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We also had some of our testers/customers join us, so we could do some shock testing and car set-up work with them. Mike, Jan and Shannon brought one of their Mustangs and a Miata we had some new prototype Bilstein Motorsports shocks on. This racer family has 5 track cars between them, and we see them at tons of track events every year.
The day started off a little cool (46°F) but quickly warmed into the high 50s then low 60s, with the sun shining bright. I went out at about 10:30 am on the Contis and tried to get them up to temperature, to see how they felt and hopefully get in some lap times. After about 4 hot laps they just were not working, so I came into the hot pits and Olof took tire temps and bled the tires down (We tried from 30-38 psi, with little luck). The hottest we saw the tires get to was 109-110°F, which is not nearly enough heat. So I went back out and tried another 5 laps, grip was terrible, and I couldn't barely run a 2:00 lap. Came in hot and again, still around 110°F on the touch probe pyrometer for the tires. WTF? The A6s would be
boiling after a run like that.
I guess the only conclusion we can say is they don't work in 60 degree temperatures with only a handful of laps. It is an endurance tire, but we didn't think they were
that hard. I was driving on these like a wild man, trying to scrub them in and build some tire heat, but the Contis just laughed at my attempts at hoonage and stayed dead cold. I was not at all happy with the performance of the Continental GT slicks and could not wait to get them off the car. We punted on the remainder of the test, but I vowed to try them again in the warmer months - maybe then we can get them warm enough to work? The
March 29-30 TrackGuys event at TWS is likely where they will get used again. There was zero visible tire wear on the Contis, as you would expect.
Hoosiers On + Filming for the Show
So while Olof and I swapped over to the Hoosier A6 scrubs we brought, the rest of our big group was out tracking their cars or motorcycles; they run the bikes and cars in different run groups every 30 minutes on these Member Days. Mike was pounding miles on the prototype Miata Bilsteins, Jan and Shannon were both having a blast on the MCS equipped Mustang, and Sofi was running both of her bikes.
Left: Olof and Steve assisted with a coolant leak on Mike's Miata. Right: Our Ops Mgr Sofi had fun running her 2 bikes on track
Amy ran a couple of sessions on the Hoosiers, giving rides to folks and ran some 1:59 laps. I then took over and ran a couple of sessions, failing to get a single clear lap. It was a member day so there weren't a
lot of cars out there, but there were enough to clog up any given lap, all while we were out there with two cars and a camera car trying to get footage (that ended up being really tough to do). With everything from full on race cars (nearby Pinnacle Motorsports had a few cars out there testing) to very clearly street cars on the track, and lap times from sub 2 minute to 2:30s and beyond, it was impossible to get a single clear lap. But it was fun anyway, and they likely got
some footage to use.
We tried some lead-follow stuff where we were supposed to change places (Corvette street car vs Mustang race car) and not lose the camera car, but that didn't work out so well. We needed a much faster camera car. And both of us wanted to occupy the same space on track and both cars had similar acceleration rates, so needless to say there was more than one off that day, heh. Mine was pretty good and I stuffed it off the entry to Turn 6, pretty hard, and dug a trench about 70" wide in the soft dirt. Tore up the splitter mounts and dislodged the lower bumper cover, which kept Olof busy for a bit doing some hasty track-side repairs. He got it put back together well enough that you wouldn't know it was borked know unless you crawled underneath.
After losing two different camera cars they tried to use, we eventually just had a bunch of POV cameras slapped on both cars and onto a quadracoptor camera rig to shoot some aerial stuff. In the afternoon they wanted to do a 3 lap head-to-head shootout with a side by side green flag start. I will wait and see if this sketch airs on the show, but the other car had its off during this shootout and it was a good session for the Mustang. Here's a tip: fast heating A6s come up to temp and overheat by the time Pirelli slicks get up to temp, which can make for a handling nightmare if you use both tires on the same car.
During the "3 lap challenge" I was really trying to run consistent laps, which isn't something you normally strive for in the "I just need one lap!" berzerk 10/10ths driving I do in Time Attack/Time Trial competition. I was worried that a small driving screw-up might put me on the defensive then I'd never stay ahead. Turns out that wasn't a worry, and I ran fairly consistent if a little conservative laps at 1:57.0, 1:57.1 and a 1:57.4.
Those times were pretty good considering the age of these tires, but a solid 1.5 seconds off my times here in November, when these tires were brand new (it was the same set). And that 1:57.0 lap was a solid 3 seconds faster than I could manage on the 320mm Continental slicks. Again, the GT-O compound isn't their softest and the track needed a lot more heat for these to get up to temperature. So I guess that tire test proved that running the 315mm Hoosier A6 is still a good choice, compared to the GT-O compound Rolex series DP race tires.
We were supposed to do some track side interviews after that portion of filming was done but they had some technical difficulties with the other car and the quadrocoptor (it flew away, right as the filming started). They said the whole day of filming might have to be redone, and later invited us back for a reshoot to be held on
New Years Day. Yikes, I didn't plan to be awake that day, since we had a big NYE party planned and knew we'd never get any of the crew to join us that day, so we bowed out. Long story short - we may never see any of this footage and my dreams of being a TV star were dashed, heh. Oh well, it was still a fun day and we got a lot of testing done.
