, it adds a potential rub point at the outer fender lip itself, if there is enough roll movement in the rear of the chassis to let it roll over and touch the tire. I was hoping that this wouldn't be a problem, and with a known amount of axle movement in cornering it could even tuck under the fender lip on the outer tire in turns. I also hoped the stiffer 275#/in rear and 550 #/in front springs (installed when we put on the Motons a week earlier) would keep the roll down enough to keep the rear tire away from the outer fender lip.

Other prep this week before this SCCA autocross was a swap to the rear spoiler (wing isn't legal in this series/class), and we could uncover the hidden SCCA stickers (something NASA requires). I didn't even add any fuel to the car from the last event - we loaded it into the trailer Thursday night and it sat there until the race on Sunday.

This next autocross would tell us a lot about this round of changes...

Texas Region Autocross # 3 at TMS

We're trying to make as many of our local "Texas Region" SCCA events this year as we can, and using each event as a test session. Amy was out of town on business this week, so I ran this event by myself. Hey, maybe I could win this time!

Just like the autocross a week before, this event was set-up in the same sealed asphalt "Bus Lot" at Texas Motor Speedway, with the same course designer, but this time with the SCCA region running the show. This is my favorite group to autocross with - they put on an excellent event, every time. Well organized, great courses, good competition, great announcing (except when they let me do it, ha!), and final results are posted within hours. Things run smoothly, safely, and consistently. Its no coincidence that our Solo REs are also the event masters for the 2012 Solo Nationals - Jen and Brad Maxcy. (Jen whipped some ass on Sunday in their STX BMW, beat Brad, and PAXed right on my tail in Heat 1, with Brad 3rd in PAX for the heat)

Here are the event particulars:

Pax Results: http://texasscca.org/2012_solo_results/tr12_3_pax.htm
Class Results: http://texasscca.org/2012_solo_resul..._final.htm#ESP
Course Map: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...0/O/course.jpg
In-car Video for Run 1
In-car Video for Run 2
In-car Video for Run 3
In-car Video for Run 4
In-car Video for Run 5

The results don't tell the entire tale, of course. This is where I begin my excuses.

So, as I've said before, this TMS site currently has construction happening right at the edge of the lot surface, with Jersey barriers holding back a mountain of fine, silty dirt from the lot. Every time it rains (which has been often here lately) it washes this dirt/mud mix onto the surface of the lot. So early drivers get to clean off the driving line, mid-day drivers get a cleaner line with some added track temperature, and afternoon drivers tend to see the cleanest line but the most track heat. If its a cooler day the afternoon runs are quickest. If its a warming day the mid-day drivers are fastest. That last scenario happened on this day - 2nd heat drivers were fastest by a good margin. It helped that our top National drivers ran that heat also!

Left: Run #1 was quick. Right: Run #5 was my fastest

I ran in the first heat along with about 1/3rd of the 109 racers. The first run in Mustang was with the stickers still on the tires, but that didn't seem to slow the car down at all. On that run I had trouble with braking in all of the higher speed stopping zones (super hard pedal - no power assist?) but put in a respectable run. My 2nd through 4th runs were either slower or not much better, with continued braking problems. My 5th run I finally adjusted my braking zones back significantly, went slower into most turns, and dropped 3/4 of a second from my first run. It wasn't pretty but it was faster. This was the only 42 second run of the heat and put me #1 in PAX for that 1/3rd of drivers as well.

This was short lived, as Heat 2 drivers put in some phenomenal times and I dropped to 18th in PAX. There were two significant problems in my runs, and one "missing" problem. Well, other than my regularly crap driving, which goes without saying.

more...

Fair · 08-16-2013, 02:25 PM

continued from above

The first car issue was a broken vacuum line from the JLT oil separator that was added in 2011. This part helps catch oil residue coming from the heads (that would normally pump back into the intake manifold) caused during high RPM use (7800 rev limit? Yea, that qualifies!). The problem was this JLT kit it came with plastic fittings and inflexible plastic vacuum lines that are prone to breakage.

