Whiskey11
SCCA Autoscrosser #23 STU
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Project Tilty - 2009 Mustang GT - STX Build
Well, here is the post I know no one was waiting for (except me )! This thread is going to be a LONG one so for those crazy enough, hang in there, god speed, and may the force be with you.... because you'll need it!
Before we get into the actual Solo Super Weekend rundown, we have some 2012 house cleaning to do.
At the conclusion of 2012 I had enough points to win the STX class in the Nebraska region despite two third place finishes and a second place (first event) finish. It helps that I ran basically unopposed all season. My Co-Driver was still learning my car after the changes I made and the rest of the competition was either new to the sport or on all seasons. In otherwords, it's a "feel good" win. This year will thankfully be different since STX will be well subscribed with decent competition. We have a E36 BMW 328i that IS nationally prepped (at least on the right wheels/tires and on coilovers, no idea on power/weight) but with a new owner/driver and my "benchmark" Integra Type R that IS nationally prepped and is driven by a very talented driver as well as a few other new guys whom I hope hang around for what will be some fun competition! But hey, I got a cool free shirt out of the ordeal!
There was also someone crazy enough to think that I deserved the Solo Novice of the Year award despite having never (ever) run in the Novice class. I'm honored, but really I think there are others who deserve the award that were genuine novices.
13 April 2013 - Test'n'Tune
Where to begin? How about with the 6 months of anticipation of this event compounded by wanting to try out new toys compounded by the desire to win all the events! I set myself a very clear goal: Set the car up, at all costs, for the year so that the only tweaking necessary are "easy" tweaks. If the car is an understeering mess, put up the effort to get under the car and move the watts link bolt up a notch and so on.
So lets cover what exactly the car has done to it:
Ground Control Coilovers (440lbs/in Front/200lbs/in rear)
Ground Control Camber Plates (-2.9º camber, -0.10º toe OUT, +7.0º Caster)
Strano 35mm front bar (middle position)
Stock 20mm rear bar (yup, stock)
Fays2 Watts Linkage (1 hole up from center)
245/45/18 Dunlop Direzza Z1 Sport Star Specs (37 PSI front, 34 PSI rear)
Corner Balanced: 3440lbs (no spare or driver, 1/8th tank of gas), 50/50 cross weights
Some subtle but large changes. Mostly in the springs/dampers/alignment area. That was of course "the big news" posted about a month ago. I wondered about the swaybars and the Watts link location all the way up until the first time out on the course. I had probably 10-15 runs in the car, spun once (snap oversteer, no warning, no real reason either), and really got to know the car.
Here are some "how Tilty sits" photos in race trim:
Dat camber! YUM!
Now for the keen observer you will notice something is off on the car. I'll let you think about that while we go on to the rest of this long post!
Here is the Test'n'Tune course:
1.) Offset Slalom
2.) Standard Slalom
3.) Lolipop (lolipop ohh I love the lolipop <poping noise>)
4.) Eyebrows, winks, whatever you want to call them
The Test'n'Tune was a very simple course layout involving some features that are becoming more dominant in National level competition and something that the creators (driving an SSP prepped Corvette) obviously wanted to work on. The Lolipop was the only odity as crossovers in National courses is pretty much verboten due to the rate at which cars are launched and the high prevelance of collisions associated with crossovers. The eyebrows are becoming a more common annoyance. The course on Sunday would feature FOUR of them and these TWO felt more like a quick jaunt than any "eyebrow" run I've done before. These are significantly less annoying than Chicago boxes so I'm not complaining! The most interesting part of this Test'n'Tune course was none other than the offset slaloms. Every single person of the 22 people in the Test'n'Tune spun here AT LEAST once. Some did multiple times. It took a lot of pondering as to why that was and it wasn't until the Sunday course that I fully understood why but it turns out there is a dip at the third cone (the one right above the #1) which was placed just before the cone so that when you changed directions, if you were really balls on and backsiding the cones, the weight would transfer to a wheel that was basically either in air or responding to that dip. Really awkward placement but it provided to be a challenge that made it one of the more memorable offset slaloms I've done. I generally detest offset slaloms since they are clumsy and awkward to drive but this was FAST and FUN when done right.
