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

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Photo Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/ECR-040613/


Left: world famous top fuel drag racer Eddie Hill was racing in an Ariel Atom. Right: Mark Boothe in his Grand Sport C6, a NASA TT1 driver

So this day had a LOT better weather, with cool temps and sunny skies. Perfect "Spring in Texas" weather, without the hail storms. There were a lot more cars at this event, both from from the mulligan entries two weeks earlier as well as a few more entrants that heard about the now more regular "ECR run events", with The Two Brians in charge of running the day.



Amy was quick along with a handful of others in Red group this time, putting in some fast-ish ~2 minute flat laps on these godawful tires. She complained bitterly about the twitchiness of the car, wondering "What new parts are on it now?!" And while we rarely give here the same parts set-up twice (always trying new things!) the issues sounded like they were from the "flipped" Kumhos. Well I needed to see how bad they were, so I stole the keys and one of her track sessions...


My 1:58 lap was a handful with the tires flipped and HORRIFIC traffic

The video above shows a lot of bad habits in the first few laps, both from a "rolling roadblock" driver in front of a train of faster cars, and from some frustrated drivers held up behind him, myself included. This was in the Advanced group now, so supposedly not full of noobs. There was a GTR driver blocking a line of cars 9 deep for 3+ laps. Poor Eddie Hill was stuck behind him the longest, and I got held up in the train behind Eddie's Arial. Problem was neither the Atom nor our Mustang had enough extra power to pull by this modified GTR on the straights, but OMFG we were both held up badly in the corners. Guy was braking 300-500 feet early, coasting through the corners, then blasting out and blocking us on the straights. At this event we were supposed to wait for a point-by to pass, but this guy's arm was apparently broken, and his mirrors were blocked.

So after a lap and a half of of this nonsense I gave up - I only had one session to run the car that day and I really wanted to push for one lap - to try to see how much the tires were affecting the car's performance, if any. Eventually the guy nearly spun off track into Turn 4, where Eddie pointed me by, and into Turn 6 I passed him in his ridiculously early braking procedure. Apparently he had almost the entire Advanced group ready to kill him by day's end, so I wasn't alone. "Time for the Green group, pal"...

As I say many times in the video, the tires felt terrible beyond words. Flipping these Kumho's inside-out made for super twitchy car under braking, and mid-corner the car would swing wildly from under- to oversteer. So yea, don't ever flip a Kumho V710 inside-out! This isn't always the case on asymmetric marked tires, but Kumho MEANT it. Lesson learned - always try to learn something when we are at the track, even if it is a little thing about a certain tire brand's "mounting limitations".



Amy was back in the car for sessions 3 and 4 and having a good time. Her parents and her uncle arrived mid-day and were cheering here on and watching her drive on track. For the 4th session she asked and was allowed to take a passenger, her out-of-town uncle (above), who was all smiles in the right seat. She went out to take some ~8/10ths laps in the final Red session, and somewhere in Turn 2 on her first hot lap something broke...


Click for in-car video of the transmission going "BOOM!"

As you can hear in the video above, Amy knew something broke in the transmission and she even figured out that the other gears still worked and managed to get the car back around to the pits. Once she got back I took it for a quick spin around the paddock and realized that, yep, 3rd gear was GONE. All other gears worked and the transmission functioned silently, just minus one gear. Hmm....

It was the end of the day and we drove it into the trailer for a diagnosis back at Vorshlag. This ECR track day was still a lot of fun, with good cool weather and some quick-ish laps, other than the traffic in my session and the whole "trans go boom" issue.

Some Repair Work + Upgrades

So I'm not going to talk about the transmission repair, other than "the entire 3rd gear was blue" and it failed due to heat, not poor shifting or a bent shift fork, like I had assumed (many others have broken shift forks in these cars). It was fixed within 5 days, and I will leave it at that.

Now how it failed is still unusual. Amy and I are not ham-fisted, speed shifting Neanderthals... we both shift smoothly and quickly, but delicately. Three fingers to pull the shift ball back, a light palm to push upwards in the pattern, ala: the Bob Bonderaunt school/book/instruction. She and I both noted a little "snick" from the 2-3 upshift in a few early laps that day, but that was the only pre-failure warning; this and the wonky inside-out tire twitchiness were the only out of the ordinary things with the car at ECR that day. The trans fluid was at the proper level and is checked regularly, and is synthetic.

