Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT + S197 Development Thread

[John in Houston]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

I'm currently running 285/35/18 Hankook R-S3 on 18x9.5 wheels without a problem. Could really use more tire though. Not many offerings for 140 tw tires in larger sizes.

I'll most likely run WC 275/35s for cost purposes on my D-Force wheels when they come in. Might also try that 295 that Hoosier offers.

[twistedneck]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

I'm currently running 285/35/18 Hankook R-S3 on 18x9.5 wheels without a problem. Could really use more tire though. Not many offerings for 140 tw tires in larger sizes.

I'll most likely run WC 275/35s for cost purposes on my D-Force wheels when they come in. Might also try that 295 that Hoosier offers.

John just to clarify you also have a newer stang and you fit 285/35/18 on the front and rear? Were the offsets similar to the D-force wheels on Vorshlag's car? Any issues did they stick out too far or rub?

NT05's do come in 285/35-18 that would be short tire but more grip than the 275/40-18 mid corner.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

We've tested 265, 275, 285 and 315mm tires on our 2011 Mustang with the 18x10" wheels. 285 fits easily.

[twistedneck]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

We've tested 265, 275, 285 and 315mm tires on our 2011 Mustang with the 18x10" wheels. 285 fits easily.

Thanks for clearing that up. Now i just need to figure out if 285/35 is more or less grip than a 275/40.

[John in Houston]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

I have not had a chance to try 275s yet, but several of the Boss owners are running 275 NT01's. The 285 Hankooks fit the SVT 18x9.5 wheels perfect (gt500 wheels). They do look really short though.

Once it gets warmer I have a couple of sets of low-lap Continental (Hoosier) stickies ill mount on the D-Force wheels.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

Project Update for March 14, 2012: Last week was a hell of a lot of work and activity and this week is worse. This will be a quick and dirty update - we're about to load the Mustang into trailer and then Amy and I head to Houston later today for a track event Thursday and a National Tour autocross on the weekend. If I flub any spelling or grammar, please know that this was written quickly.

So the first track event of the year (RTTA) was a bust, what with the terrible rain, my erased times, Amy's illness cutting our trip short to the point where I missed the late afternoon dry session, and the overall level of disorganization of this event. I was hoping the first autocross of the year would avoid the rain, but I was wrong. It started raining the day before, which was when we held the Vorshlag Open House and SCCA Annual Solo Tech Party, held at Vorshlag on March 10th...


Open House and SCCA Tech



I won't bore you with all of the pictures (you can see more here), but we thrashed for weeks getting the shop and front office areas of Vorshlag HQ in tip top shape for this event. The Texas Region SCCA Solo group needed a place to hold their annual tech and we needed an excuse to have our open house party (we've been working at our new location for 6 months!). So we put in a lot of late hours and weekend days, spent a little bit of money, and we got the place looking pretty good.



A customer's engine swap turned into a 3 week mega-thrash after some front chassis rot was found and corrected. That put us a bit behind on shop clean-up, which started about 7:30 Friday night before the Open House event. Ryan (with help from Cameron and AJ) had been building tables for several days and those were wrapped up, thankfully. We were also down a man all week, as Jason was Crew Chief for Brianne Corn's rally Subaru that ran in the WRC event in Mexico last week. It was the perfect storm of variables that made Friday night a 2:15 am night... but we got the shop and front offices cleaned up and looking great.

The first 3 hours of the Open House and Tech went off without a hitch, and right as we started grilling up burgers and brats it started to rain and kept at it all day. We still had over 100 people show up and 37 cars were teched, so it was still a great event. I didn't sit down all day and felt like I talked to 1000 people and gave 200 tours of the shop - people liked the place. Towards the end of the day Ryan and AJ put the Mustang on the lift, I took the 18x9" WedsSport wheels and got the new 265/40/18 Hankook RS-3s mounted (our new tire machine is still down), the guys checked out everything, re-adjusted the pinion angle a bit, mounted the Hankooks to the car, and we loaded it into the new enclosed trailer (purchased 2 weeks before) still dirty, while the rain came down. I was running around this week getting the out of state title on the trailer transferred, DOT inspection, weigh station check, and paying for tags and taxes, too.




Tex Reg SCCA Autocross #1 - First Autocross of 2012

On Sunday the 11th Amy and I took the trailer on a short tow across town with the Mustang loaded inside. This was a test of the trailer before our longer tow the following week (happening in about 2 hours), as we could have driven to the site only 45 miles away. Still, I'm trying to keep the STX autocross tires off the street and reduce heat cycles, so it will likely be towed to all autocross events this year. I'm glad we had it - as it rained all morning, and the trailer became a good dry spot to sit inside of.



Made a few small mistakes this day, such as not scrubbing the tires in before the first run (silicon mold release + wet surface = slippery first few runs!), I didn't load the "autocross" throttle map tune via the SCT (so it had the bezerko street tune map - not what we needed in the wet), we left the Porterfield R4 "track" pads on (ran out of time), and we had the loose shoulder harness belts clanking around on the back of the seats (I only use a lap belt for autocrossing - lets me move my upper body around and I can see better out the side windows, which happens when you're going sideways a lot).

Anyway, we started with fairly low rebound settings on the AST 4150s and lower tire pressures, to soften the reactions as much as we could for the wet conditions. Amy and I worked the 1st of 2 heats, where it rained off and on until about 11:30, when it finally stopped. The skies were overcast and the wind was nil, so it didn't dry off much at all during our runs in heat 2, as you can see here on our first runs...


Left: Amy's 1st run Right: Terry's 1st run

As you can see it is not raining but it is still pretty damned wet. We both ran in STX open class, as I don't have another co-driver this year so we'll both run "open" until Nationals, where she will likely move to STX-L. Since we had a 2 driver car, had to adjust the seat and belts significantly, swap numbers, check tire pressures, and reset the video between runs, and the smaller heats made for quick driver changes, we ran 1 run each, then did runs in 2s... so Amy, then me, then Amy, Amy, me, me, Amy Amy, me, me. Even with faster changeovers we were running behind and I was one of the last cars to make my a run - and in fact I put myself on a 5 minute timer from my 4th to 5th run. It turns out that Amy stopped for a downed cone on her 2nd run, which they threw out, but she didn't know they gave her the re-run so she didn't take her 5th run. That sucks because she would have likely dropped more time.

The sun had just peeked out and it was a tick drier, but if you watch my 5th run you will see that the actual driving line was still wet, due to the cars dragging water from some drainage onto the line. It was the only lap where I tip-toed the throttle and braked early, so I wasn't too surprised that it was 1/2 second quicker than my previous best. It "felt slow", which usually means its fast... you know?