So? How does it feel? Well, it feels undertired (no shit Whiskey... 245's...) but otherwise impressive. When I say undertired, I mean, my buddy in the Evo IX SE, with 285 Yokohama AD048 R-Comps said "Damn this thing has some grip!" and was actually serious. Ohh that's not "undertired" Ok... it IS undertired, it IS noticeable, but it isn't awful. About the only way to describe the "nervousness" is as undertired. It's not slow, it's not unstable, it's just nervous. It's nervous in a good way and a bad way. Good because it teaches me to slow my hands down and turn in sooner, bad because the car is easy to get past the grip level provided by the tires and 4 wheel slide.
Anyway, the only changes I made to the car were tire pressure and shock settings. I managed to get the balance close enough where tire pressure and shock settings can change the balance of the car. The car puts down power REALLY WELL and if you flat foot it mid corner the car rotates rather than pushes. It's actually quite refreshing. With some more grip I bet this car would do really, really well. I'm more impressed with me being able to pick those settings for the swaybars, ride height and Watts link and not having to dick with ANY of it at all!
I'm loving the mid corner grip the car now has and the car absolutely EATS slaloms alive. They happen so friggen quick and changing directions is so instant it is disgusting and it will do it with power as well!
So what's the bad? Well there isn't really any other than the fact that the car requires very slow inputs to avoid overworking the tires which is part of the reason it feels so nervous at the limit.
Time wise, from the other 3 STX competitors there on the Test'n'Tune, I was about a second faster than most of them. Compared to my buddy in his really tail happy Evo (yeah, it was, 700 lbs/in springs in the rear, 600 lbs/in in the front, stock front bar, aftermarket rear bar...) I was about a second and a half slower. That is pretty impressive. Granted, tire temps played a HUGE role in performance and it was kind of on the cold side (low to mid 50's) with a reasonably stiff breeze.
14 April 2013 - Solo Points Event #1:
It started last night with rain... yup rain... which was followed by the wind. I arrived on site at 7:45ish to a damp site and wind gusts ranging from 20 to 25 mph and coming from the south west. It was overcast and remained that way all day. It never did rain again though. I had the privilege of working the 1st heat, watching the 2nd heat and running the third heat when it was the warmest and it didn't really help that much with grip since "warm" was 60 degrees! Overall the event went well and had a pretty good turnout (over 80 people) and the course was well designed:
1.) This is the same offset slalom as the Test'n'Tune with a different exit
2.) Eyebrows (yup, 4 of them)
3.) Slalom of driver's choice
4.) Half a Chicago box
Once again, the first offset slalom proved to be an area of spinning for those who did not show up to the Test'n'Tune. I think 5 or 6 people spun there during the event and these people were some of our more experienced drivers who were really pushing their cars. Some of the less experienced folk were simply not going fast enough for it to be a problem. The Eyebrows here drove more like walloms (walled slaloms) since they were spaced out pretty far. The driver's choice slalom at #3 provided one huge mystery. If you watch my videos (soon to follow) you will notice I did the first run the shortest way and the rest the long way. When I ran it the first time the short way it was because pretty much everyone that was fast (including that SSP Corvette) was doing it that way but I found that braking too hard into the corner before caused a lot of slowdown and the exit wasn't any faster in my car than doing it the long way. The last half Chicago box thing was a generally large annoyance. The one thing about Chicago boxes is that they can be very visually deceptive and this was no exception. Those that knew their cars well enough could navigate some of the fatest cars through their pretty much at WOT. The huge sweeper right before the Chicago box set you up perfectly to just make it a quick 2 cone slalom rather than the annoying chicago boxes I'm used to. This is, in my opinion, the correct way to set up a Chicago box since it is nothing more than a visual clusterfuck for your mind to deal with and for those with the experience to recognize either at the beginning or later that it is simply a quick transition before the end, it basically set you up for WOT from the apex of the slalom to the finish line which turned out to be a problem.