Again, we were told it was heat that fatigued the gear, and 3rd gear was a different shade than all of the rest - which were inspected and given a clean bill of health (Ford is awesome, by the way). We took 4 sessions in the car that day (and only completed 3 of them) and the ambient temps barely got to 70°F, but we think the damage was cumulative and from previous heavy heat days. We have used Redline synthetic fluids in this Getrag MT-82 from day one and it amassed 17,000 miles before 3rd let go. We had the OEM shifter and few issues shifting, unless the transmission was loaded up under power, when the body-mounted shifter was easy to mis-align with the transmission. No, we don't have pictures of the old parts, and I didn't see them. I won't and can't speak further on the transmission repair.


Red Mustang in for a check-up after TWS. Note the impact (tire klag? rock?) that the LF fog light grill took

Sure, we have put a lot of track and autocross miles on this car in the past 3 years and some sort of driveline failure was bound to happen, I guess. We still have a 100% stock engine, cooling system, and clutch. The rear axle has had heat issues already (melted axle seals, burned up stock differentials) as have the brakes (we've quit replacing the caliper dust shields, which I can melt and/or catch on fire in one session... sometimes in one lap). The Tremec TR-6060 has provisions for an internal pump and external cooler, which the World Challenge and other endurance racers utilize, and this is something we are exploring for the Getrag, to prevent this from happening again. We will have to use an external pump, though.

Joe D from Tremec is also working with us to get a Tremec T56 Magnum 6-spd swap kit together for 5.0L S197 Mustangs, which a lot of people would like to see. There have been a few swaps but this will be a more comprehensive swap, with a driveshaft, clutch/pp, and proper shifter. The TR-6060 is a body-mounted shifter but the T56 Magnum is a direct mounted shifter, so driveline-to-body movements won't cause a mis-alignment. We are doing the T56 swap on his 2013 Boss302 Leguna Seca very soon - I will show the swap in this thread once it is complete, of course.

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Other things we noticed and worked on included the brakes. After this entire day of racing the new Carbotech XP22 pads looked brand new. Normally we can see a sizable amount of wear in one day of racing, and neither Amy nor I are "easy on brakes", but they still looked very good. And even after the next TWS event (which I'll talk about next) they still showed very little wear. Finally - a brake pad we cannot kill in 2 days! This 3800 pound car (ballasted up for TT3, w/ driver) normally chews through pads at a rapid clip, so this is good news.



So if you've read this thread from the beginning you know we've tried a number of rear Upper Control Arms (UCA) on the 2011 GT here and the last iteration (Spohn arm, UPS upper mount, with custom Vorshlag bushings and new, larger mounting bolt) worked out pretty well, but still had some noticeable clunking. When a friend PM'd me about a Boss 302-S UCA set-up for sale on a Boss302 forum, new in box, I jumped on it.



This set-up is made by MultiMatic out of Canada and costs over $700 USD. It is based on OEM upper mount and UCA assembly, strangely enough, but it is heavily modified. Gone is the rubber mount in the UCA itself, as it looks like the lop off the rubber bushing end and weld their custom machined spherical bearing holder end in place. The also reinforce the factory upper chassis mount and machine their own bushings to actually fit their own spherical and the bolt - wow, what a concept, right?! That's what we did with the Spohn arm and UPR mount piece, neither of which fit each other or the factory bolt. This is a very nicely made set-up and we put this in the car before the TWS event. We don't sell this set-up, and there's of course a few little things we'd change, but overall it is a great unit... for a race car. Most folks will see the $700 price tag and laugh. But if you saw the parts in person, felt the fit between the components compared to most of the stuff out there... you'd likely understand. Very, very nice parts.



Another nice set of parts made by another company is the Maximum Motorsports 4-point roll bar we ordered and received for the red car. Wow, this is a nicely made piece of kit! Sure, it is 1.75 x .134" wall DOM and not the normal .120" wall tubing you see in most road racing cages, but it is stout and put together with very fine tolerances. The MIG welding is great and the Laser cut, CNC bent, and welded lower platforms are amazingly well done. Just click on the images below, and look at the factory stamped steel bits they replace.



Ryan spent about 5 hours fitting, installing, and tack welding the bar in the car before it came out for final welding. The rear bars are shipped loose, with stubs welded in place for final fitting. This way the entire unit ships flat for big cost savings, and it likely makes for a much better, custom fit to the car this way. I think he said he had it in and out of the car 4 or 5 times but that is normal - patience is your friend, as you don't want to rush a roll bar or roll cage install if you want it to fit well and base safe, or scratch up interior bits. They include great instructions and a "fit-up bar" made of PVC for marking the side panels that have to be trimmed and a hole cut, to fit around the rear downbars.