Left: Terry's 5th and quickest run (37.5). Right: Amy's 3rd and quickest run (38.2)

Let's see where that put us...

• Final Results: http://texasscca.org/2012_solo_results/tr12_1_final.htm
• PAX Results: http://texasscca.org/2012_solo_results/tr12_1_pax.htm
• Sound Meter Testing (it was close to 100 but not over!): http://texasscca.org/2012_solo_results/2012_1_sound.pdf

We had 8 cars in STX, pretty good for a wet event with only 67 entrants. Ledbetter got first in his newly restored BMW 328is... we installed a fresh longblock and repaired the chassis the weeks before this event (that was the 3 weeks of work that got us a little behind). It was his first outing of the year and with a fresh set of Dunlops and the added horsepower of the fresher motor (old motor had 230K!) he was fast, as was his co-driver (his mom) who got 3rd in class right behind me. The three of us were the only cars in the 37s, and I felt good only being .5 behind him. That BMW looked hooked-up in these nasty conditions, and this was the tightest lot we race on in Dallas/Ft. Worth - which is usually worst lot for the Mustang. Brad Maxcy (on fairly bald RS-3s) was in 4th and Amy was hot on his heels in 5th, both within tenths of 3rd place. Amy and I were both clean in all 10 of our combined runs so we didn't "cone test" the splitter yet (whew).



We loaded up and headed back after the event (then went to Fuzzy's Taco with the Maxcy's and to see JOHN CARTER OF MARS after eating). I am pretty happy with the results considering the tight course/tiny lot, the wet conditions, and the fact that I forgot to load the "soft throttle map". Amy liked the way the car handled after we made some tire and shock adjustments (after our first runs), but she said the throttle map was making it hard to accelerate. The new, full tread Hankooks worked admirably in the wet but we were definitely fighting serious wheel spin. After watching all 10 runs on video, I have also finally come to the conclusion that I have been creating some braking problems all on my own. The "ice mode" ABS issue that I complain about on 4 of 5 of my runs only comes when I stab the brakes as the rear tires are still spinning, from my typical over-driving. Why didn't I noticed this before? The new video camera location made for better video and easier to turn it on/off, and I took video of more runs as a result - which made the ice mode situation obvious. I am an idiot and have got to calm down and quit over-driving this car.



The PAX results were also better than normal for this car, to date. 9th place in PAX for the big, heavy, over-powered and under-tired Mustang was pretty good considering the tight course and wet conditions. We'll see if that trend continues in this weekend's Texas National Tour event, where STX has a huge class.


New S197 Mustang Camber Plates + New Aero?

So I had an ad out there for a new draftsman (ended up hiring 2 folks), as I was needing some drafting help to help catch up on some camber plate revisions, new designs and other product development. Since I spend too much time on forums I can't get all of my design work done. Got 40+ resumes but found the perfect guy to help out for the short term. He is a great SolidWorks guru and racer; he and I worked several late nights last week and got the drawings done for an all-new Mustang camber-caster plate.



This one is easier to adjust camber (loosen the 4 strut top nuts and slide the assembly in-out) than before, it has 3 caster settings (like our BMW E36 design), has a pointer and hash marks for camber setting reference, and is now using an aluminum main plate and an all-new bearing holder design. A lot of work but he did an excellent job.



I took those 3D files, output them in the proper format, uploaded them to a website that makes stereo lithography parts, and 36 hours later these Rapid Prototype nylon parts arrived. Woo! We tapped the holes, pressed in a spherical bearing, installed a snap ring, and assembled the new camber plate.



We just test fit this into the 2011's LF strut tower today and it adjusts perfectly, with more camber change than before and a lot more caster adjustment than the previous two revisions. So now we will have a production batch made and skip the normal machined prototypes we normally make. Should see these in 3-4 weeks. Woo! Right about when the AST 4150s arrive for this S197 Mustang chassis (and many other 4150 models).

FYI: The 25 sets of 18x10" D-Force/Vorshlag wheels for the Mustang and Subaru chassis are on the water. They should be here in 3-5 weeks. We've pre-sold over 20 sets of the 25 coming in, so if you are on the fence... ?

The aero part mentioned above... I am running out of time so I will make a post about that soon. Working with a composites expert, we now have a composite splitter to fit the 2010-2012 Mustang. Looks similar to the Leguna Seca Boss 302 part that we bought for our car, but instead of the 12 pounds of flimsy ABS plastic for the element, this one is 3 pounds of high density foam core wrapped in glass weave and structural resin. Much more rigid than the LS plastic piece, too. We still have some work to do before this goes to market, but we think it will have a significantly lower cost (with the mounting kit) when compared to the $750 price for the Leguna Seca splitter. I will show pictures and talk more about this in a future post. I am running TX2K with the Leguna Seca piece so hopefully it will have a bit more front bite on this (hopefully dry) track than before.


Loading Up

So before we head off to MSR-Houston for the TK2K event tomorrow I mentioned some noise form the Mustang's rear end. Howling on the right side, so Ryan popped the rear cover, pulled the C-clips, and took a look at the axles.



Everything looks fine - the outer bearings, the axle shafts, the ring and pinion, no metal or shavings int he fluid - weird. The fluid smelled a bit burnt so we'll see if the fresh fluid helps any. Maybe it is the inner bearings in the diff carrier - I'll order the Wacetrac LSD I wanted to try out and new bearings and we will get that installed soon.



Before we loaded up the car it was pushed outside, put up on jack stands, and the fender wells and underside got a much needed washing. It was nasty under there. We mounted up some 275/35/18 Hoosiers A6s to the 18x10s for TX2K, so maybe it will have some grip.



The National Tour is Fri-Sunday so its going to be a long weekend and a lot of towing across Texas. And there's more events the following weekend, so I might wait until that weekend is past before my next update.


We are running MSR-H's 2.4 mile course clockwise for TX2K12 tomorrow, supposedly


More soon,

[mlg2ca]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

Thanks for the update on the D-Force wheel shipment. Hopefully it will be closer to 3 weeks than 5. The later would be getting awfully close to my first track event...

Also like the new camber plate design. I think these might just get on my shopping list at some point

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

Project Update for March 22, 2012: Sorry it took me nearly a week after the last double-header event weekend to get this update up, but we've been slammed at Vorshlag and with a 3 day work week last week I'm still way behind. I was also hoping that the TX2K12 folks would have some sort of results posted for the track day, but alas - the only results up a week after their event weekend are for drag racing. I checked the usual forums that have TX2K threads (which usually have more info than the Tx2K website), but they are just full of street racing stories, videos showing who had the biggest burnout at the "street meet", their "dyno day" numbers, and other things I don't care about.