Left: I fit in the Mustang fine, with the Cobra seat lowered down. Right: In the Miata's stock seat, I don't fit so well
I got to drive Mike's 2000 Miata later that afternoon. We shot some video while I drove it on track for about 5 laps, all the while talking to the camera and giving my feedback of the feel of the Bilstein Motorsports shocks we built and then custom valved with Maxyspeed & Co. I was pretty happy with the feel of the car as a whole but I had to re-tune my brain to drive without the aid of ABS! It has been a while since I drove a car with "old school brakes", but I managed some 2:17 laps on some worn out Kumho XS tires and that lopped about 10 seconds a lap off the car's previous lap record with the stock shocks. It rode great, too, so I think we might have a good damper setup.
Mike has since installed an aluminum UltraShield seat (and Vorshlag is now an UltraShield dealer, to go along with Cobra, Corbeau, Sparco and Momo) and Schroth harnesses into the Miata. He says that lowered the seating position about 3 inches, which would have made my head
not stick above the roll bar, as shown above. That seat change would have made driving his car not only safer but less tiring. After 5 laps of being thrown around on top of the stock seats and 3-point belts I was ready for my trusty Cobra racing seat again.
More CEL Problems and Traction Control Faults
One thing to mention is that all day the Mustang was fighting me. Amy didn't have a lick of problems, but it seems whenever I drive the TT3 Mustang lately it is throwing Check Engine Lights, laying down under power or resetting the Traction Control. Obviously it is something in my driving style, but as I told Amy, while it seems like I'm whipping this thing like a rented mule, that's producing the faster lap times.
That happened all day on me: with the Continentals it reset the Traction Control into Fault Mode
twice; so bad that I had to come in the pits, shut off the motor, and reset the whole sequence while holding the brakes. During one semi-clean A6 equipped lap I was running a high 1:56 predictive and the motor laid down after Turn 11 and I limped across the line to a 1:57.5 lap. Even during the final 3-lap shootout segment it laid down right before the Start/Finish line on the last lap. We noted several CELs for the O2 ("stuck open rich"), and now one for a Cam Sensor, too.
We have been chasing these CEL issues for months, especially at ECR, and I felt like we needed to make some exhaust system changes to try to alleviate this. I had hoped we had the issues fixed after True Street found the Throttle Circuit wiring short and we later replace the throttle body and integrated TPS sensor. Sure, anything under 3/4 tank will fuel starve now, which is not an easy fix, but something else is still borked in the O2 circuit/exhaust system. I felt like it was time to remove the catalysts and see if we had one that was broken and/or plugging up one side of the system.
New Lightweight Exhaust System for TT3 Use
Turns out that was the case, as we did indeed have one broken catalyst matrix when we changed the exhaust two weeks later. Before we attacked the new exhaust the guys fabricated new rear mounts for the splitter, which I bent badly with my off in the soft mud of ECR at the TV shoot. That took a couple of hours, as I had really done a number on them and the old ones had to be junked.
The old exhaust layout (shown above) we've been using on this car for the past 3 years is rather traditional - dual 3" pipes from the ARH 1-7/8" long tubes, ARH cars and X-pipe, and a custom dual 3" over the axle system we built using rear mounted large case mufflers (Flowmaster Series 44) and some tips in the stock location. This system was lighter than most off the shelf systems but still pretty lengthy and had a lot of tubing. It was modified once back in early 2012, but has remained untouched ever since. The slip-ft joint that comes with the ARH headers had a tendency to leak so it was spot welded in place and each time the exhaust was removed we had to cut the tacks. My curb incident at Hallett last June broke the tacks and it was a little leaky ever since.
We knew we had at least one catalyst that was smashed and possibly both had a broken matrix inside and needed to be replaced. But I wanted to get some weight out of this car if possible (we can always add ballast to the trunk) so we went with a system layout we had used before, on Mark Smith's Boss 302-S race car (shown below).
That system above proved to be about 42 pounds lighter than the stock stuff it had before and it picked up so much power he had to have a restrictor added. When we
sound tested the new system it was louder but not unreasonably so. The result was lighter and more powerful? Sign me up!
The old X-pipe was removed and the cats were inspected. Yep, both of them were clogged up. Driving over some curb somewhere probably smashed the internal matrix and ruined them both. So they were cut off and the Magnaflow stainless 3" mufflers were acquired (we're a Magnaflow dealer now, in case you guys need anything). We also added 3" V-band clamps and flanges to the header collectors, which made me happy as they are the least leaky type of exhaust junction.
On this system we moved the mufflers further back and set them under the recesses made for the exhaust under the saddle style fuel tank. Yes, there is a fiberglass heat shield between the mufflers and the fuel tank, and we added some DEI gold foil reflective insulation there as well. The turn-downs are also pushed further back and now dump just under the axle housing, with the heat of the exhaust not near the axle. We've run the car at two race weekends since and had zero rear axle heat issues.
The guys made some custom rear exhaust hangers and the system was buttoned up in less than a day. Ground clearance is still excellent and the sound is... well.... it sounds like a race car now. I certainly wouldn't recommend this for a street car or daily driver, but we don't need ear plugs driving it on track, so it is appropriate.
![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
The Magnaflow mufflers should last for years to come, too. Listen to the in-car videos from the race coverage below to hear the sound.
There was some weight savings, of course, but also some extra room around the rear axle. We run the ride height at back of the car
very low and it was getting tight between the axle tubes and the over the axle 3" pipes under full bump travel. Parts of the old system will be reused at some date on another S197, as that 304SS custom over the axle section still looks great.
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