Due to time conflicts with other customer work and an upcoming race we left the bar in raw steel and hooked up the harnesses and reinstalled the Cobra seats for the TWS event at NASA. This bar mounts right onto the back seat "shelf" so it is behind your head, for 100% safe use in street driving. Having steel tubing near your head (roll cage or a closely mounted B-pillar main hoop) is just asking for major head trauma in a street crash, sans racing helmet. But in the two pictures above (taken in the past 48 hours) you can see that we have since removed the bar, powder coated all 5 pieces (bar + 4 mounting plates) and weighed it all at 63 pounds (which is almost exactly what I predicted it would weigh, and nearly identical to the Kirk Racing 4-point bars we've installed in BMW E30. E36 and E46 cars). The gloss black powder coated roll bar is going back into the car as I write this, with the back seat, rear interior panels, and the Cobra seats are going back in.

Speaking of Cobra seats...


Vorshlag now Authorized Cobra Stocking Dealer

We bit the bullet and made a big WD buy-in for Cobra seats. We have needed to become a dealer for this brand for years, as we have used their seats in too many of our own builds, not to mention installed customers' Cobra seats. That buy-in also gave us access to Puma, Aplinestars, OMP, Sparco, Momo, Schroth, Bell, Arai, Peltor, and much more. We're still sorting through this big shipment of Cobra Suzuka, Sebring, Evolution, and Imola seats and do have plenty of inventory.


Installation of Cobra Suzuka Pro GT Kevlar seats, custom sliders, Schroth harnesses, and Sharkworks harness bars into a C6 ZR1 at Vorshlag

Ryan is going to build some display stands for a few models of Cobra seats that we want to keep on hand, so pretty soon you will be able to stop by and test out various Cobra models in the Vorshlag lobby. We already have two different Cobra Suzuka sizes in the 2011 Mustang GT, which stays up at the shop now almost all of the time, too. Two more will go into the BMW E46 Alpha car, also kept here at Vorshlag. And we are making better chassis bracket solutions for several cars as well, and hopefully can make produciton runs of these soon. I have yet to see an Off The Shelf bracket solution that fits a given car without putting the seat into the roof. Look for more info about these various seating products on our website soon.


SCCA ProSolo at Mineral Wells, TX - April 13-14th

Now we didn't enter this event (the car was still being repaired, and it isn't legal for pretty much any SCCA Solo class), but Vorshlag sponsored the welcome party on Friday. We bought and cooked food for 150+ people, with Amy and me at the grill for about 3 hours. Glad we were there, as we got to talk to a lot of friends, fellow racers, and even chatted up some SEB members. Some encouraging hints at the changes to Stock/Street class for 2014-15 and beyond. Can't wait for the next FasTrack to be published...

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Vorshlag/Bilstein StreetPro Suspension Kit

Word has gotten out about this strut/shock/spring/camber plate set-up we've put together for the S197, and tested for many months. We have been exploring and testing various Bilstein and Bilstein motorsports shocks since we became a dealer last June.



In late December we ordered and received a "Bilstein BTS" shock/spring kit, then tested the spring rates of the matched "BTS" springs these inverted Bilstein B6 non-adjustable monotubes. These struts and shocks have 36 mm pistons (huge compared to any twin tube), and as such, they react to damping forces at much lower shaft velocities. The nicest thing about the B6 strut is that it is shorter than stock, so it is made to work well at lower ride heights...



So after we received the kit we worked with a Vorshlag test pilot Tyler Rogers, and planned to put this set-up on this car in early January of this year. Since a handful of haters have said that the S197 Bilstein monotube rides poorly, I wanted to do some before and after testing with the "BTS" lowering spring. I made this lengthy before-after video (see below), and found the ride of the Bilsteins to not only be acceptable, but exceptionally good. And it was better than the stock noodle springs and $30 OEM struts could ever hope to provide.



Another interesting side effect of the inverted 40mm shaft Bilstein is that it is 2 pounds lighter than the OEM twin tube junk, per strut. So it is strong, will have less flex under load or at full extension, but you shed some pounds as well.



Once we had a handle on the various lowering spring rates and picked the Bilstein BTS springs for this car, we scheduled Tyler's 2012 Mustang GT Brembo car into the shop. We measured the OEM ride heights, camber, and I took the "before" test drive around our pre-set "test loop". Then we got it onto a lift and took off the OEM bits...



While the stock struts and shocks were off we measured the lengths relative to the Bilstein B6 bits, then rated this OEM springs. The new parts all went on and functioned perfectly. The quality of everything we've received from Bilstein has been second to none. The rear shocks came with new top mount bushings and the springs were made to go with the OEM top mounts.



Of course we cannot leave anything alone and instead of using the OEM or even a GT500 top mount we paired the front struts with the Vorshlag S197 camber plate and our OEM upper spring perch / sealed radial bearing solution.