This is the second Nebraska Region event in which I have witnessed someone taking out the timing system. The first time they hit the reflector which was nothing more than a bunch of shiny metal disks bolted to an egg crate and no damage was done to the timing system beyond having to reset everything. This time was different. Our new timing system is 100% wireless and both the receiver and the sender are required to send a signal back to the timing trailer (since they can monitor "system health" from there). Take one out and the system is completely FUBAR. Sadly this happened in heat ONE. Out came the wired system which promptly was unable to communicate with our timing software. They hand logged every single run (we do this anyway) up until about halfway through the second heat when wind took out the "towers" holding the wire above the start/finish line. Since driving over the wires is not an option something else had to be rigged up to work. It turns out, that our wireless system, although mangled beyond all recognition, was salvaged enough to continue to work. Out it went to replace the wired system and normal operation continued for the remainder of the day (thank goodness!).
Photo courtesy of Jerry Doctor
We were given a total of five runs in which to "get the job done" and I cranked out some low 59's in my first runs followed by two 58.5's followed by a 58.1. My competition and benchmark in the Integra Type R had a few 57.5's that he ran but was unsure if there was any coneage on his last one. I had asked him if he heard any of the times from the other 4 competitors in STX and he said he hadn't but he told me that he had chatted with them prior to our heat and checked out tires and was "not concerned". Well I did know the one 328i was on RS3's and they looked to be 255's or 265's but having seen his runs from the Test'n'Tune and heard his times (about a second and a half slower than mine) I wasn't that concerned.
Before I get to the event results (which the official ones have not yet been posted) let me get the videos out of the way:
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #1 - YouTube
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #2 - YouTube
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #3 - YouTube
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #4 - YouTube
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #5 - YouTube
Ok, ok, enough teasing. You want the results and I don't blame you. You've suffered through the mindless ramblings of two days worth of events crammed into ONE post. You deserve a medal for making it this far! So how did Project Tilty do? Well, the official results are not out yet...
But I did stay for the awards ceremony at the end (they asked us to, then guilted us into taking down the fence! ) and there were two trophies in the class with 6 drivers. They read off second place before reading off the victor, a mere six thousandths (or was it nine thousandths...) of a second out of first which was the closest split at the event as my Benchmark in the Integra Type R. At this point, knowing he ran 3 of his runs faster than mine, I kinda thought to myself "Well shit, who won then? It couldn't have been me since he ran faster times than me on 3 of his 5 runs and still only placed second." Turns out, Project Tilty squeeked out another victory and that he coned all three of those runs! I apparently coned my 58.1 run since my winning time was 58.5XX. PHEW! Now Shawn (the driver of the Type R) basically collapsed to his knees when he was the second place guy since the margin of victory was so narrow and when I was announced the victor we both looked at each other, shook hands and said, in unison: "This is why I love STX". Scary that it happened at the same time but we both congratulated each other. I really hope the other guys in STX stay in STX, but if it ends up being Shawn and I as the only two people, I know that we can both give each other one hell of a run for our money!
So now that you've made it this far, I'm sure you are dying (maybe literally after reading all that) to know what is next for Project Tilty? Well, the biggest things are to continue to learn this car. The hardest thing is going to be finding the limits again. This car responds so quickly to driver input that during the Test'n'Tune the first apex cone BEFORE THE START LIGHTS was lunched 4 times becuase I was turning in too soon. On one of the videos you can clearly see in the slalom the front wheels literally on the base of a cone and I'm sure the back end lunched it (although I don't remember hearing it).