My pictures and videos from TX2K12: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/TX2K12-MSR-H/



So let's back up a tick. Where we last left off here the Mustang was being hurriedly prepped, washed, and loaded into the trailer. There was some wheel bearing noise I noticed at the Harris Hill Road track event (RTTA) and it was louder at the last autocross earlier this month. Ryan and AJ pulled the rear axle apart, yanked out the right side axle shaft, and we inspected the bearings, shaft, and differential for wear. It all looked perfect. Was I hearing the noise correctly?? I know it was from the right rear... or was it? Weird.



We had found some 275/35/18 Hoosier A6 (autocross compound) DOT tires to mount to the D-Force 18x10" wheels, which were to be used at the MSR-Houston track event held by TX2K12 last Thursday. Our newly repaired tire machine was finally ready to use for the first time... but one more little issue cropped up (fixed this week!) so we took them to Discount Tire once again. I hadn't run the Mustang on track with anything but street tires up until now so some R compounds were long overdue. I could have thrown the 315/35/18 Kumho V710s on there but... I just had a bad feeling about the event and didn't want to burn up brand new tires at this one. That was a smart move.



The 275/35/18 is super short and looks ridiculous (to me) on the Mustang, but hey, its the spec tire for the GRAND AM Mustangs so I went ahead and tried it. Meh, it works I guess, but has a ton of wheel gap at the fender. A little skinny for an 18x10" but it had some grip. We got the car loaded up, strapped in, and AJ and Ryan loaded out the trailer with the toolbox and all the track gear for the first time. First long tow with the trailer, and no spare wheel/tire to be found. Oh well, wish me luck! We left Dallas around 5:30 pm (rush hour traffic = FML) but got to Pearland around 10 pm and crashed out.



The next morning we got to MSR-H early and set-up our trailer next to Costas & Anna's set-up, right next to Track Entrance where NASA normally grids... but with only 40 cars split amongst 4 sessions, there were very few cars to grid, so it worked. Great trailer/paddock location, whatever - thanks Paul! We went to the driver's meeting, turned in our self-tech forms, and made sure they had our AMB transponder numbers registered. It was clear that Peter and the TX2K crew had stepped up their game for 2012; this event was better organized, safer, and more enjoyable than in 2011. Costas and I were put both in group Advanced 1 (A1) which had 8 cars, there was an A2, and we had to work with beginner (B1, B2) drivers all day.



I took a GT500 Mustang driver around the track in my first A1 track session with the 275s at all 4 corners and he had a BLAST (you can see his GT500 in the bottom right pic). He'd never done a track day, autocross, nothing - so his eyes were huge as we bombed around MSR-H on Hoosier A6s, drifting the rear out of most corners - these tires had been sitting for over a year before I bought them, so I was "cleaning off old rubber". Managed nothing better than a 1:49.48 lap in this session, going the ClockWise direction, meh. I was shifting around 6K to keep from hurting anything, as it makes peak power around 6200 anyway. The laps felt slow, and it was loose as hell out back. Was the splitter actually helping front grip and the lack of rear wing hurting the overall balance? All I knew was that it was loose in high an low speed corners. And the track was BUMPY... coming out of turn 10 there's a huge dip, so if I do any more track events in this car the 175# rear springs (which work great for autocross) we might need to bump up a tick in rate, to keep the rear from bottoming out on tracks like this.



The wheel bearing noise was getting loud in session #1 and sounded like it might be the right front tire, and not the right rear as I had thought? We came in after our 20 minute session and I took a look - tire pressures went up to where they should be but the RF wheel bearing felt tight when I rocked the RF wheel, while it was in the air. I took Amy out with me in A1 session #2 and we didn't make it 100 yards before we knew something was WAY wrong; came right back in after one lap for a better look. Click the video below and you can hear the loud WAH! WAH! WAH! noises above the wind noise, but it was VERY apparent in the car that something was BAD wrong with the TIRE now. Steering wheel was shuddering like mad - and it wasn't the electronic gremlins this time, it was the tire. Sure enough, the RF tire had grown about 3" in diameter on one part of the inside shoulder; it was grossly out of round. This happened during the half hour of down time after I had re-checked hot tire pressures and wiggled the RF wheel bearing immediately after session #1. WTF? Costas :" Oh yea, that tire has popped some cords".


Click either pic above for in-car video and hear the RF tire doing its death howl

The tread looked fine but the carcass of that Hoosier was toast; luckily I had a back-up plan and brought along a pair "vintage" 305/30/18 Hoosier A3S5 autocross tires with a DOT stamping date of 2005... so that's like 7 year old tires. I had used these early on with the E36 LS1 Alpha car, so they were good back then... but "then" was around 2007. Amy and I pulled the Right Front and one Rear wheel off, took them to the MSR "Office Shop", and they swapped on the 305s for us (sure wish I had my Taylor Dunn track vehicle up and running at this point! That was a lot of walking around with wheels and tires). We put these 305s on the back and moved two of the better 275s up front for a non-square set-up. Not ideal, but it was what I had for spare R compound tires in the trailer. Went out in session 2 with Amy riding along again (mistake!). Here's that highlight video...


Click for video from my A1 Session #3...mistakes and all

So I had one warm up lap where I took it pretty easy, trying to scrub the rear tires in - they really did have some OLD rubber that needed to go away. Come around for my first hot lap and got sideways under braking and had a quick off and on. I managed to steer around the curbing and saved the splitter from curbing crash testing, but Amy was still pissed. This was her daily driver, she bemoaned, and "you are never tracking my car again!". Well, crap... so I took it easy for the rest of session #3 but still managed to go 2.2 seconds quicker with the old 305mm rears, running a best lap of 1:47.26 lap. The rear was still a bit loose in high speed corners but it was clear that the car responded quickly after having a wider rear tire... All of you that think I'm crazy for wanting more than a 275mm tire, well, I beg to differ. I do wish we had found a trunk in time to make a wing mount (I have a 68" wide CF APR GTC-300 wing sitting here waiting to be mounted to something), as I think it could have gone much quicker with some rear down force.