We have since run these with various aftermarket lowering springs and they work very well, wihtout the bottoming you tend to see with stock length struts and shocks (OEM, some Koni, Tokico, etc). We now put the Bilstein shock/struts together, with your choice of 5 different lowering springs, and assemble it all with the Vorshlag camber plate and call it our "StreetPro" suspension kit.

The end result is a really nice suspension kit that is complete and READY TO INSTALL, right out of the box from Vorshlag. There is no need to borrow a spring compressor to remove your upper spring perch/top mount to reinstall on the new bits, as we include the Vorshlag camber plates and pre-install the springs you have chosen, and ship it all to you ready to go. This makes the install take 1/2 the time as most spring/shock installs. And at a hair under $1500 this is a track worthy, street friendly kit that works very well, has a "lifetime warranty" on the struts/shocks, you can alter the camber quickly track-side with the Vorshlag camber plates, and includes inverted monotube shocks with shortened strut/shock bodies, for more bump travel at lower ride heights. Good stuff.

Link to our Vorshlag/Bilstein StreetPro product page: http://www.vorshlag.com/product_info...roducts_id=559

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Before and After ride heights on a 2012 Brembo GT, with OEM then Vorshlag/Bilstein StreetPro suspensions

This animated gif above shows the before and after ride heights with the BTS springs. The 5300-K and 5300-P springs are a tick lower. With the BTS springs the car was lowered by 15mm up front (close to 0.75" installed) and 38mm in back (close to 1.5" installed) for a level stance that dramatically improves the look of any S197. This set-up is popular because it offers good ground clearance and a favorable ride. The optional lowering spring kits shown below offer even more aggressive ride heights and spring rates. Tyler and his wife both love the look and ride with this spring and shock combo, and the quality at this pricepoint is impossible to beat.




And don't forget, Vorshlag sells the full range of Bilstein shock models. They make a lot of adjustable and non-adjustable monotubes for all sorts of sports cars, and we're adding them to our website as quickly as we can test, measure and photograph new sets we get in. The Bilstein PSS9 single adjustable, monotube, inverted struts shown above are for a GD Subaru STi, shown with Vorshlag camber plates.

Anyway, let's get to the next track event: TWS!


NASA at Texas World Speedway 2.9 mi CW - April 19-20th

I was admittedly nervous about running this April event with NASA. Even though I started doing track events at TWS back in the late 1980s, I couldn't remember running the 2.9 mile course "backwards" (clockwise) in the thousands of laps I have running this road course in various configurations and directions. When people ask I will say ECR is my home track, and I know it best, but TWS was my first track, and one I will likely have the most laps on for a good long time yet. I had some folks saying the terminal speeds off the main, banked straight and into the Turn 15 corner would be "well in excess of 150 mph", which is different from any other road course in Texas - all the rest of which involve fairly low peak speeds (>125 mph). ECR, MSR-C, MSR-H, GSS, HHR, TMS.... all of our other tracks are much slower than TWS, and the TWS 2.9 CW is the quickest of them all.

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And all I needed to do was have a "4-off" into T15 at 160+ mph... where my room mate in college went off, flipped 4 times, and totaled his car. Of course this was unlikely, but who knows - all I'm saying was this CW 2.9 mile course was just a tick out of my comfort zone, mostly from lack of experience running it this way.



We loaded up on Friday, once again borrowing Ed's Duramax dually, then Amy and I bombed down to College Station, TX, leaving at about 7 pm and hitting massive Friday downtown Dallas traffic. We arrived about 11:30 and managed to stick the truck + enclosed trailer into the hotel parking lot (not always an easy job), got a few hours sleep, then towed out to TWS early Saturday morning, hoping to get a decent paddock spot. BZZZ! Wrong. The place was packed and we were stuck out in a grassy parking lot, well outside of the normal garage area. Oh well - gotta rent a garage or get their early to guarantee a good paddock spot.



No worries - we had the entire lot to ourselves and it proved to be a great spot to watch the racing (very near Turn 3), and the weather was so perfect we didn't even roll out the shade awning. We got the car ready for Time Trial and Amy and I helped fellow racer Joe D change over to some Vorshlag/D-Force 18x10" wheels and Continental slicks on his 2013 Boss302 Leguna Seca.