The biggest news though is that April 20th is the release of the "shit or get off the pot" move the cars to STU proposal response. This literally will define next year's major purchase (wheels and tires) and the direction I take my benchmarks for this year. I haven't made up my mind on anything but the wheels which right now are going to be TSW Interlagos wheels. If the cars are "stuck" in STX with no additional provisions to make them competitive I will be on the 18x9's which weigh in at a tick over 18lbs each. If we get the move to STU it will be 18x10.5's weighing in at around 21lbs each. I could go with the Nurburgrings in 18x10.5 but the look is so overplayed on the S197 chassis that it is really not my preferred look. When it was the only light weight rotary forged wheel TSW offered I was content but now that the Interlagos is out and weighs a fifth of a pound lighter and is the same price and is different from the 90 billion S197's with the "SVE Drift" wheels it is more attractive to go that route. Besides, Terry at Vorshlag did the whole Forgeline F14 look on his car and while my car shares a lot of inspiration from his original motives and a lot of my knowledge comes from his experiences, I didn't want to clone his car. Of course, the Interlagos looks like the wheels he ran in STX with the 265/40/18 RS3's that Conekiller bought (stole ) they are far less common on these cars. The stock Bullitts will keep the Z1's on them until they run into the wearbars hopefully midway through next year then I'll replace them with Continental ExtremeContact DW tires in stock sizes which will serve as rain tires as well as my DD tires. The TSW's and whatever tire I end up on will be the autocross/track ONLY tires.
My next event wont be until May 19th in Iowa unless I can convince someone to come to Oskaloosa Iowa from Omaha with me as I'm not making that drive by myself without someone to keep me awake. The Nebraska Region event is on May 5 and I have to work that Sunday (one of 5 Sundays the store is open all year...) and under ZERO circumstances can I get that day off. I'm contemplating, heavily I might add, going to Spring Nationals just for the shits and grins but I have to check to see if I can even get the Saturday off since it is a two day event (four if you count the ProSolo I'm not doing).
For now, nothing on the car will change setup wise since the car was capable of rotating under power fairly easily as setup. I realize it seems silly to go to a Test'n'Tune and only mess with easy to adjust stuff but I think the car was already there for car setup. There was surprisingly little understeer. Just enough where a little more front end grip in sweepers would have been nice but not enough that a quick goosing or lifting of the throttle wouldn't adjust the pitch of the car. For now, there is some downtime between events that I'll use to get more familiar with the car. I'm leaving the damper adjustments where they are, since the car is still very comfortable to drive in and I think that'll help get me used to the turn in.
For next year, I'd also like to address the issue of the rear differential. I'm still very undecided on which route to go and it seems like I may go with the Detroit TrueTrac and "deal with" any setup issues it may impart with inside wheel spin. Right now it is the only durable gear diff I have seen. The WaveTrac, while awesome in design and operation, looks to be too much of a potential headache with the numerous reports of it being very fragile in the 8.8 cars. The Torsen was never on the table due to it's potential reliability issues with hard launches (I wouldn't mind unleashing the inner drag racer in me sometime) and clutch based differentials just seem like something that will continue to nickle and dime me for the performance that it imparts. The only other option is to keep rebuilding the stock one which is about as appealing as the other clutch based differentials.
Anyway, thanks for hanging in there and reading! When the official results and any photos from the event get posted I will make sure to update this thread!
Ohh yeah, for those who have been thinking about "what has changed" on my car... due to the lovely motorsportreg system, two people are allowed to register with the same number in the same class. In this case, there was a guy from out of state who also was #11 STX and despite the fact that I was the fourth person to register for the event and he didn't register for probably a week after I registered it allowed him to use the same number. So I volunteered at registration (who didn't notice it until I brought it up) to change to #12 for this event. Had I not won STX, I surely would have gladly blamed the fact that I had to run a different number than MY number!
To add: Project Tilty, comes from the phrase "Tilting at Windmills" a phrase used by Terry Fair to describe running an S197 in STX. Although I'm not sure how running an S197 in STX is "attacking an imaginary enemy" from which the phrase is referencing, it feels right, so therefore it is!