After my first run it I opened the hood and the catch can lay there askew, with the line or fitting obviously broken. I grabbed some zip ties an secured the unit but with this line wide open I was losing vacuum. A-ha! This is why I was losing brake booster assist after any long straights, hence the hard pedal. Eureka! I've been complaining of this issue at autocrosses for many months, back into 2011, so there's no telling how long ago this fitting cracked (see below for "the fix").

Another issue was, as you can see above, the tire rub (then tire smoke) shown above. The 345/45/18 rears were both taller and significantly wider than the 315/35/18 Kumhos, and rubbed at two locations on the inside of the chassis - on the body at the forward section of the frame rail where it curves outward and on the rear swaybar. I would turn in, the car would take a set, where the axle would slide over and the tire would move relative to the rim, and the inner sidewall would start to "catch and release" the rub points - hop hop hopping through the long turns. This caused enough rubbing that it would smoke heavily. I kept an eye on it but there was little I could do other than drop out or keep going. I kept going.

So I had miscalculated a bit on the 14" wide rears. They need to go out another 1/2" and then they'd look like Bubba going to the Drag Strip. We have the rear ride height compromised enough as it is for extra clearance and Amy said a firm "NO!" to flaring the rear of the car. So... when this set is gone we'll switch back to the 315 and tuck it all under the rear fenders. Again, I'm a fan of a narrow track for autocrossing, and this is very much "not narrow" at the moment.

The one problem that was missing was... the traction control faults and steering feedback shudder. WTF? This is a mystery but I have noticed that the more wheel spin we see the more problematic the steering is and the more faults we trigger. With 345mm rear A6s and a fresh LSD out back there was dramatically less wheel spin. This is good, because both the OEM replacement and the FRPP race re-programmed steering racks (M-3200-EPAS, $1249) are on national back-order until June 23rd. We found one in the country after calling dozens of places, and they were saving it as a spare for their GRAND AM race team. Wouldn't sell it to us for any amount of money. So... we cross our fingers and hope this steering rack and traction control fault issues take a hiatus. :/

We had been running with -4.0° front camber and I also noticed several pics showing the outside front tire loaded up at almost vertical, and not positive camber. Again, we're not using too much negative, and could even use a hair more possibly.

Updates After The Autocross

In preparation for the upcoming 4 day weekend of racing in Lincoln we knocked out these updates and repairs. First up was replacing the hoses/fittings and improving the mounting of the JLT oil separator.

Ryan made the bracket out of aluminum and bolted it to open flanges on the valve cover, then bolted the catch can to that. He had one of our vendors make the lines and fittings and buttoned that up quickly. Looks like how it should have been from Day 1 - I knew better than to let that aluminum can hang from plastic hoses and fitting. Its funny how these obviously poor parts can come back and bite you in the ass... no idea how long this has been broken. Hopefully I'll have a better brake pedal from now on!

Next up was the catch can installation for the rear differential fluid overflow problem we've been fighting at track events and even some autocrosses since day 1. Remember the fiasco this year from TWS, with oil spewing onto the rear tires? The little vent cap thing in the RR axle tube is a joke, and oil can and will come spraying out when it gets hot - and it will get hot at a track day. I bought this billet catch can and mount in mid 2011, and we finally got around to installing it. The factory vent was removed and a new fitting and custom made lines were fabricated by our hose vendor (who's a good friend of mine). Ryan bolted the catch can to the rear seat bulkhead and routed both the vent line from the axle and the "overflow" line from the catch can through a factory grommet in the trunk floor, on the driver's side just behind the back seats. Fixed!

Some wider spacers were procured and the 18x12 wheels and 345 tires went more outboard, and look just terrible. If we could massage the inner fender areas we could make this tire fit, but that's a big no-no in the SCCA, so out goes the wheel. With a custom swaybar (legal) and 45 minutes with a sledge hammer (not), these wheels would tuck inside the fenders. GRR.

Last up was foglight opening "grills". We had a customer's Boss 302S race car in the shop this week to do some suspension set-up work and we saw several great ideas on the car, including how they mounted the wire mesh grills in the foglight opening. These are functionally necessary to keep rocks and balled up tire rubber from hitting the evap core or radiator fins when lapping the Mustang behind other cars. The lower grill opening is also wide open from the factory and the evap fins on our car are already smashed up a good bit, and starting to happen behind the now missing foglights.