When we entered, I registered for Saturday only and Amy was signed up to drive Sunday, but we noticed that some of the eight TT3 cars didn't arrive on Saturday, so I paid the difference and signed up to run TT both days, so we could make sure we had at least 5 in class both days - in the hopes that somebody could win some tires (minimum 5 cars in class to pay out for Hoosier). I ran the first Saturday session with Amy riding along, since the times don't count on that session (but do count for gridding in TT session 2). I was pretty apprehensive and put in some 1:55 laps before Amy said "Enough!" and I came in after 4 laps. She is a terrible passenger... or I am a bad enough driver that she can't ride with me, one of the two. There was all sorts of mayhem in the first session, with a Mazda2 spinning in front of us going into Turn 15, a Porsche went off Turn 7 on the next lap, then another car was off, and by lap 4 a Corvette not only went off track but was on fire before Turn 4 (not much damage). Wow, what a mess. They called the session early and we all "had a talk" about driving wild in TT.



When I went out for TT session 2 I was gridded a bit better and got some quicker times, into the 1:51s with a best of a 1:51.749, which put me in front of TT3 by a good bit. See video below...


Click above to see in-car video from the TT3 winning/lap record setting 1:51.7 lap in session 2

Saturday TT Final Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...ay%20Final.pdf

I went out again in session 3 but the temps were rising and I didn't get any quicker, with a 1:51.9. I didn't bother to go out in session 4, as the temps were on the rise and I didn't feel like there was much left in the car, at least with me driving it... a few tenths maybe? The Hoosier A6 tires always seem to put in their best laps on the FIRST hot lap, and work best in the FIRST sessions of the day (coolest temps), so I was on a steep learning curve - trying to learn this course and put in my best flier in my first lap of each day, heh.



It looks like TT3 ended up having 7 in class for Saturday with a C5 Z06 Corvette taking 2nd with a 1:54.057, with Jerry Khoury's ST2/TT2 Corvette somehow sneaking into TT3 for 3rd (he is going to get a new tune to become TT3 legal soon, but I didn't mind, as it gave us more TT3 entries) and a Super Touring Ferrari F355 Challenge car in 4th. Looking at the results I was very happy to be ahead of the class that day, with so little seat time on this "backwards" 2.9 mile configuration.

Eventually the memory of this course came back to me during my first session Saturday, from when I ran it this way sometime back in the 1990s, but the speeds on the main straight "never got dull". The factory speedometer in the car was buried (at 160 mph) at the start/finish, hundreds of yards before I braked into T15. I calculated that I was really only doing 165mph into T15, but then I really had to ABUSE the brakes to haul it down for T14, where I got on the gas again, then braked again for T13.

My 2nd laps in each session were always hairier than the first, as the tires would get hot and the car would get LOOSE. Coming through Turn 2 at 100+, often about 10-15° sideways, was a bit unnerving. I left the rear wing at almost full AoA to keep it planted in the T2 to T1 complex, to get as much speed up for the front straight. Aero is your friend when you have more power than you have tire. I've got to get this car off of these little 315s! If she'd just let us cut and flare the car for 335s we could run less wing...



Sunday was supposed to be Amy's TT day for all 4 sessions, but we had a lighter attendance than we thought... and since I was able to pull out the win Saturday I went ahead and signed up for Sunday, and agreed with Amy to only take one TT session, the second. Sharing a car sucks. So she went out in TT session 1, but felt she wasn't getting enough seat time so she went out again with HPDE3, after her first TT session. I rode with her, trying to get her to learn the course and push the braking and acceleration zones, which were holding back her times all day.

NASA @ TWS Photo & Video Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...il-20-21-2013/

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Anyway, since I was the quickest car to show up for grid on Sunday 's session 2 grid, I lined up P1, which makes for a nice, traffic-free session - well, for at least 2 laps, until you catch the back of the field.

Here's the best lap on Sunday

Luckily I was able to find a tiny bit more time and my first lap 1:51.530 time was a new lap record and took the lead in TT3. But not by much! Jerry Khory slapped on a new set of Pirelli slicks and dropped FOUR seconds, nipping at my heels by less than a tenth of a second. GAH! I didn't see that coming. Now his ST2/TT2 car running in TT3 gave me a bit more reason to be concerned, but Jerry was cool and agreed to be re-classed if he beat me in a later session. In the end I held onto the TT3 win by .071 sec and scored another lap record and 2 more Hoosier tires; 4 tires for the weekend. That was a smidge quicker than the newly set AI qualifying (1:52.9) and race lap records (1:53.8), set by Mike Patterson on the way to four wins in American Iron over the weekend, in his AST equipped 4th gen LS1. So that's 3 lap records for TT3 at the 3 NASA Texas events so far this year.



Amy was struggling a bit but managed to get down to a 1:59.721 in her last session, just eeking under the 2 minute mark. The high speeds were a bit more intimidating to her, but with more seat time I'm sure she'd find the time that was in the car.