Well, here is the post I know no one was waiting for (except me )! This thread is going to be a LONG one so for those crazy enough, hang in there, god speed, and may the force be with you.... because you'll need it!
Before we get into the actual Solo Super Weekend rundown, we have some 2012 house cleaning to do.
At the conclusion of 2012 I had enough points to win the STX class in the Nebraska region despite two third place finishes and a second place (first event) finish. It helps that I ran basically unopposed all season. My Co-Driver was still learning my car after the changes I made and the rest of the competition was either new to the sport or on all seasons. In otherwords, it's a "feel good" win. This year will thankfully be different since STX will be well subscribed with decent competition. We have a E36 BMW 328i that IS nationally prepped (at least on the right wheels/tires and on coilovers, no idea on power/weight) but with a new owner/driver and my "benchmark" Integra Type R that IS nationally prepped and is driven by a very talented driver as well as a few other new guys whom I hope hang around for what will be some fun competition! But hey, I got a cool free shirt out of the ordeal!
There was also someone crazy enough to think that I deserved the Solo Novice of the Year award despite having never (ever) run in the Novice class. I'm honored, but really I think there are others who deserve the award that were genuine novices.
13 April 2013 - Test'n'Tune
Where to begin? How about with the 6 months of anticipation of this event compounded by wanting to try out new toys compounded by the desire to win all the events! I set myself a very clear goal: Set the car up, at all costs, for the year so that the only tweaking necessary are "easy" tweaks. If the car is an understeering mess, put up the effort to get under the car and move the watts link bolt up a notch and so on.
So lets cover what exactly the car has done to it:
Ground Control Coilovers (440lbs/in Front/200lbs/in rear)
Ground Control Camber Plates (-2.9º camber, -0.10º toe OUT, +7.0º Caster)
Strano 35mm front bar (middle position)
Stock 20mm rear bar (yup, stock)
Fays2 Watts Linkage (1 hole up from center)
245/45/18 Dunlop Direzza Z1 Sport Star Specs (37 PSI front, 34 PSI rear)
Corner Balanced: 3440lbs (no spare or driver, 1/8th tank of gas), 50/50 cross weights
Some subtle but large changes. Mostly in the springs/dampers/alignment area. That was of course "the big news" posted about a month ago. I wondered about the swaybars and the Watts link location all the way up until the first time out on the course. I had probably 10-15 runs in the car, spun once (snap oversteer, no warning, no real reason either), and really got to know the car.
Here are some "how Tilty sits" photos in race trim:
Dat camber! YUM!
Now for the keen observer you will notice something is off on the car. I'll let you think about that while we go on to the rest of this long post!
Here is the Test'n'Tune course:
1.) Offset Slalom
2.) Standard Slalom
3.) Lolipop (lolipop ohh I love the lolipop <poping noise>)
4.) Eyebrows, winks, whatever you want to call them
The Test'n'Tune was a very simple course layout involving some features that are becoming more dominant in National level competition and something that the creators (driving an SSP prepped Corvette) obviously wanted to work on. The Lolipop was the only odity as crossovers in National courses is pretty much verboten due to the rate at which cars are launched and the high prevelance of collisions associated with crossovers. The eyebrows are becoming a more common annoyance. The course on Sunday would feature FOUR of them and these TWO felt more like a quick jaunt than any "eyebrow" run I've done before. These are significantly less annoying than Chicago boxes so I'm not complaining! The most interesting part of this Test'n'Tune course was none other than the offset slaloms. Every single person of the 22 people in the Test'n'Tune spun here AT LEAST once. Some did multiple times. It took a lot of pondering as to why that was and it wasn't until the Sunday course that I fully understood why but it turns out there is a dip at the third cone (the one right above the #1) which was placed just before the cone so that when you changed directions, if you were really balls on and backsiding the cones, the weight would transfer to a wheel that was basically either in air or responding to that dip. Really awkward placement but it provided to be a challenge that made it one of the more memorable offset slaloms I've done. I generally detest offset slaloms since they are clumsy and awkward to drive but this was FAST and FUN when done right.