Ryan took the tighter stainless mesh material we picked up a few weeks back and made some round sections slightly larger than the foglight openings, then painted them black. Then he drilled a series of VERY small holes around the round rear openings in the grill. Last he tied stainless safety wire thru these holes to hold it in place, just like how the 302S does it. Sometimes seeing something done simply makes a solution so obvious. Looks good, functions great, no more smashed cooler fins. The grills are almost invisible at this rez above, but clearly visible in person or in higher rez pics.

Oh yea, the under-trunk carpet was reattached so we'd be extra-legal for the upcoming dual SCCA events.

Many Upcoming Events

There are several competition and track day events we have planned in the near future for our Mustang test mule. This weekend in Lincoln is the SCCA "Spring Nationals", with a ProSolo Friday-Saturday and a National Tour Sunday-Monday. After that we have a weekend off, followed by 3 straight weekends of racing in June:

May 25-26, SCCA Lincoln ProSolo - ProSolo autocross
May 27-28, SCCA Lincoln National Tour - Autocross
June 8-9, Optima Face Off at the HOT ROD Power Tour - Autocross + Speed/Stop + Time Trial track event (ECR + Ball Park at Arlington)
June 14-15, Mid-American Ford Meet, track event (Hallet Motor Racing Circuit)
June 23, Five Star Ford Track Day (ECR)

Looks like we have a busy month of testing ahead. Click any of the links above to find out about coming to watch or to enter any of these events. We'll have the Mustang at all of them listed above, and we will give ride-alongs on any run we take, if they allow it. Just bought a special set of 200 treadwear tires for the Optima event, we'll be running the big A6s in Lincoln one more time, and the 315 Kumho V710s for the other two track day events at ECR. I'll talk more about each of these events in future thread updates.

Trailer is loaded, 11 hour tow to Nebraska tomorrow...

Cheers,

Fair · 08-16-2013, 02:27 PM

Project Update for June 2, 2012: Amy and I spent 5 days in Nebraska autocrossing at the SCCA's "Spring Nationals", with a ProSolo on Fri-Sat and a National Tour autocross on Sun-Mon. We also spent about a day (11 hours each way) driving from Texas to Lincoln and back. Completely wiped us out and I'm still playing catch-up. This was a great test for us against 10 of the top ESP cars in the Pro and 18 ESP cars in the Tour.

2012 Lincoln ProSolo

Amy and I left Dallas early on Thursday morning and towed north for 11 hours to Nebraska, driving straight through. We got to the event site at about 5:15 pm, minutes after they had stopped selling tickets for practice starts. Meh, we had 12 chances to see the starting line and had done the Mineral Wells ProSolo not long earlier. We were too tired to care. Unloaded, added more event sponsor decals, teched the car, checked in with registration for both events (moving Amy out of a 1 car ESP-Ladies class for the Tour and into ESP Open), ate food at the welcome party, saw a bunch of friends, walked both the left and right ProSolo courses, then finally made it to the hotel at about 9:30 PM and CRASHED. That made for a very long day.

SCCA's News Write-up: http://www.scca.com/solo/news.cfm?cid=51024
Results: http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...%20Results.pdf
Reaction Times + 60 Foot: http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...%20revised.pdf
Pictures and Video (both events): http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...ationals-2012/

Friday morning Amy was running first in "L1" class (one of three PAX factored Ladies classes) and did OK, finishing the morning in 4th out of 13. Amy was having trouble at the starting line and her 60' foot times were off the pace. She also complained loudly about understeer in the tight 180° turn-arounds.

When I made my Friday morning ESP class ProSolo runs I knew what she was talking about, and the rest of that day we were chasing the set-up trying to dial out this push. I was still only cutting 2.1-2.2 sixty foot times, which was frustrating considering the big Fat Boy rear tires we had just started running. The launch RPM from the 315mm Kumhos was only about 1800, but with the 345/35/18 A6s it was now up to 3200 rpm... yet the 60' times were barely better than at the Mineral Wells Pro. WTH?