Sunday TT Final Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...ay%20Final.pdf



There was a heated battle in TTB among several Vorshlag/AST equipped E46 M3s, with Allen Page taking the win. And KenO got his car's right side damage all fixed up, from the TT incident at MSR-C. Sadly there was another TT incident this event, and more meetings other changes in TT will follow.



The red E36 above has a PlastiDip spray paint job, which was interesting to talk about, too. And while I didn't instruct at this event I was definitely busy, working on a number of people's cars who had issues, including the OEM splitter that decided to come off at 145mph on a Leguna Seca, another stranded car we helped get towed and repaired in town, wheel changes, and other various "hey, come take a look at this" requests. But it is all good, as this is why we come to these events - to meet folks and try to help out. And sometimes, just maybe, win a set of tires.

We didn't leave the TWS site until 7 pm Sunday, and ate dinner with Costas and several other friends in town, so we got home about 2 am. Long day, long weekend, but Vorshlag was slammed on Monday and I had to hit the ground running. Because the shop was packed, orders overflowing, and in less than 2 weeks we had another NASA event to prep for...


Drag Racing at North Star Dragway, April 28, 2013

Just to show how little time off we actually get from racing, this last Sunday I went drag racing with my friend Ed - who has helped us at countless events over the past few years. It was my pleasure to go help him at the track for a change! Amy, Ed and I towed out to this 1/8th mile strip in Denton, TX and spent the day sorting out his 4th gen LT1 powered, 275mm Drag Radial Firebird.



This was the first time he had this car out in 4.5 years, and a lot of the recent work on the rear suspension and exhaust has been done at Vorshlag. Used to run 5.30s in the 1/8th, so it isn't slow.



Anyway, had a good time and I learned a lot about the "Texas 275" and "Extreme 275" classes of drag racing. Good stuff.


What's Next?

As I write this we are thrashing to load up and head out to New Orleans for the NASA @ NOLA, May 4-5th. The newly won set of Hoosier A6 tires just arrived, as did our new tire machine, new Vorshlag jackets (just in time for a cold snap today) and new Vorshlag embroidered track chairs. We signed up for the Friday test-n-tune day to try to learn this new track, which I took all of 4 laps on in January when I was there for the BFG Rival test event. Amy and I are both driving again and we hope to continue the TT3 streak... fingers crossed!

My new F-350 Ford Powerstroke dually finally arrived and we hooked up the enclosed trailer yesterday at Janco, tweaking the heights and getting it all set-up right. It tows SO WELL I cannot believe it took me this long to buy a dually. And for once we are racing the Mustang with almost no changes - 2 events the same in a row. Granted, we only had 2 weeks between events, but still... doesn't happen often.



And we also got some good quotes and pictures of the red Mustang in the latest issue of NASA SPEED NEWS in an aero article written by ThinkFAST author (great racing book!) and aero guru Neil Roberts. The article is linked here and the entire May issue is here.

We have lots of shocks and springs in stock at the moment for the S197 Mustang. The Vorshlag/Bilstein StreetPro kits are here along with a number of M-5300 lowering spring options. The AST 4150s are in stock and shipping out for this chassis as well as BMW E36 and Subaru GD STi 4150 models. And we have even more new products coming, as we are working furiously to catch up with this new level of parts demand from Vorshlag. If you have a back-ordered camber plate - thank you for your patience, as we now have every camber plate car model shipping except one, which is due next week. We are also making production batches of both E36 and E46 BMW LS1 kits, with headers and mounts coming together quickly.

Check back in a "week or two" for my write-up after NOLA, and for some other exciting S197 suspension development news.

Cheers!

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Project Update for May 17, 2013: I trying to keep this update "short and sweet" because the only thing to cover was the NASA @ NOLA weekend and some upcoming events. If you have been keeping track, we have run this 2011 Mustang in 3 NASA Texas race weekends in 2013, and so far had nailed 3 new TT3 track records and 5 of 6 class wins (each Saturday and Sunday is a new TT race). NOLA was another 2 day event on the NASA Texas calendar and we were hoping that the "heavy but powerful" TT3 Mustang would do well at this track, too. I knew it had one long straight (3360 feet) but it also had a lot of twisty bits, as you can see in the course map that we made, below. Could we "4-peat" with TT3 track records? Read below to find out...




Since I have complained publicly about the lack of track maps being available at many tracks and events before, and I feel that the lack of maps/corner numbers/pit lane routing has led to issues at some events, I put my money where my mouth is and we made the track map above. Brandon here at Vorshlag took an existing but very hard to read color track map from NOLA and created a line graphic shown, added legible corner numbers, and marked where NASA TT race director Ken Brewer wanted the TT group to bunch up on the out lap. All of the various alternate configurations were removed as well, to only show the course we were to be driving that weekend. We printed 70 of these and handed them out at the TT meeting as well as to our HPDE students. This went over so well we are going to do this for all upcoming NASA Texas events we go to in 2013.