So? How does it feel? Well, it feels undertired (no shit Whiskey... 245's...) but otherwise impressive. When I say undertired, I mean, my buddy in the Evo IX SE, with 285 Yokohama AD048 R-Comps said "Damn this thing has some grip!" and was actually serious. Ohh that's not "undertired" Ok... it IS undertired, it IS noticeable, but it isn't awful. About the only way to describe the "nervousness" is as undertired. It's not slow, it's not unstable, it's just nervous. It's nervous in a good way and a bad way. Good because it teaches me to slow my hands down and turn in sooner, bad because the car is easy to get past the grip level provided by the tires and 4 wheel slide.
Anyway, the only changes I made to the car were tire pressure and shock settings. I managed to get the balance close enough where tire pressure and shock settings can change the balance of the car. The car puts down power REALLY WELL and if you flat foot it mid corner the car rotates rather than pushes. It's actually quite refreshing. With some more grip I bet this car would do really, really well. I'm more impressed with me being able to pick those settings for the swaybars, ride height and Watts link and not having to dick with ANY of it at all!
I'm loving the mid corner grip the car now has and the car absolutely EATS slaloms alive. They happen so friggen quick and changing directions is so instant it is disgusting and it will do it with power as well!
So what's the bad? Well there isn't really any other than the fact that the car requires very slow inputs to avoid overworking the tires which is part of the reason it feels so nervous at the limit.
Time wise, from the other 3 STX competitors there on the Test'n'Tune, I was about a second faster than most of them. Compared to my buddy in his really tail happy Evo (yeah, it was, 700 lbs/in springs in the rear, 600 lbs/in in the front, stock front bar, aftermarket rear bar...) I was about a second and a half slower. That is pretty impressive. Granted, tire temps played a HUGE role in performance and it was kind of on the cold side (low to mid 50's) with a reasonably stiff breeze.
14 April 2013 - Solo Points Event #1:
It started last night with rain... yup rain... which was followed by the wind. I arrived on site at 7:45ish to a damp site and wind gusts ranging from 20 to 25 mph and coming from the south west. It was overcast and remained that way all day. It never did rain again though. I had the privilege of working the 1st heat, watching the 2nd heat and running the third heat when it was the warmest and it didn't really help that much with grip since "warm" was 60 degrees! Overall the event went well and had a pretty good turnout (over 80 people) and the course was well designed:
1.) This is the same offset slalom as the Test'n'Tune with a different exit
2.) Eyebrows (yup, 4 of them)
3.) Slalom of driver's choice
4.) Half a Chicago box
Once again, the first offset slalom proved to be an area of spinning for those who did not show up to the Test'n'Tune. I think 5 or 6 people spun there during the event and these people were some of our more experienced drivers who were really pushing their cars. Some of the less experienced folk were simply not going fast enough for it to be a problem. The Eyebrows here drove more like walloms (walled slaloms) since they were spaced out pretty far. The driver's choice slalom at #3 provided one huge mystery. If you watch my videos (soon to follow) you will notice I did the first run the shortest way and the rest the long way. When I ran it the first time the short way it was because pretty much everyone that was fast (including that SSP Corvette) was doing it that way but I found that braking too hard into the corner before caused a lot of slowdown and the exit wasn't any faster in my car than doing it the long way. The last half Chicago box thing was a generally large annoyance. The one thing about Chicago boxes is that they can be very visually deceptive and this was no exception. Those that knew their cars well enough could navigate some of the fatest cars through their pretty much at WOT. The huge sweeper right before the Chicago box set you up perfectly to just make it a quick 2 cone slalom rather than the annoying chicago boxes I'm used to. This is, in my opinion, the correct way to set up a Chicago box since it is nothing more than a visual clusterfuck for your mind to deal with and for those with the experience to recognize either at the beginning or later that it is simply a quick transition before the end, it basically set you up for WOT from the apex of the slalom to the finish line which turned out to be a problem.
