Continued from above...
Every win feels like this - even an autocross!
I definitely felt the Torsen T-2R differential's added benefit in this tight, autocross environment. This diff hooks up on road courses, it works in uber-tight autocrosses (2nd time I've got to carve cones with this thing), it is silent and doesn't overheat like the clutch style unit. The tires worked great, for old heat cycled scrubs, and once I got some heat into the brakes, they stopped well enough. Might have run more AoA on the rear wing, but the car felt hooked up in the high speed left hander. There was a serious push (understeer) condition all day, which is evident from my videos. We didn't have time between runs to adjust swaybar settings, or I would have set the rear bar
much firmer.
There was so much bodyroll the front struts were running out of droop!
It looks like we are still seeing some major bodyroll, even with the stiffer 600#/in front and 250 #/in rears we went to after the 2012 Solo Nats (450F/175R before), on these 315mm A6 tires. For a serious autox car on these or even bigger gumball tires I could see the need for 800-1000# front springs and
much stiffer rear rates (to get the pig to rotate), but yea, it would ride like a
dump truck at those rates.
Strangely, my best run (with a passenger) ended up as the 5th fastest run of the overall event, and 10th out of 135 in PAX using the SMod PAX. The faster cars were EVOs in ASP and FP, and one of the SS Corvettes in the X-pro class just edged me out. Just for grins I ran the numbers using the ESP PAX, a class the car is much closer prepared to... and it would have placed 1st in overall PAX. Oh well, I can "calculate" myself into an F1 Championship, if I try hard enough, heh! Felt good to pull out this squeaker of a win in SMod, in any case. And it was a lot of fun for only thirty bucks - autocrossing entry fees are so cheap!
Five Star Ford of Plano Auto Show, May 18, 2013
The car show was actually the day before the autocross (for another double-header, busy weekend). This was hosted by Five Star Ford of Plano, Texas. Corey White, the dealer we buy our Fords from and send others to get theirs, sets up cars shows and track days, so we try to go out and support his events. The proceeds from this car show went to a local charity they support, too. We were so buried that day and never broke out the Nikon, so all of the pictures taken at this event were using my camera phone (Galaxy S4 set to 5 MP).
Photo Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Car-Shows/Five-Star-Ford-Show-051813/
Corey said we could bring out our race trailer, a bunch of demo parts, and our TT3 Mustang if we were a sponsor. The guys at the shop washed the car and loaded up for the car show and autocross, and away we went. Got to the dealership at about 7:15 am, set-up our trailer and then unloaded. With a nice donation to the charity we were now official event sponsors and an entrant into the "pro street" car show class as well.
Amy and I have shown cars at shows in the past, and brought out samples of our parts, but never really had a lot of people stop by. I don't know why, but the folks at
this car show responded very well and we had 100+ people come by and look at the car and the shiny suspension bits we showed off.
I spent about an hour detailing the car after we unloaded it. Like most cars that see a lot of track use, our Mustang was covered from front to back with "rubber". Rolled up bits of "klag" litter most race tracks and when a car in front drives over this stuff it kicks back onto the car behind, which leaves a big blob of rubber transfer on the paint. Our car also kicks up plenty of klag on its own, which gets deposited along the sides behind all 4 wheels, too. The white vinyl stripes were covered in this stuff and the XPEL clear paint protection film was covered, too. You can use some aggressive hydrocarbon based cleaners and get the stuff off of the paint, but these chemicals almost always damage clear PPF or cut vinyl graphics (leaving them discolored, yellowed, or worse). So we just wash the car and live with the black marks.
This time I tried a new product, "Goof Off 2" or "
Goof Off Heavy Duty". This stuff is finally safe for automotive finishes, vinyl, clothes, etc. As opposed to "
Goof Off Professional Strength", which is a good bit harsher and
not safe on films and vinyls. We have used the latter for years on really stubborn tar and grease stains on paint, but always followed it up with fresh coat of wax. The new "safer" stuff still works great and doesn't damage or yellow PPF; the rubber marks just wiped right off. I spent a solid 30-45 minutes making the car cleaner than it has been in years, and followed that up with a quick spray and wipe down with
Meguiars Quick Detail - a spray detail & wax product I've used for years.
Once the outside was clean, I opened the hood and it was also dirty. It wasn't really "dirty", just not as clean as I like my cars' engine bays to be. I normally use a whole bag of tricks and tools to detail engines, none of which I had with me, so I just spent 30 minutes and used just a bunch of Armor All and elbow grease. Hand detailed every surface, and it came out pretty well, as you can see above.