NASA @ NOLA Motorsports Park, May 3-5, 2013

We had been anticipating this event for some time, as I got to take 4 laps around this 2.75 mile course back in January and I couldn't wait to go back and race my own car there. NASA Texas and NASA Mid-South teamed up to have this event on both of their schedules, but it was mostly run by Mid-South. NOLA Motorsports Park is a beautiful, even picturesque race track facility that I raved about in my January Rival review. Amy wanted to go to race and to see New Orleans, and with it being the annual Jazzfest weekend, we knew it would be packed and crazy in the French Quarter.



Palm trees, manicured lawns, a flawless track and paddock surface, and beautiful buildinds abound at NOLA

After a bit of a thrash to get the trailer adjusted to the new F-350 diesel dually, that arrived just a couple of days before, we got the Mustang and all of our gear loaded for the 9 hour tow from Dallas,TX down to New Orleans, LA, on Thursday afternoon. We ended up leaving more of less mid afternoon, with Amy and I driving and Ryan and Brandon along for the 3 days of racing. We brought rain gear, cold weather gear, and clothes for hot weather too - never know what to expect down on the Delta!

Vorshlag Photo and Video Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...-May-4-5-2013/

With 100 miles on the odometer the truck was sufficiently broken in and away we went! The truck performed ridiculously well, towing like a dream and stopping without any drama - it was as if the trailer wasn't even hooked up. These new adaptive/progressive/integrated trailer brake controllers that modern trucks come with are amazing. We arrived at our hotel at about 2 am and went to our rooms to crash Thursday night. It started raining on the way down and rained that night as well.

Friday May 3, NOLA Test-N-Tune


Left: Unloading Friday morning in the rain. Right: After we set up the trailer the car was switched to street tires for some rain dancing

We arrived at the track early on Friday morning and got set-up at the NE end of the paddock (nearest to the Events Center, Race Shop and Kart Lobby/Cafe buildings) and unloaded the car. It was pissing rain and didn't look to be letting up anytime soon, but the forecast for Saturday and Sunday was "70°F, sunny and clear". So the crew threw on the Bridgestone RE-11 street tires and D-Force wheels we had in the trailer and Amy and I started taking sessions on the very wet and still raining track.


Dark and gloomy skies in the morning, with rain finally diminishing...

Practice days on the Friday before a NASA weekend is common, but for us it was new - we used to just run a single NASA weekend day (2008-2011), and only in 2012 did we start running both Saturdays and Sundays. This track was so new to us, though, that we decided to pony up the $300 for the practice day and get in as many laps as we could - to learn this track layout. It is a tricky track, and with zero elevation change there are few reference markers to use to help you remember one corner from the next, and there are several that look identical. But with the rain it was tough to judge speeds and what our relative lap times in the dry might be. It rained for a couple of hours then finally... stopped.


Late morning Friday the rain stopped, the clouds parted, and the sun came out. It gets brighter and brighter...

Even with the rain no longer falling there were still significant puddles that covered the track at corners T8, T13, T16 and all down the front straight. I was short shifting 4th and 5th on the front straight to keep the tires from breaking loose at even the reduced speeds of 120+ mph we were seeing. The massive lake at T13 was DEEP and there was no way around it - you just had to slog through it. We named it the "sippy hole", and the lake at T16 wasn't abating much either. By the 3rd and 4th morning sessions we were the only ones brave (or fool) enough to be out on track and Amy and I pounded out dozens and dozens of laps each. Eventually we were just making laps to try to push water off the track, and each lap was making a difference - with water splashing 20' high at some "stream crossings". The interior of the car was pretty wet, but we cleaned it out during the lunch break. And that's when we noticed the NOLA crew go out in 3 track drying trucks, dragging massive air blowers, and they dried off the track! They did an awesome job for about a solid hour and it made a massive difference. Well, T16 was still wet and you had to tip-toe around that corner, but the rest of the track was completely dry. They again warned us after lunch "if you go off, you WILL get stuck", but we never dropped a single tire in the mud all morning during the rain, so we weren't too worried.


Off with the street tires ("poor man's wets") and on with the well abused A6 tires, late on Friday

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We didn't shoot any video during our rain driving, as it was pretty slow, but it sure was entertaining! Probably should have got a few laps on video to show how wet it really was. You know its bad when NOBODY will go out on track with you, but we didn't care - we were learning the track layout, and that's what mattered most. During lunch we saw the track drying and swapped the car back to the Forgestars mounted with 1 weekend old Hoosier A6 tires we used at TWS (I will talk more about the RAPID wear rate of A6s at the bottom of this post), which had some tread left. Then we both took a full 20 minute session each in the dry. The times dropped from the 2:30-2:15 range in the wet to 1:53.8 in the dry for me and 1:57 for Amy.