This is the second Nebraska Region event in which I have witnessed someone taking out the timing system. The first time they hit the reflector which was nothing more than a bunch of shiny metal disks bolted to an egg crate and no damage was done to the timing system beyond having to reset everything. This time was different. Our new timing system is 100% wireless and both the receiver and the sender are required to send a signal back to the timing trailer (since they can monitor "system health" from there). Take one out and the system is completely FUBAR. Sadly this happened in heat ONE. Out came the wired system which promptly was unable to communicate with our timing software. They hand logged every single run (we do this anyway) up until about halfway through the second heat when wind took out the "towers" holding the wire above the start/finish line. Since driving over the wires is not an option something else had to be rigged up to work. It turns out, that our wireless system, although mangled beyond all recognition, was salvaged enough to continue to work. Out it went to replace the wired system and normal operation continued for the remainder of the day (thank goodness!).
Photo courtesy of Jerry Doctor
We were given a total of five runs in which to "get the job done" and I cranked out some low 59's in my first runs followed by two 58.5's followed by a 58.1. My competition and benchmark in the Integra Type R had a few 57.5's that he ran but was unsure if there was any coneage on his last one. I had asked him if he heard any of the times from the other 4 competitors in STX and he said he hadn't but he told me that he had chatted with them prior to our heat and checked out tires and was "not concerned". Well I did know the one 328i was on RS3's and they looked to be 255's or 265's but having seen his runs from the Test'n'Tune and heard his times (about a second and a half slower than mine) I wasn't that concerned.
Before I get to the event results (which the official ones have not yet been posted) let me get the videos out of the way:
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #1 - YouTube
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #2 - YouTube
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #3 - YouTube
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #4 - YouTube
2009 Mustang GT Autocross - 14 April 2013 - #12 STX - Run #5 - YouTube
Ok, ok, enough teasing. You want the results and I don't blame you. You've suffered through the mindless ramblings of two days worth of events crammed into ONE post. You deserve a medal for making it this far! So how did Project Tilty do? Well, the official results are not out yet...
But I did stay for the awards ceremony at the end (they asked us to, then guilted us into taking down the fence! ) and there were two trophies in the class with 6 drivers. They read off second place before reading off the victor, a mere six thousandths (or was it nine thousandths...) of a second out of first which was the closest split at the event as my Benchmark in the Integra Type R. At this point, knowing he ran 3 of his runs faster than mine, I kinda thought to myself "Well shit, who won then? It couldn't have been me since he ran faster times than me on 3 of his 5 runs and still only placed second." Turns out, Project Tilty squeeked out another victory and that he coned all three of those runs! I apparently coned my 58.1 run since my winning time was 58.5XX. PHEW! Now Shawn (the driver of the Type R) basically collapsed to his knees when he was the second place guy since the margin of victory was so narrow and when I was announced the victor we both looked at each other, shook hands and said, in unison: "This is why I love STX". Scary that it happened at the same time but we both congratulated each other. I really hope the other guys in STX stay in STX, but if it ends up being Shawn and I as the only two people, I know that we can both give each other one hell of a run for our money!
So now that you've made it this far, I'm sure you are dying (maybe literally after reading all that) to know what is next for Project Tilty? Well, the biggest things are to continue to learn this car. The hardest thing is going to be finding the limits again. This car responds so quickly to driver input that during the Test'n'Tune the first apex cone BEFORE THE START LIGHTS was lunched 4 times becuase I was turning in too soon. On one of the videos you can clearly see in the slalom the front wheels literally on the base of a cone and I'm sure the back end lunched it (although I don't remember hearing it).