Left: The RF tire #2 gave its life to the MSR-H gods. Right: The 305 looked right at home

So we came in after she said she had "had enough", checked the tires and found another RF tire that had been destroyed. WTF?! There was only one corner on the track where you really load the RF going clockwise, but it was the fastest turn there. Was it a combination of a bad wheel bearing and this corner? Too much negative camber? Something else? We checked the RF wheel bearing again (it now had some serious resistance when spun - took a lot of force to turn the hub by hand; not good), and the camber (-3°, right where it should be). I think we're done for the day... not going to kill a 3rd tire to maybe squeak out another second or two, if I'm lucky. The higher powered cars at TX2K12 were far quicker than I was going to get to today - Costas GT-1 car had the top spot but some race prepped big power GTRs, a couple of Vipers and Z06s, and a Supra were all several seconds faster than the Mustang. I wasn't going to make the Top 5 Time Trial shootout, so Amy and I mounted the 18x9s and RS-3 Hankooks for the upcoming National Tour on Saturday and loaded up the car.



Costas had a pretty good day - his GT-1 car ran great in 3 sessions, putting in more trouble-free laps all day than I've seen that car do in the last few events combined, where I saw it run. He was pushing the car harder each session but taking it pretty easy; he had a small deficit going into the Time Trial but was confident the car had more time in it. Sure, he had an off in session #1 on some older/harder tires, but we gave him sufficient quantities of grief. GT1 Lawn Service, "We cut your grass fast!". It was on FB before he had even un-belted; by the time he had his helmet off there were 3 more "captions" for that pic.



So his GT-1 car, 3 GTRs and a Viper went out for the Time Trial Shootout at the end of the day. 3 hot laps later a GTR was on top - wish we would have had used his helmet/pit radios so he would have known to push it on lap#3. There was some potential blocking by the first place car but he didn't mind and still had a great day - anytime you get to bust off a lot of trouble-free laps in a GT-1 car on 14" wide slicks, its a good day.


Click the above left picture for the Time Trial Shoot-out Compilation Video

After we left the MSR-H site we went and ate some kickass Mexican food at Los Cucos, then made it back to our hotel and crashed. We had another busy 3 days ahead of us....

Texas National Tour continued in part 2, tomorrow...

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

Project Update for March 25, 2012: Took me a bit longer to finish this post, sorry for the delay. Went to the Dallas Auto Show Friday and was at Cobb Plano's Shop Expansion Party all day Saturday, then watched F1 Malaysia this morning... so this is the soonest I could get back to the shop and finish the Mustang update.

Let's see... we left off with last weekend's "four days of racing" and we were leaving the TX2K12 track day at MSR-Houston. The event had great weather and we had a lot of fun there, even if we did kill two Hoosiers in the process and only managed two full track sessions in the Mustang. We left our hotel Friday morning and stopped by HK Racing Engines in Houston, dropping off an aluminum LS1 block to be built-up for an in-house turn-key E36 LS1 we're building to sell. Then we went to breakfast with Erik and Gary of HK and discussed this engine as well as one for the Alpha E46 LS1, then headed to College Station while towing the race trailer.

SCCA "SunBelt" (Texas) National Tour Autocross



Once we got to the Riverside Annex we set-up our trailer and sponsor table next to the AST/Moton trailer and unloaded the Mustang once more. Already had the Hankooks and 18x9's installed so Amy and I headed to the test-n-tune course. The course was a slalom, a crossover, a 180° corner, back through the crossover, into some offsets and then the finish. I watched some other STX, STU and STS drivers' times and noted that a 30.4 sec run would be fast. Here's some practice runs...


Left: Video of Terry's 30.4 sec practice run (low pressures). Right: Video of Terry's 29.9 practice run (higher pressures)

Sure, I'm pushing the car hard, but that's the only way I have found to get the best times out of the car. The rear tires are the limiting factor to the performance of this car set-up for this class, so I'm always giving the car as much throttle as it can take (or more). As you can see in the videos, bumping up tire pressures 5 psi front and back dropped times half a second on this 30 second course. See why testing is important? Concrete => more grip => add more pressure. These 8 brief laps of testing barely scratched the surface of what is needed, too. That 29.9 time was quicker than the other STX cars I saw running at that time of the day, but practice courses don't represent a whole course. I've "won" a lot of Nationals on the practice courses. Amy put in a respectable 30.1 time on her 4th practice lap as well.

We took the car through tech, slapped on the decals we didn't have, killed some time, and once the Day 1 course was open we walked this 1+ mile monster twice. Oh my feet. The course was set-up by Vivek and it was very busy, with a lot of transitional elements - more than normal? The finish was painfully tight as well. "Technical and challenging" is the term. Basically there was nowhere for the Mustang to stretch its legs and I felt like I'd be on the back foot on Saturday. I was, unfortunately, correct.

Texas Tour - Day 1



We arrived early Saturday morning to walk once again, then I worked the sound meter (busy - couldn't watch the course much), and Amy ran STX-Ladies in heat #2. She made her three runs all within the same tenth: 69.694, 69.649(+1), and a 69.689. Consistent! She was 2.5 sec ahead of the rest of STX-L (3 cars), but her runs looked a bit timid on video and she felt like she left some time out there. Here's her fastest Day 1 run:


Video of Amy's Day 1 Run 3 with an STX-L winning time of 69.689 sec

She drove smoothly and consistently, but after comparing videos and times of our Day 1 runs, we both felt like she was not giving the car enough throttle on corner exit - that's the only thing the Mustang does better than the lighter cars in STX: Accelerate. Play to your strengths.



Before my first runs I was comparing the day's STX car weights. From what I can gather we had a 2650 pound RX8, a 2750 pound E36, 2950-ish pound MZ3 and '08 WRX, and a 3200 pound R32. Our 3500 pound Mustang seems a bit piggish in this flyweight field, and all of those cars except the AWD R32 and WRX can run the same 265mm width tire as the Mustang, and all are considerably narrower. Hey, at least the 1900 pound "STC" Civics finally got booted out of STX, so we weren't looking at a 50% weight handicap anymore. An 800 pound deficit doesn't seem so bad now. Still, on paper the Mustang is pretty outgunned for STX class - duh, that's what everyone has said since the beginning of this crazy plan! But do I ever listen?? No.

The one thing the 5.0 Mustang does have in abundance in STX legal trim is horsepower - about double what the rest of the STX class makes (excluding the turbo cars, which are considerably closer). But we all know that in autocrossing power is the least important thing... but to me its the best part of driving - power management. I don't like driving "momentum" cars as much, which is just a nice way of saying "under powered", but that doesn't mean they are slower. They aren't. Driving these cars just doesn't do it for me - maybe I'm wired wrong.


