Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT + S197 Development Thread

[Arnie A.]

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

Thanks Terry, I've been away. That exhaust system looks great, just what I need. I'm sure my wife would like it for her birthday! Right, in a pigs eye. Maybe if, I bought her big diamond ring too. Please, keep us informed about the exhaust system and "big red".

[John in Houston]

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

Terry - You need to come visit the RM NASA group. We don't put up with any of that in TT... our downloads can be downright brutal. Everyone gets it though, and with the exception of one driver (who also drives a TT1 Viper), we rarely have issues.

Talk to Dave about it... he's used to our brand of downloads

[Fair!]

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

Project Update for Feb 6th, 2013: Its been over a month since my last post in this thread but so much has been going on I cannot hope to cover all of it. In the red 2011 Mustang alone we've done a track test/TV shoot at ECR (Dec 28th), rebuilt the front splitter mounts, made an all new exhaust system, ran in the 2014 season opening NASA Texas Time Trial at MSR-Houston (Jan 18-19), then the following weekend we ran the car in SCCA Club Trials at the the Polar Grand Prix race weekend at MSR-Cresson (Jan 25). And the next weekend we drove it out to Cars & Coffee (Feb 1). Somehow this became my largest EVER single forum post, took a week to write, and I had to break into 5 parts due to post length limits (and up to 10 parts on some forums).


Left: The first mock-ups of the 2013 FR-S LSx look good. Right: Cage wrapping up on this C4 Corvette

And that was with just one car of many we are working on... Something has been going on every single weekend since my last post - looks like we won't get a "winter break" from racing this year. I won't go into the Scion FR-S LSx swap we're knee deep into, or the Corvette race car build that consuming lots of time, or the half dozen other cars we've been working on. Or the fact that we just broke a monthly sales record for the 10 year history of the business... in a January (traditionally our slowest month of the year). Everything feels like its going by at 1,000 miles an hour lately.



See, we're not "just a Mustang shop", or "not just a suspension shop" as we work on a lot of BMWs, Subarus (including a '95 Impreza with an '07 STi swap, above left), Miatas (including the LS1 Alpha). And we're doing a lot more than suspensions - like seat and harness installs (above right), chassis work, roll cages and roll bars, brake upgrades, wheel and tire fitments, and more.



But yes, we're knee deep in Mustangs. I just bought another one, the former stage rally SN95 Mustang shown above left. We have some fun ideas about what to do with this car that involve a big motor, rallycross and a lot of hoonage. So I've really got to get rid of one of our two S197 Mustangs, and I've slashed the price on the 2013 Mustang GT to $25K. That's an amount I've had and turned down more than once for this car, but all of the other higher priced offers went "poof" and the buyers flaked out. So if you wanted to see me bleed with this car, mission successful. I don't think it can last long at that price, but I've said that before, too. Check the ad and give me a call if you are interested.



We should have a new 2011-14 5.0L external oil cooler kit available very soon. We developed this on a 2013 Boss302 that was seeing some very high oil temps at the track. We junked the factory Boss/Track Pack "oil heater" system (that uses hot radiator coolant to "cool" the oil) and replaced it with a big Mocal heat exchanger, custom bolt-on mount, BMRS lines, a Canton oil filter sandwich adapter with thermostatic control. This same car has also received a Mishimoto radiator, customized Maximum Motorsports 4-point roll bar, Schroth Profi 2 harnesses with customized anti-sub belts, front brake cooling, a customized set of auxiliary gauges in a Ford Racing 3 gauge pod, and a custom built front tow hook. This Gotta Have It Green Boss is turning into one slick track toy.



So that was some of what's been going on in January - a small slice of the craziness that Vorshlag has become. I've also been looking at larger commercial properties to move the business into, as we've completely run out of room with our company's growth. I hope that by October we will be somewhere new, so I need to finalize the deal on the new place by about June... we looked at 15 properties last Saturday, after Cars & Coffee.

Let's back up and cover the S197 Mustang development for the past 5 weeks....

Track Test & TV Shoot @ ECR, December 28th, 2013

There is a new "car guy" TV show that has been created and been filming in the Dallas area for a few months. This show is supposed to debut in March 2014 (don't know what channel or markets yet) and while I don't know much about the show, I do know a lot of the folks involved. They are all track folks, and we go to a lot of track events so we have run with all of them many times. So when I got a call about being part of a TV shoot for a sketch about a "street car vs. race car" track segment, I was on board in an instant. The only question was... did they consider our Mustang the street car or the race car??