The biggest news though is that April 20th is the release of the "shit or get off the pot" move the cars to STU proposal response. This literally will define next year's major purchase (wheels and tires) and the direction I take my benchmarks for this year. I haven't made up my mind on anything but the wheels which right now are going to be TSW Interlagos wheels. If the cars are "stuck" in STX with no additional provisions to make them competitive I will be on the 18x9's which weigh in at a tick over 18lbs each. If we get the move to STU it will be 18x10.5's weighing in at around 21lbs each. I could go with the Nurburgrings in 18x10.5 but the look is so overplayed on the S197 chassis that it is really not my preferred look. When it was the only light weight rotary forged wheel TSW offered I was content but now that the Interlagos is out and weighs a fifth of a pound lighter and is the same price and is different from the 90 billion S197's with the "SVE Drift" wheels it is more attractive to go that route. Besides, Terry at Vorshlag did the whole Forgeline F14 look on his car and while my car shares a lot of inspiration from his original motives and a lot of my knowledge comes from his experiences, I didn't want to clone his car. Of course, the Interlagos looks like the wheels he ran in STX with the 265/40/18 RS3's that Conekiller bought (stole ) they are far less common on these cars. The stock Bullitts will keep the Z1's on them until they run into the wearbars hopefully midway through next year then I'll replace them with Continental ExtremeContact DW tires in stock sizes which will serve as rain tires as well as my DD tires. The TSW's and whatever tire I end up on will be the autocross/track ONLY tires.
My next event wont be until May 19th in Iowa unless I can convince someone to come to Oskaloosa Iowa from Omaha with me as I'm not making that drive by myself without someone to keep me awake. The Nebraska Region event is on May 5 and I have to work that Sunday (one of 5 Sundays the store is open all year...) and under ZERO circumstances can I get that day off. I'm contemplating, heavily I might add, going to Spring Nationals just for the shits and grins but I have to check to see if I can even get the Saturday off since it is a two day event (four if you count the ProSolo I'm not doing).
For now, nothing on the car will change setup wise since the car was capable of rotating under power fairly easily as setup. I realize it seems silly to go to a Test'n'Tune and only mess with easy to adjust stuff but I think the car was already there for car setup. There was surprisingly little understeer. Just enough where a little more front end grip in sweepers would have been nice but not enough that a quick goosing or lifting of the throttle wouldn't adjust the pitch of the car. For now, there is some downtime between events that I'll use to get more familiar with the car. I'm leaving the damper adjustments where they are, since the car is still very comfortable to drive in and I think that'll help get me used to the turn in.
For next year, I'd also like to address the issue of the rear differential. I'm still very undecided on which route to go and it seems like I may go with the Detroit TrueTrac and "deal with" any setup issues it may impart with inside wheel spin. Right now it is the only durable gear diff I have seen. The WaveTrac, while awesome in design and operation, looks to be too much of a potential headache with the numerous reports of it being very fragile in the 8.8 cars. The Torsen was never on the table due to it's potential reliability issues with hard launches (I wouldn't mind unleashing the inner drag racer in me sometime) and clutch based differentials just seem like something that will continue to nickle and dime me for the performance that it imparts. The only other option is to keep rebuilding the stock one which is about as appealing as the other clutch based differentials.
Anyway, thanks for hanging in there and reading! When the official results and any photos from the event get posted I will make sure to update this thread!
Ohh yeah, for those who have been thinking about "what has changed" on my car... due to the lovely motorsportreg system, two people are allowed to register with the same number in the same class. In this case, there was a guy from out of state who also was #11 STX and despite the fact that I was the fourth person to register for the event and he didn't register for probably a week after I registered it allowed him to use the same number. So I volunteered at registration (who didn't notice it until I brought it up) to change to #12 for this event. Had I not won STX, I surely would have gladly blamed the fact that I had to run a different number than MY number!
To add: Project Tilty, comes from the phrase "Tilting at Windmills" a phrase used by Terry Fair to describe running an S197 in STX. Although I'm not sure how running an S197 in STX is "attacking an imaginary enemy" from which the phrase is referencing, it feels right, so therefore it is!
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