The other cars were arriving by the time I got the car cleaned up, and Amy had set-up our display table with all sorts of goodies. We had S197 Mustang shocks from Bilstein, AST and MCS. Vorshlag camber plates, Whiteline LCA relocation brackets and a Watts Link kit, fluids, brake parts, COBRA seats, and more. The pull out shade on the trailer was popular, so we set up about 8 chairs and rolled out our cooler full of drinks, and it became a regular party. I think we stayed busy talking to folks for about 7 or 8 straight hours, stopping only briefly to grab some of the free burgers and dogs that the Ford folks cooked up.
Towards the end of the day I broke away for a bit to look at the other cars at the show, most of which were S197 Mustangs. There was some vintage muscle car iron there, like the yellow 1969 Mustang Boss 302 shown above. This was a 1 owner car who's son was parked next to him with his yellow 2013 Boss 302. Pretty cool. Lots of folks we see at track events were there, like Jerry and Brian with their Boss 302s (who both help organize and run some ECR track events), and the Meher family (husband, wife and 2 daughters all track their cars, including two S197s and a 5th gen Camaro), among others. Even my neighbors the Stewarts, who own
five beautiful S197 Mustangs, were there. It was a good sized show and at the end of the day were pleasantly surprised to see that the car
won its car show class? I guess all that cleaning didn't go to waste, heh.
The dealership a real S197 Cobra Jet out on display, as well as a number of Roush Mustangs and Raptors. Met a lot of really nice folks, and twisted a few arms to get hopefully a few of the car-show-only folks to come out to the June 29th ECR track event, put on by this same dealership. It made for a long day but we got to talk to a lot of people and show off some cool new suspension options for the S197 chassis. Speaking of that...
Vorshlag is now an MCS Shock Dealer
Everyone reading this probably knows that Vorshlag is a dealer for AST, Moton, Bilstein and Bilstein Motorsports shocks. What you might not know is that several months ago we became a stocking dealer for Motion Control Suspensions, a maker of high end monotube racing dampers. The principles of this company were the same folks who ran Moton for 15 years, with links back to JRZ and earlier companies, so they are no strangers to monotubes. They make double and triple adjustable, remote reservoir racing shocks (RR2 and RR3) like other high end brands, but now they have introduced two models that might appeal to the dual-use driver: non-remote reservoir coilover monotube racing shocks with single (TT1) or double adjustments (TT2).
MCS Internal Singles (TT1), Coilover Shocks for S197 Mustang:
http://www.vorshlag.com/product_info.php?cPath=141_142_179&products_id=582
I won't bore you with
too much "salesy stuff" here, as you can go to the link above to learn more about these singles. But I gotta mention a few things. MCS shocks are all built and assembled in the USA, and made from parts sourced from Western Europe or the USA. Very robustly built, with a feature that allows the single adjustables to be converted to double or triple adjustables with remotes, or even double-adjustable "internal" shocks, with just some parts changes (housings are interchangeable). This makes for a truly upgradable shock family. Vorshlag is
stocking several car models in the MCS TT1 shocks and has ordered the new TT2 models for a few cars as well. You can read more about the various shock brands and models we sell here on our Vorshlag Shock Page, linked on our website.
Further Mustang Development
We have some more changes in store for our 2011 GT, as I have hinted at on Facebook and in some forum posts. Our current tire package barely fits the OEM fender contours, but I want more mechanical grip for this high weight / high power package we run in TT3 (we are at the higher end of the class 9.5:1 weight to power ratio). The 315/30/18 is a bit squeezed on the 18x11" front but fits very well, and is slightly stretched on the 18x12" rear. Ideally I'd like to have more tire width.
The Hoosier 315mm front, 345mm rear looks like it fits, but it rubbed terribly out back
The goal is to use the 335/30/18 front and 345/34/18 rear. I've tried the 345 Hoosier on the rear before, on the 18x12" rear wheels we have now (see above), but it rubbed inside and outside. Now this was before we had the Watts Link and the Whiteline rerouted swaybar, so those later updates might
help out back. But up front, we are simply out of "fender real estate". The front 18x11's already poke out just a hair... and there's not 3mm of inside wheel room left, and we already run -3.5° of camber up front to help with tire to fender clearance.
We also want to to be able to run two tire compounds in a given NASA TT weekend, with the harder Hoosier R6 used for a majority of the laps for a given weekend (to learn the track, get base settings dialed in, just to "have more fun" and get more seat time!) and then switch to the A6 tires for one magic lap per day... but
only if needed. Remember that TT Arms Race I talked about in my last post? We need to get away from running on the A6 compound. Right now we're just not getting many laps out of a set of A6 tires, but they are worth some extra time - once you know the track. These super short lived tires are a poor choice for
learning a new track or to test with, as they fall off quickly. To get more laps we've switched to a 315/30/18 Hoosier
R6. That's the set that arrived today, and what we will use at Hallett...