I started out pretty fast on the right side (2nd fastest, behind Marky-M) in the morning but had nothing quick on the left side. The courses were poorly marked visually (lots of DNFs, some lost driver course-cross-over-close-calls, lots of cones) but if you could find the line it still flowed well and had some of the fastest peak speeds of a National Level event I had ever seen. I didn't mind - with the 2011's transmission, 3.31 gears, and uber-tall 345/35/18 rear tires we could hit 77 mph in 2nd gear - and we hit that for a second or more on the "back straight" (which had huge offsets in it, actually).

Unfortunately we weren't really helped much with our uber-2nd gear terminal speeds, and with nothing fast on the left I was mired down in 5th place. Amy finished her afternoon runs with only about a .2 sec total improvement, and mine weren't much better, either. She had fallen down to about 6th, and I was still in 5th.

IN-CAR VIDEO: Terry's fastest Day 2 runs from the 2012 Lincoln ProSolo. Rear spoiler removed.

The first Friday work session we had ran long, due to all of the lost drivers and DNFs, but our second work session was an eternity. Due to continual timer "network problems" (which are unfortunately not uncommon at ProSolos) we were stuck on course until 8:15 at night, working 3 hours in the heat, then the rain, then the cold, then the increasing dark. It was nuts, but finally the event was over just before full dark.

On her Saturday morning runs it was cooler and Amy found a half second on the left side but coned it away, then found a tenth on the right. Her L1 competitors, many on fresh tires for Saturday (we need to learn from this pattern) were all much faster and moved her all the way down to 9th out of 13. Yeesh. Her best runs were both 44.6 sec, and on my final two runs I managed to dip into the mid 43s on both sides. For a moment there I was announced to be up in 3rd place, just after my last left side run - so that felt good. I found time on my last right side run as well but the announcer said I was now in 4th, barely in the trophies. That was short lived - by the time 2nd drivers made their runs I was bumped down to 5th, .025 sec out of the trophies. That's... mid-pack!? Three Firebird/Camaros took the podium spots with McGeorge in 4th in his beautiful '12 Boss302.

Knowing pretty early on that we were off the pace, we used all of our ProSolo runs for testing. This was still only our 6th autocross in ESP and we're still a long way from getting the proper R compound set-up down for this car. Other than tire pressure and shock changes, one significant set-up change we did Friday night was the front toe settings (which were still set-up for track events), hoping for better turn-in. It was better but after Amy's Saturday morning runs she said the push was still there, so I made a Hail Mary pass... I pulled off the rear spoiler.

In theory this would make the car push less, at least in high speed turns, and THAT IT DID. The damn thing was squirrely as hell in the higher speed sections of the course, like the "back straight". What I was able to take flat footed before was really loose on my 1st and 2nd Saturday runs. I had to pedal back a bit on my 3rd and 4th runs, so that "stupid rear spoiler" is very much working at higher autocross speeds. Removing this had no affect on the lower speed turn-arounds, which was the issue we were trying to address. Without a rear bar adjustment or spring change, nor time to change anything in my last 2 runs, I was stuck with it. I still found a total of 5 tenths on my final two tries, but it was simply from finding the proper lines in the last 2 segments and a good light - the same sections Amy and I both had botched badly during the whole event.

So the Pro was a bust, as I was 2 seconds behind Madarash, Amy was 2 seconds behind me, and neither Amy nor I made the Challenge. Did we take a step backwards? At the MW Pro we both placed higher - I was only 1 second back from Mark over both courses and finished in 2nd place out of 7, ahead of some of the same drivers that were beating me at this event. So it seems that the switch to Hoosiers was a bust, and the 14" wide 345mm rear tire was causing a big understeer problem. Oh well, now we know.

"Bigger isn't always better" - this idiot

2012 Lincoln National Tour

Sunday rolled around and it was time for the Tour - and we were already dead tired from spending 3 days on site. I don't remember what weather we had on which day, because it was changing wildly from day to day, yet was ALWAYS WINDY. We saw 98°F heat, rain, cold, fog, even the threat of hail and tornadoes. There were several storm systems that grazed the event site and a few that dumped some of the wet stuff. We saw it all in Lincoln!