During these afternoon dry sessions we would come in from the track to the hot pits, where Ryan was waiting to check/bleed down tire pressures and tire temps, while Brandon was shooting pictures from numerous locations. Ryan noted some tire temp issues and adjusted the camber and tire pressures to eventually get the temps even across each tire, and the performance felt better, too. It is always a big plus when we can have him at the track with us! He does track-side work with a World Challenge team (and is at COTA while I'm writing this) so this was nothing new for him, and in fact he said "this is the least work I've ever done at a race weekend. I like it when drivers don't crash or blow up!" And the pictures always look SO much better when Brandon can come along, as well.


Left: We used up 3 of the 4 scrubs on Friday. We had one "keeper" and the rest were junk. Right: New tires going on for Saturday

I sent Amy out again in the final session of the day to get some more laps under her belt, and she got all the life out of the tires, taking 3 of 4 down to cord (and they wore almost perfectly across the tread). The above left pictures shows one of the fronts, which was down to base rubber across the entire tread and just into some Nylon cord on the edge. We brought a set of sticker A6 tires (the winnings from the NASA @ TWS weekend) and pulled the wheels off late that afternoon and took all of it to the NOLA Race shop for mounting and balancing. They were slammed but promised us they could get the tires ready by 7 am the next day.



Throughout the day Friday we had a number of NOLA track members and NASA racers stop by, including Mark Council with his S197 autocross car (black Mustang in above left pic) and another guy with an FR500S clone / ex-Miller School car (top right pic, blue Mustang). We ended up working on Mark's car a little in our paddock area, replacing some missing hardware from his Vorshlag camber plates (we bring tons of spares in the trailer). Since we ran out of tires at the end of the day and were out of work to do, we decided to hit the French Quarter in New Orleans and have a night out on the town. Mark joined the 4 of us from Vorshlag and we tore it UP!



The 4 of us loaded up in the F-350 and Mark followed us in his Mustang and then we got out to walk the Quarter. After stopping for the prerequisite beignets at Cafe du Monde (a famous coffee stand that has been in business since 1862), we sauntered over to Bourbon Street "for a quick drink". Several rounds of Grenades later we sloshed our way to Mother's for some authentic Cajun food. And more drinking. The whole time we were talking with crazy cajun accents (since Brandon and I are both from Louisiana), after watching this SNL sketch (Maine Justice!) in the truck during our drive. Needless to say, there were hundreds of gator sightings that night in our walks down in the Quarter! We drank some fine beverages and ate some excellent cuisine and had a lot of fun that night. Amy was our designated driver and after doing some 4 wheel burnouts in the dually leaving our parking spot (she crazy!) we ended up at a Best Buy at 10 pm, where Brandon replaced his aging phone with a Samsung Galaxy S4 (which was so nice I got one myself a week later). We were all back at the hotel by 11 pm and up again to head to the track by 7 am.

Saturday May 4th - TT Race 1

We arrived at the track by 7 am, then we split into two groups. Ryan and Brandon went to the race shop to get the newly mounted tires, then they and Amy got that set of wheels mounted. At the same time I rushed off to 3 meetings: Instructors, Time Trial, then the HPDE 1&2 meeting to meet my student. I was signed up to instruct once again and had a brand new to HPDE student that owned this beautiful Parnelli Jones edition Saleen Mustang, shown below. Tracy and her boyfriend David were super nice and I worked with her for all 8 track sessions over the next 2 days, where she improved dramatically. Her supercharged Mustang sounded great and had excellent power, brakes, tires, and even a decent suspension - something I'm not used to in most new student's Mustangs! Brandon took more pics of this car located here, here and here.



After this quick round of meetings I ran back to our paddock spot and they had the Mustang ready to go out on track. The plan was for me to run all 4 sessions on Saturday and one TT session Sunday, then have Amy drive 3 of the 4 TT sessions on Sunday. It was our best shot at winning more tires, or so we presumed. It is always difficult sharing a car in any form of racing, and TT is especially hard, as there are only 4 sessions per day to drive. And on Saturday, the first session doesn't count except for grid position (the "Warm-up"), but all 4 count on Sunday. My transponder was turned on, the video camera fired up, and I got to grid with about 3 cars ahead of me.


Left: Bradon's Ruckus helped made sure I made it to grid for HPDE instruction! Right: Shane Umbarger was there; he bought the 18x9" WedsSport wheels I used in STX

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