To be able to run both compounds in the same day without a frantic and expensive trackside tire dismount/mount/balance, we've ordered another set of 18x12" Forgestar F14s. They were able to make them in less than a week (they like us!) and we are having them powder coated in Dallas, to make our June 22nd event deadline. We ordered 18x12" wheels for the front, too. Yes, all of the extra width is outboard, so this will widen our front track as well as make the tires "poke" out past the fenders by a huge amount.
This requires another solution: front flares. And wider front bumper cover. We're going to try to get as much of this done before Hallett as we can, then finish the other front aero mods we have planned over the summer (there aren't any NASA Texas events in July-August). Once these tires are gone we'll order up the 335F/345 rear, and likely flare the rear fenders as well. Shh... don't tell Amy, who doesn't want us to cut the rear fenders! The front fenders can un-bolt so we can "save" her OEM front bumper cover and front fenders. There's a lot more in store, but I don't want to spoil all of the surprises.
Above are the weights for the GT500 rear 13.77" dia rotor (left) and caliper (right)
The rear brakes on the 2011 GT are getting upgraded. We're going from the OEM 11.81" diameter rear rotors to the 13.77" rears (and calipers and brackets) from the 2013-14 GT500. Hopefully this will add a little more brake bite. We will test it at Hallett and report back. We also have some mods planned for my black 2013 GT, which just came back from the paint shop (Heritage Collision in Sherman, TX). All of the hail damage that came on this car is now repaired, and it looks 100% perfect. Every panel was touched, and the aluminum hood had to be repainted, but you can't tell anything was ever dinged before. The same set of D-Force 18x10" wheels we used on this car briefly are going back on with some 295mm street tires, then we're going to upgrade the wimpy 13.2" front brakes to 14" Brembos (see below), using a kit we're putting together (see below) with the best parts we can source and/or make.
Upcoming Vorshlag S197 front brake upgrade kit, shown with the unmodified OEM dust shields
This front brake upgrade kit will consist of new OEM Ford Brembo calipers, a choice of Carbotech brake pads, Vorshlag brake lines, Centric 14" rotors, Vorshlag brake duct/backing plates made for 3" brake hose (using the proper tubing size for actual 3" hose, so you don't have to cut it open the hose - like on most kits - not yet shown), and all new OEM bolts and mounting hardware. Will post up more when that kit is done.
That's a 2011+ Mustang Brembo 4 piston caliper next to a Gen I Cadillac CTS-V Brembo 4 piston caliper. Massive difference in size and weight. Just wanted to show that "not all 4 piston Brembos are the same", and that the OEM 4 piston caliper used on the S197 Mustang is
one big mutha! The added size and heft (8 pounds vs 5 pounds) give the Mustang caliper more stability, more heat capacity, and uses both larger pistons and a larger brake pad. The "V" caliper is going on a 4th gen Camaro in our shop, and it just happened to be here for comparison at the same time as the Mustang unit. These are both dwarfed by the 6-piston Gen II CTS-V caliper we have coming for another project, though.
As a teaser, here's the list of new Vorshlag products for the S197 that are currently in development:
- 14" Brembo Front brake upgrade kit with cooling ducts
- 14" GT500 Rear brake upgrade kit
- A proper oil/air seperator kit for the S197 5.0L Coyote
- A diff fluid catch can kit for 8.8" S197 Mustangs
- A bolt-in S197 seat bracket with slider and harness mounts for various Cobra side-mount seats
- Tremec Magnum XL 6-spd swap kit for S197 5.0L Coyote
- Production run of stainless braided/Teflon lined/Brake Quip sourced, better brake flex lines for the S197
Will talk more about each item as it is completed and released.
Next Events?
The next NASA Time Trial event scheduled for the 2011 is at
Hallett in Oklahoma June 22-23. Then the following Saturday the 29th we have
another Five Star Ford ECR Track Day planned, where Amy is driving the 2011 and I
should be driving the 2013 GT. Trying to continue our testing that we've done at this track using the 2013 GT, where we went from "nearly bone stock" (just on 18x10" wheels and 295/35/18 NT-05s) and ran a 2:07, then added AST double adjustable coilovers (4200RR) and some Carbotech pads and dropped a whopping 4 seconds to run 2:03 laps... on the exact same wheels and tires. Now we'll have the same suspension and tires but just an upgrade to the 14" Brembos + ducting... will be interesting to see if we can go any quicker, or if this just allows more hot laps before we have brake fade. I will post up the results after June 29th. The 2013 GT will likely be sold immediately following that ECR event, which I will post about here, of course.
This update already went way too long, so that's all for now...