Video of Terry's Day 1 Run 3 with a time of 68.743 sec - good enough for 4th

So on Day 1 heat 3 I strapped in, fired up the vidcam, and went out and drove aggressively on Run 1. Too aggressively; I DNF'd at a gate to avoid plowing over a cone and possibly damaging the factory Mustang Leguna Seca splitter, which so far has only taken glancing hits when Amy has hit a cone or two. I have yet to hit a cone with the splitter installed (knock on wood... err... ABS?), so maybe this $700 plastic protrusion hanging 5" off the front of the car is a good thing for my driving? Fear is a great motivator. I drove a bit cleaner and was quicker on Run 2 and you can see my best Day 1 Run 3 video above, which was a whopping .007 seconds quicker than run #2. WTF? I was driving my ASS off and that's all I could find? Seven lousy thousandths.

Driving that car on that course Saturday was... challenging. Exhilarating? Tiring! When I looked at the times it was more... frustrating. That word pretty much sums up my feelings after 3 runs on Day 1. I was now sitting .748 sec behind Sipe's RX8 (below left), and fell from 2nd to 3rd to 4th place at the end of the day, behind Wilson in the WRX and Roberts in the MZ3. I expected to be trailing the RX8 and maybe even the E36, but I didn't see the other two until it was too late. Ledbetter in the BMW 328is had some quicker times but coned them away and was placed behind me on Day 1, for once.



All night at the (Vorshlag sponsored) Saturday night Bar-B-Q dinner, I discussed my frustration with driving on street tires and too much power. Going from 305mm wide Hoosiers on track Thursday to skinny 265mm street tires on the same car the next day was a big change - and is making me think twice about STX. It was fun tracking the Mustang on R compounds and still being almost 8 tenths back after driving to the limit of my ability on Saturday was driving me nuts. It didn't help sitting next to F Stock drivers Doug Willie and Casey Weiss as well as ESP driver Mark Madderash that night. They all drive on Hoosier/smoke the R compound crack pipe... "Go to ESP!" they all said. After that day's walloping, and several beers, I was giving it serious thought.


Bad influences from the Hoosier clad FStock and ESP drivers


Texas Tour - Day 2

We woke up early Sunday morning (still dark) and drove the Mustang off site to a nearby gas station, just to add a couple of gallons of go juice. Not being on course at Wide Open Throttle to disguise it, the RF wheel hub was making a HUGE amount of noise driving above 40 mph. Oh... wow, that was LOUD. We wondered: "Do we continue to drive this car today?" and risk a wheel hub failure/wheel coming off? We gave it a serious thought, and Ledbetter graciously offered me a co-drive in his 328is. That car was looking good with the fresh motor, new tires, and new DDP pistons in the rear AST 4200s. This offer was very tempting... but I was more interested in how the car could do in class than how I could do in class, so I stuck with the Mustang for all of my runs. I re-checked the wheel hub in the paddock and it still felt tight, but there was no denying that the hub noise sounded terminal.



Sunday's course was the same thing, but backwards. Technical, busy, some very tight spots, lots of slaloms. I walked it another 2-3 times and didn't see much help for my big, tire-limited car, except maybe in a few places where cars might hit higher terminal speeds, which would then favor the Mustang's "long legs" in 2nd gear (about 74 mph @ 7850 rpm) - that proved to be true, and lots of drivers either rode the limiter in 2nd or had a lot of 2-3-2 shifts to manage.


Video of Amy Day 2 run 3 with a 65.945 sec lap

Amy went out again in heat 2 and put another 3.3 seconds on STX-L for an overall win of 5.9 seconds over 2 days. Ouch! She looked a lot faster on Day 2, both from the outside and on the in-car video, so she found her inner bad-ass and harnessed her aggression on Day 2. Instead of being nearly a second back from me like on Day 1, she ended up barely 0.5 seconds behind me for Day 2's runs (she's beaten me more times than I care to count, so I have to savor these little inner-team wins when I can!). We had watched Day 1's videos the night before and I talked to her about driving a bit more aggressively and I guess it worked. She also listened to music coming to the line and throughout her runs, which works for her. I leave the radio off but talk to myself when I drive; its kind of funny listening to myself on video afterwards...

continued below

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

continued from above

So heat 3 rolls around and I'm almost dreading it. I felt like I'd fall back from the leader another second or more and end up with a huge deficit and a mid-pack finish, or worse. That's not what happened though. With no changes other than the course direction and a good night's sleep, I came out on run 1 and the car and/or I was just... faster. The various "straight-ish" sections drove quicker and I was bumping near the rev limiter in 3-4 spots, which probably equates to 70-74 mph into a few corners. Nothing else that I know of in STX can do 74 mph in 2nd gear, so I felt like this might be a good day for the big red boat?


Video of Terry Day 2 Run 1. This was a 66.901 sec run with lots of mistakes

Run 1 was pretty messy (see video above) but on run 2 all the stars aligned and I had another nearly perfect drive (well, perfect for a hack like me), and the announcer said my 65.468 second run put me into the the lead... Wait, the WHAT?! This is a National Tour, in the 3500 pound pig, and was .75 sec back on day 1! I was unsure of what to think just then. Suddenly I was on the hot seat and was ready for a "just kidding!" from the announcer. Amy left the vidcam on for like an hour, filled the SD card up, and the vidcam shut-off right as I got to the line, so there's no video of my fastest run, which was run # 2. Trust me, it was frakkin magic.


Video of Terry Day 2 Run 3 with a 65.827 sec lap (run 2 was best @ 65.468 sec)

Well, that was short lived, as Sipe cleaned up a dirty run #1 and put down a 65.808 sec run # 2 (which ended up being his best). Hey, I was still in second and had the fastest time of the day for STX, so I was cool with that! James Wilson ended up with a fast 2nd run that was a hair slower than mine, but still bumped me to 3rd place based on his faster run from the day before. Going into my 3rd run I was hoping for a few more tenths to maybe regain 2nd, and 3/4 of the way through my 3rd run it was going great. I was deeper into the revs sooner than my fast run 2, so it was going to be faster, but with more speed in the braking zone I botched the entry into a slalom and put the car sideways, barely missing a cone and losing a lot of time. I might have been a few tenths quicker, might have regained 2nd, but threw it away. James Wilson, the last driver in STX, put down a smoking fast last of 65.384 seconds and re-took fastest STX time for day 2, with my 2nd run less than a tenth back. Gotta congratulate him on that - he made it a close race in STX with only .087 seconds separating Sipe and Wilson in 1st-2nd over 2 days. I ended up in 3rd and took comfort in my "2nd fastest on Day 2" time - gotta take the good news where you can find it.