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Fair · 08-16-2013, 02:28 PM

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The other thing we saw after so many racers made their 12+ runs at the 2 day ProSolo was tons of "OPR" - Other People's Rubber. And the tar that fills the seams in the concrete was coming up as well. It was nice when the ProSolo courses "rubbered in" on the 2nd day, as it helped you find the hard to see courses; there were many fewer DNFs on Day 2. The problem was at the following event - the Tour - which had two separate courses on the same surfaces as the Pro. The Tour courses were also a little "undermarked" in my opinion, with lots of places to get lost... especially when you went across or towards one of the rubber-covered Pro corners, like this:

You'd be zipping along, see the rubber laid down from 2 days ago, and get lost. I watched all of my National Tour run videos and caught myself hesitate more than once when near one of these rubber-lined ProSolo corners. Oh well, we all had to drive the same courses, and many folks found their way better than others. On Day 1 of the Tour I ran first and Amy was 2nd driver, and she laid down a smokin' fast first run (good enough for 2nd in class)... but coned it away! My first run was pretty quick, and good enough for 2nd, but that didn't last long. Mark Madarash cleaned up his coned first run and quickly jumped into a big lead. I whittled away at my 1st and 2nd run 62.6's and found a 62.19 on my 3rd run. Amy's 2nd run was considerably slower than her first and had 2 cones. So she needed to dig deep on her 3rd run and get a clean one in. Her 62.2 first run raw time would still put her in the trophies if she could just clean it up. We were all parked directly into the wind with our hoods up, some already done and sitting in Impound, but the 2 driver cars were waiting their turn for 2nd drivers to make their last runs. Bunch of ESP drivers were gathered behind our Mustang (the big rear spoiler acts as a wind break and we can at least hear each other talk standing there). Winds were 25+ mph all day but we kept seeing short wind gusts that were taking hats off all day.

We're about to get Amy helmeted up and in the car when... WHAM! We look over and see the hood of our car completely vertical. Oh no... the wind had gusted, got under the hood, and ripped loose the hood struts and sent it smashing into the windshield! Glass was EVERYWHERE inside, as it shattered both the inner and outer layers of safety glass.

In an instant, without saying a word, the entire swarm of ESP drivers jumped into action. Madarash and another driver were rolling up duct tape and picking up small glass particles from the dash and seat. Another ESP racer went to find Amy a full-faced helmet to borrow. More hands helped me quickly assess the damage ("I see a broken hinge and two hood struts flopping under there - lets just TAPE IT CLOSED"). A grid worker jumps in and says "OK, I assume you want a ten minute mechanical!", then ran to tell the rest of the drivers in Impound/Grid to close hoods. We had the hood back down and taped it closed across the fender at the right rear corner, where the hinge was ripped in half. Mark and I were taping the lower 1/3rd of the windshield to keep it intact, both inside and out. Another driver was helping tape the outside and got cut his hand, so he backed away to stop the bleeding and another took his place.

In something like 3 minutes we had the hood closed, the windshield taped up on both sides, Amy strapped in the car with a borrowed helmet, and ready to race - she didn't even miss the 2nd driver rotation. It was awesome! What a kickass group of racers... I can't thank everyone that helped enough. Man, its times like these I really appreciate what a great group of folks we race with - some of which I didn't even know.

SCCA's News Write-up: http://www.scca.com/solo/news.cfm?cid=51025
Results: http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...%20Results.pdf
Pictures and Video (both events): http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...ationals-2012/

Amy's last run after that mayhem was slower, mostly from the big, borrowed helmet that was slipping down over her eyes.

Oh well, she made it around safely and got a clean run, but her first run was still quicker with the cone. That put her way down in like 14th place out of 18, ouch. I started making calls to about a dozen local windshield repair places but being Memorial Day weekend I came up dry. Another ESP racer called a contact at a Ford dealer and he told us what the windshield places had told me - there isn't a windshield for this car in Nebraska, maybe they could get one by Wednesday. Well, looks like we'd be racing Monday (Day 2 of the Tour) with the busted windshield!

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Fair · 08-16-2013, 02:30 PM

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Monday rolled around, I was down in 5th place, and Amy in 14th. We had picked up a roll of clear packing tape and covered all of the many vertical cracks that we had missed the day before. The duct tape was still in place on the lower 1/3rd of the windshield and across the back corner of the hood, which we didn't open until we got back to Texas (after asking in Impound if anyone wanted to see under there once again). My first run was quick, the 2nd fastest in class, and it moved me all the way up to 2nd place. Mark was already 1.7 seconds ahead for the day, but he and I (plus 3 more ESP drivers) never improved on our first runs.

Madarash (above left) stayed well out in front of ESP but I eventually fell down to 3rd place out of 18 when Newcombe made a smokin' fast 3rd run - the only driver to get in the 64s other than Mark that day. Moving up from 5th with a busted windshield and heavy understeer, I was happy just to salvage a trophy out of this Tour. Amy fought the car all day and was fully 2 seconds off my pace - I think her height made it more difficult to see through the "portal" of visibility I found above the tape line and between the cracks. Still, she moved up 2 spots to 12th, but wasn't happy about that at all. She's always a lot closer to me when we co-drive and this weekend just didn't go her way.

We learned a lot at these events: never underestimate Nebraska weather (pack for EVERYTHING), bring lots of tape, a non-square tire set-up can cause a push, and we still have a lot of work ahead if we want to narrow the gap to the Titan of ESP. One step forward, two steps back - the gap to Mark has doubled since the MW Tour, so we need to re-assess our changes and do more serious testing. Another set of tires is going on the car soon for a dedicated test day where we will try different spring rates and shock/bar/tire pressure settings. We also have too much lateral movement of the rear axle (rear fenders were digging into the top edges of tire tread), and the 77" wide rear track made the car harder to navigate through the many transitions and slaloms. I also felt the rebuilt/upgraded LSD starting to slip so we have got to step up to a better diff (T2R).

Video of Terry's Day 2, Tour, Run #1 You can see the view from the driver's seat

Looking at the Tour results you might think we did well, nabbing 3rd place out of 18. We did not. I was fully 4 seconds back over 2 days, which is an eternity. Again, we learned a lot and now we know how much we need to make up.

Upcoming Events

We have adjusted our June race schedule to sneak in a private test day, and also to get one more weekend off. We were almost about to register for the Mid-America Ford Meet track day at Hallet but the other folks we were going with decided to cancel, so we did as well.

June 8-9, Optima Face Off at the HOT ROD Power Tour - Autocross + Speed/Stop + Time Trial track event (ECR + Ball Park at Arlington)
June 23, Five Star Ford Track Day (ECR)

The windshield is replaced, the hood is repairable, and only the hinge itself is torn. Easy fixes, considering. We're going to add a "hood tether" so that the hood can be raised (to cool engine between runs, impound, etc) unsupervised. I still don't want thehood prop, as its always in the way when you're working under the hood and we've almost lost the hood in high winds with that as well. The below left picture shows the tire rub we're still seeing with the 345/35/18, even spacing them out 1" wider than we had the 315s on the same 12" wheels. Way too much rub. So yea, I'm going back to 315s out back; not going to play around trying 335s, as the 315s at all four corners WORKED and the car could ROTATE. I might even go back to Kumhos and run a set head-to-head against the Hoosiers. The V710 seems a lot more tolerable of temperature than the A6, so far. We had to spray the crap out of the Hoosiers at the Tour.

Also shown above is the 295/35/18 Nitto NT-05 tires we bought for the Optima FACEOFF at the Hot Rod Power Tour next weekend (plus a set in 275/40/18 we got for a customer's new D-Force 18x10 wheels). This was the best 200 treadwear tire we could find any real data on. Mounting these on another set of the new 18x10" Vorshlag/D-Force wheels which we will use for this 2 day event, then pull them off and sell the set (sort of have a buyer lined up).

Someone from Speed TV called Friday to see if we were going to the event, and they are gonna be there filming. Friday at Quick Trip Park is the Speed Stop and Autocross, then Saturday at ECR for the Time Trial. Not really sure how this event is going to be run or scored - hopefully its not a 100% "subjective event" and its a real competition. Come out and watch to see some epic cars! There will be a huge variety of big dollar, magazine famous rides that will completely overshadow out little 2011 GT. Still, with both venues being very familiar to this driver and car, maybe we will get lucky and place well? Time will tell...

More soon,