• Photo and Video gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...xas-Tour-2012/
• SCCA Event Results: http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...%20Results.pdf
• My cropped and highlighted STX + STX-L Results: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...esults-STX.jpg

None of STX PAXed well, which must have been course dependent, as the runs I could see looked clean and quick. C Prepared driver Todd Farris (the Divisional Steward who set-up most of the event logistics) took the Top PAX honors for the event in his AST equipped 2nd gen Camaro, which was pretty cool.




What's Next?

So after Day 2 there were some highs and lows, and on the drive home in the truck Amy and I discussed several options for the rest of the year. We were waiting for this National Tour to see where we were and now we know. I felt like I pushed the car to the limits of my driving ability and came up in 3rd place at this event, which to me was another disappointment. But I had lots of people congratulating me for the 3rd place trophy placing, which I guess... was actually an accomplishment? We haven't placed this high in STX open against Nationally competitive drivers before, so after thinking about it for a week I am a bit more encouraged with this car once again - keep hope alive!

Adding up the numbers, having an 800 pound handicap is pretty ugly on paper. Maybe ESP, with a much wider (315mm) and stickier (A6) tire, and much more similar cars in class (heavy Mustangs and Camaros), is a better place to test suspension parts for this S197 chassis Mustang? On the 3+ hour tow back to Dallas I downloaded a new copy of the 2012 Solo rules to the iPad and we made a list of all of the STX legal and ESP legal mods left to do on the car. Everything we had left that's legal for STX was also be legal in ESP, and that list is still sizable. Lots of little things but most importantly - exploiting every rear suspension allowance that we can. This could unleash some badly needed rear grip. I wish I had a team of engineers and mechanics "back at the factory" that could jump right on that, but we really only work on the Mustang when we aren't swamped with customer service work at Vorshlag. Our 2 month work schedule is on a 6' x 4' whiteboard and its pretty full at the moment, but I am putting the Mustang on the board for next month!


ESP vs STX Preparation

Some of the things that are legal in both classes are becoming a higher priority. We really need to make a 2-piece lightweight 14" front rotors, to rid the car of the 25# all steel anchors that are on there now. We could lose 10 pounds of un-sprung and rotating weight from the front rotors alone. I was hesitant to delve into this earlier because it seemed the STAC was about to write another Take-Back ruling and make all brake upgrades have to weigh as much or more than stock, but so far they've held off on this. Our new draftsman has made aluminum brake hats before so we will jump into that project next week and get some hats modeled and machined before they are deemed illegal, as I am not spending $800 on two lightweight front rotors (from Girodisc). I could step down to 13" rotors (as the base GT comes with 13's) and also lighter calipers, but I really like the braking feel and stopping power of the 14" front Brembo 4-pots, on track and in autocrossing, so we'll stick with 14's and the factory Brembo's for now.

The rear suspension bits that have been bouncing around in my skull for over a year have got to be developed and turned into metal, as I am not buying an off-the-shelf Watts link or Torque Arm for this car. The stuff out there for this chassis looks nice, but is either too heavy (bolt-on) and/or made to work with LCA relocation brackets (not STX or ESP legal), so we will make an SCCA-friendly set-up that is lighter and weld-on where needed to save maximum weight.

Some of the ESP legal bits look like FUN, though. Big R compound tires (as big as you want!), 10" tall rear spoiler (rear downforce), and MOAR POWER! The Boss302 intake manifold is a relatively cheap $430 mod (less than a cold air) that adds more top end power (I've seen dyno plots with power peaking over 7K), beyond where this STX legal set-up falls off (6500 rpm). There's all sorts of other Boss 302 and Leguna Seca-specific bits that SP update/backdate rules makes available, but I refuse to remove the A/C from this car (this is still a daily driven car, this is TEXAS and we see some HEAT).

Wheels and tires are the biggest part of differences for ESP, so maybe we show up at a couple of races on the big 315mm Kumho V710s and see how we do? We have the fastest ESP driver in the country right here in town, so that's a good gauge. If we are even remotely close then maybe we go further? We'll see. Right now I'm focused on getting to the rest of the STX legal mods as well as getting the dang Moton Motorsport Doubles that I bought many months ago onto the car. Just have to make the time.



In the days after we got back, AJ here at Vorshlag pulled off the factory center grill mounted foglights, which is both STX and ESP legal. These fogs are plastic so they don't weigh enough to matter, but pulling the LF foglight uncovered the factory engine air inlet, which was stupid of me to keep covered up for all this time. Free Ram Air! Hehehe... Ryan is making a mesh grill covering / deflector for both foglight openings to keep rocks and tire debris from smashing the evap core and he will see if we can extend the inlet to the "cold air" allowed mod a bit. More soon on that.



As soon as we got the car back and unloaded from the trailer we knew we needed to replace the RF wheel hub. The car only has 11K miles but this hub failed prematurely due to installation error back when the ARP long wheel studs were installed 10-12+ months ago. Its a long story but the tech that pulled the hub failed to torque the nut to 340 ft-lbs, and Costas and I fixed it after our first runs ("WHAT ARE THOSE LOUD NOISES!") at an autocross last spring.

The Ford Motorsport kit shown above was the best bargain for wheel hubs + studs and was a perfect solution to our bad wheel bearing issue. It includes two new Timken wheel hub bearing assemblies with new 3" ARP wheel studs already installed. The $230 price wasn't bad considering that's roughly $90 worth of wheel studs and $150 worth of hubs, and it saves us the effort of pressing the short studs out and new ones back in. The kit even comes with new wheel hub nuts, which were torqued properly this time. The RF hub had indeed killed the inner race (parts of it shown above), but the other hub looked fine, so it will be kept in the trailer as a spare.

So the 4 days of racing were indeed hectic, but we learned a lot. I learned how much fun it is to track this car on real R compounds, even with a blown front wheel hub - that probably slowed the car down and possibly contributed to the two RF tire failures. I learned that the car needs some rear aero to balance out the splitter, especially at higher track speeds (I don't have any good, legal options in STX thanks to the aero Take-Backs of 2011). I learned that we still haven't fixed the rear suspension / traction issues and need to keep working on that to do well in STX or ESP. Stay tuned as we keep working on this car for STX and maybe sneak in a few events in ESP, just with bigger R compound tires and wheels.

More soon,

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

March 26th, 2012: Rules Clarification question?

(I am posting this on SCCA forums as well as on the Vorshlag forum)

So after 18 months of ownership we finally pulled the GIANT foglights off of my 2011 Mustang GT that we run in STX (ignore the "STU" markings in the lower left picture - with the new ST classification rules we cannot run this car in STU on wider tires any longer - its STX or nothing; I'm not complaining, just explaining). They don't weigh much, but hey, every little bit helps. Removing them uncovered the factory air inlet for the engine. Doh! That LF fog light has been blocking that opening from day 1, so its never going back on. So this would end up being sort of a "ram air" inlet... MOAR POWER! (just what this car doesn't need)



Now looking into this opening there's going to be more air going in via this hole. How well can I seal this to the air inlet, which is 4-5" behind the foglight opening? I mean, does the allowed "cold air" modification extend into the foglight hole?

14.10 ENGINE AND DRIVETRAIN

C. The air intake system up to, but not including, the engine inlet may be modified or replaced. The engine inlet is the throttle body, carburetor, compressor inlet, or intake manifold, whichever comes first. The existing structure of the car may not be modified for the passage of ducting from the air cleaner to the engine inlet. Holes may be drilled for mounting. Emissions or engine management components in the air intake system, such as a PCV valve, or mass airflow sensor, may not be removed, modified, or replaced, and must retain their original function along the flow path.

Notice the bolded part in 14.10.C above, which is where I am concerned. We are allowed to remove the foglights (via 14.2.C), so can my allowed cold air extend to the opening of the foglight hole? And if so, is drilling a hole to mount the "air horn" an allowed modification? I'd think the wording "Holes may be drilled for mounting" kind of covers that.

My goal is to make some sort of sealed tube that goes into the foglight opening for some sort of "ram air" effect. Again, not critical at autocross speeds but when we're bombing around a big road course at 150mph+ it doesn't hurt. I also want to make a fog light "mesh grill" for both fog light openings, to keep rocks and track debris from smashing into the now uncovered evap core / radiator behind the foglights (this car get's tracked a lot and being sprayed with rocks isn't unheard of) This mesh would be more of a "comfort and convenience" mod, via Stock class rule 13.2.A, and not in any way performance enhancing. Right?

Lastly, when we make the foglight mesh grill covers, for the RF foglight hole I'd like to make a little air deflector to direct air from that opening towards the evap core/radiator as well... but I can't see where that mod is allowed, so if not it won't happen.

Thanks for any rules advice on this one, especially from SEB or STAC members.

[ShaneM]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

(I am posting this on SCCA forums as well as on the Vorshlag forum)

So after 18 months of ownership we finally pulled the GIANT foglights off of my 2011 Mustang GT that we run in STX (ignore the "STU" markings in the lower left picture - with the new ST classification rules we cannot run this car in STU on wider tires any longer - its STX or nothing; I'm not complaining, just explaining). They don't weigh much, but hey, every little bit helps. Removing them uncovered the factory air inlet for the engine. Doh! That LF fog light has been blocking that opening from day 1, so its never going back on. So this would end up being sort of a "ram air" inlet... MOAR POWER! (just what this car doesn't need)



Now looking into this opening there's going to be more air going in via this hole. How well can I seal this to the air inlet, which is 4-5" behind the foglight opening? I mean, does the allowed "cold air" modification extend into the foglight hole?



Notice the bolded part in 14.10.C above, which is where I am concerned. We are allowed to remove the foglights (via 14.2.C), so can my allowed cold air extend to the opening of the foglight hole? And if so, is drilling a hole to mount the "air horn" an allowed modification? I'd think the wording "Holes may be drilled for mounting" kind of covers that.

My goal is to make some sort of sealed tube that goes into the foglight opening for some sort of "ram air" effect. Again, not critical at autocross speeds but when we're bombing around a big road course at 150mph+ it doesn't hurt. I also want to make a fog light "mesh grill" for both fog light openings, to keep rocks and track debris from smashing into the now uncovered evap core / radiator behind the foglights (this car get's tracked a lot and being sprayed with rocks isn't unheard of) This mesh would be more of a "comfort and convenience" mod, via Stock class rule 13.2.A, and not in any way performance enhancing. Right?

Lastly, when we make the foglight mesh grill covers, for the RF foglight hole I'd like to make a little air deflector to direct air from that opening towards the evap core/radiator as well... but I can't see where that mod is allowed, so if not it won't happen.

Thanks for any rules advice on this one, especially from SEB or STAC members and/or Andy Hollis.

maybe you should go with an open replacement grill along the lines of the roush offering. i'll never understand why so much of the factory grill is sealed on these cars. The Boss 302's have been known to go into limp mode thanks in part to that factory lack of air flow.

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

maybe you should go with an open replacement grill along the lines of the roush offering. i'll never understand why so much of the factory grill is sealed on these cars. The Boss 302's have been known to go into limp mode thanks in part to that factory lack of air flow.

Well... I can't really use just any grill from the aftermarket, like the Roush or Saleen grills. The SCCA rules (for STX) are somewhat vague, but pretty much any 2005-2012 factory grill or any grill Ford sells in their "appearance catalog" for the 2005-2012 Mustang would be legal in STX class, which is also the case for ESP class. For my 2011 Mustang that means the 2010-2012 GT or Boss302 factory grill units would work. The Boss302 units are blocked off at the fog lights, like you pointed out, and not any better, so I'll stick with my GT grill (which has plenty of airflow now, with the foglights removed) and duct the extra airflow on the LF opening to the engine's air inlet tube.

[texaswrx]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

I know you don't need any help on your fog light project, but here is what another forum member did on his-

http://www.svtperformance.com/forums...birdcages.html

[Fair!]

Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

Project Update for April 3, 2012: Forgive me if this post is a bit incoherent today - I'm on several medications trying to shake a cold or sinus infection and can barely see straight, plus the tornado sirens are going off constantly (insane storms in Dallas/Ft Worth today). Amy and I ran a Texas Region SCCA autocross last weekend in the Mustang in ESP class. You can read more about the results and our impressions below.

• Photo and Video Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...CA-TMS-040112/
• Final Results (ESP): http://texasscca.org/2012_solo_resul..._final.htm#ESP
• PAX Results: http://texasscca.org/2012_solo_results/tr12_2_pax.htm

TMS Bus Lot was the site for this past weekend's autocross, which is a sealed asphalt lot very similar to Heartland Park. This is the slipperiest lot in all of Dallas/Ft Worth and on top of that there is now highway construction nearby with a 3' tall berm of soil at the southern edge of the lot (behind a concrete barrier that you do NOT want to hit). Add in the heavy rains north Texas has seen of late, washing dirt onto the racing surface, and we had a dirt covered slippery parking lot. You can see the plumes of dirt in the pictures above and we all felt it on about half the surface all day.


STX Class Results



Even though Amy and I ran in ESP, we still watched STX closely since they ran in the same heat as we did, with a large, healthy class that day. You can see the class results cropped out of the total results sheet above and they were quick. Maybe the unusually dirty surface explains the times they ran that day? Cars on treaded tires seemed to do unusually well in the PAX standings (2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, and 10th), but the STX crew drove their butts off too. Brad Maxcy was about .8 sec back from my 2nd time for most of the day, but he dropped a lot on his 4th run and got within a tenth of my ESP time - yikes! Ledbetter was also in the same second in his STX car in 2nd. AST/Vorshlag equipped cars were also well represented in PAX results, with 1st-5th + 8th-9th of the top ten.



Sipe and his co-driver in the Texas Tour winning RX8 seemed to struggle on this surface, as did the 325is E30 (below). Maybe this was a good day for us to not run STX, as we could have been pretty far down in the standings.




How's it Feel to Have Hoosiers??

The Mustang on R compounds was A-MAZ-ING! I cannot describe how much more fun and how much EASIER it was to drive this car on sticky race tires, even on this dirty, slick parking lot. It hooked up in 1st at the launch, it was hooked up coming out of corners, it turned and slalomed like it was on rails. And yes.... "Duh!", right? Everyone has been telling me to try ESP in this thing from Day 1, and I have to admit - once you have that R compound needle in the vein, its hard to stop. Kids... Don't do drugs!



We were lazy and left the crappy old Hoosier 275/35/18 A6 fronts and 305/30/18 A3 rears on the 18x10s, replacing the one corded 275 with the last A6 I had left. The A6s were only 2 years old but the A3s were 7 years old, so I wasn't expecting to see miracles. But even so... the car was still pretty quick, PAXed 8th, and compared well relative to other cars on R compounds that day that had solid drivers/well prepped cars, such as: ASP, BSP, CSP and SS (see my class mash-up, below).


So my best run straight timed the quick SS and CSP drivers, but trailed the ASP and BSP winners, which wasn't a huge surprise. I've seen 1-2 seconds gained on the same day just going from 1 year old tires to fresh sticker tires, so how many seconds in bench raced results are 7 year old tires worth? Bench racing is fun and all, but next time we'll have the sticker 315s on the car. Next time is the Mineral Wells Pro Solo, where Madderash and Todd Farris are driving the 7 time Nationals winning ESP Firebired. That should be a better gauge for how competitive (or not) this STX car is on R compounds.



Looking at close-up shots of the tires under load it appears we were a bit low on tire pressures, even for this lot. I was guessing and ran 36 psi front, 32 psi rear. I should have been closer to 40 psi from the carcass deformation seen above. This new set-up might need some additional spring rate as well. A real test day with a box full of springs is probably needed.


In-Car Videos + More Race Analysis

The weather was perfect with temps in the 70's to high 80s, breezy and cloudless. We worked 2nd heat and ran 3rd (last heat), so we had the cleanest course of all heats - but it was still pretty dirty. Amy and I both ran in ESP class and alternated driving every 2 runs. She took a rider on her first run and I forgot and left the shocks at full soft, so it was 3 sec slower than her best run. I also noticed that the LF tire had corded on the outer edge by the time she came in after that run, not good. Oh well, we would just have to know it would be pushy and have less grip in right turns - luckily there was only really one big right-hander.


Left: Video of Terry's Run 2 (ESP winning time). Right: Video of Amy's 4th run (2nd in ESP)

So the video from our best runs are linked above. Amy is a bit less aggressive on the throttle but is amazingly smooth (as she always is) and managed to get a 42.2 sec run. That's pretty good considering she was doped up on the same medications that I am now on, since she had this same cold/sinus/whatever thing that day (I started symptoms that night). So, kudos to her for driving well with a splitting headache and coughing fits. My 1st run was a 41.5, my 2nd run (my fastest - fail!) was a 41.0, and I ran 41.1 on 3rd, and a 41.0+1 on my last run. I edited and uploaded video from my 3rd run because the first sector (our region like many others has sector timers) was 0.5 sec quicker than my best run. I had a huge mistake going into the last 2 corners that blew the run - and still almost matched my best time. Combining my best sectors gives me a theoretical 40.6, which would have been 5th in PAX instead of 8th. Meh. I was consistent (running within the same 5 tenths on all 4 runs) but not exactly "Blisteringly Fast".

Watching all 5 of my runs (my 1st look at the course I stopped for a downed cone + errant course worker) I am making lots of mistakes, and mostly driving the car like its still on street tires. I'm not pushing hard enough in slaloms and corners, and I'm tentative on the throttle (paranoid). There's also a front end push in steady state corners that needs to be dialed out (testing/spring rates/square tire set-up?) as well. All of the rear traction issues seem to be completely gone/hidden with 305mm Hoosiers, which wasn't much of a surprise either. The old "R compound crutch"?

Yes, we enjoyed running in ESP but we're going to keep the car legal for running car in both STX and ESP for a bit longer, and keep working on rear traction improvements (which will be more evident on street tires). I will resist the temptation to add ESP-only mods for now, like the Boss302 intake manifold. Yes, it needs more power if we stay in ESP, as there there were almost no traction issues on this 2nd gear course, even with these old R compounds.

After leaving the event our trailer had a blowout on a busy tollway that took out the fender and some aluminum paneling, which kinda sucked. And the trailer had no spare so we made some hasty road-side repairs to remove the bad wheel and limped on 3 wheels to a parking lot of a tire store a few miles away. Stupid not to have a spare or the proper tools to do a trailer tire extraction quickly - mistakes that were all mine. We got there right at 5 pm (closing time) on Sunday, so the only open tire store around had nothing in stock and no way to get the right tire until the next day. This all made for an interesting evening, but we managed to get unhooked and still made our dinner plans (a bit late). On Monday morning returned to the trailer with a pair of new BFG Commercial T/A E-rated truck tires. Now I'm searching for nicer aluminum 16" wheels to replace all 4 steelies with (and turn 2 into spares). Never a dull moment.


Next Up?

There are two big competition events we plan on attending in this car in April: The Mineral Wells (TX) Pro Solo April 20-22 and the TWS NASA weekend April 28-29. We have a 2nd trunk that just arrived so we'll make an ESP legal rear spoiler for that. Eventually we want to make wing uprights for this trunk to mount the GTC300 wing for use in NASA TTS, but I don't know if we'll have time before TWS. I'm having a coughing and sneezing fit so I'm going to stop now before I choke to death at my desk. Medic!

More soon,