Yep, our big red 3770 pound Pony was going to be the race car. Uh-oh. Sure, while our street legal Mustang can be quick, there are some still "street cars" that would give us fits on track. I've run against some C6 ZR1s and Z06s that were fookin FAST. So I asked what we'd be running against? Turns out it was to be C6 Corvette. Uh-oh, those can be fast. But luckily it wasn't a Z06 and it was "a nearly stock 6-speed manual convertible", whew. But the driver was pretty good and he was going to be running "slicks". The car had a mix of 305 Pirelli P-zero racing slicks up front and 345 Hoosier A6s out back. That could be pretty fast, if the two compounds worked together. Oh well, we would find out later in the day when we did some head-to-head stuff...

320mm Continental Rolex Race Tire vs 315mm Hoosier A6 Track Test

Before the filming began we used much of this day at ECR to test some tires on the Mustang and some shocks we're developing for another chassis.



Some of you that have been following this thread for a while remember the big gaggle of Continental slicks I purchased at the end of last season. Got a bunch of 305/650/18 and 320/650/18 Contis for a good price and we stuck them on our clearance page.


305/650/18 on 18x11" wheel fits the S197 very well front and rear

These Rolex series Continentals are measured like real racing slicks and are very different tires than the CTSCC Series Contis that are measured like passenger tires, which are very similar to a DOT Hoosier R6. The DOT type tires have a LOT more steel belts in them and tend to weigh a good bit more. The real racing slicks tend to have the spring rate of the tire measured and marked on each carcass.


The same 305/650/18 on an 11" wide wheel (at left) is much more square than when on 10" wheel (at right)

We really don't know much about these Rolex Contis yet. What we have are the "GT-O" compound/series tires, which I have been told were made for the high banks of Daytona and are different both structurally and in compound from the GT-R and other versions that are used on Rolex DP cars. Technically our Mustang is heavier than these tires are designed for, but we don't make a fraction of the downforce of a DP car so it likely all evens out.



These 305 and 320 Contis were such a good deal it was hard to NOT buy them, and we've sold a couple of sets and so far everyone has been happy with them. I wanted to see how they'd fare head-to-head against the A6s, so we mounted a set of 320s to one of our 18x12" Forgestar sets and left some well worn 315 Hoosier A6s on the other set and brought them with us to the track that day.



Amy and I got to ECR at 9:30 am that Saturday right as the film crew guys arrived. As we unloaded the Mustang, Brandon showed up, then Olof and his buddy Steve arrived. Sofi rolled up in her truck towing a trailer with two of her motorcycles, too. So we had a big Vorshlag contingent early on.

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[Fair!]

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

continued from above



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. 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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[Fair!]

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

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As I drove the car down to the corner gas station to fuel up (and a police car pulled somebody over right behind me, yikes), the "System Fault" message above showed up on the touch screen of the car. WTF? This happened right after we fired up the car, so the rear O2 data was likely wigging out with no catalysts upstream to affect the exhaust stream emissions. We kind of figured that would happen (and we will have the car in for a retune at True Street soon enough), so I hoped this wasn't an issue that would pop back up (it didn't all weekend). A full tank of 93 Octane Shell fuel went in the tank and we loaded the car in the trailer.


NASA at MSR-H Jan 18-19, 2014

We didn't do many improvements to the TT3 Mustang for this season opening round of NASA Texas, but if you've been reading this forum thread for a while you know why. We only just decided to stay in TT3, after the red Mustang didn't sell in November and the 2015 Mustang was delayed likely until August. I had planned on making some upgrades, but as you read at the top of my post, January got a little insane around the shop and left very little time to work on our own cars. So we're just sticking with the existing TT3 set-up and the classing formula has changed for us. The exhaust change was done more to eliminate the CEL issues we kept running into, which we hoped would mean less trouble on track. I doubt it added any power, but we will re-dyno the car soon to make sure. We've been down 10-11 whp for the last year and a half, from the highest tested 430 whp dyno number the car made back in 2012. Plus we tend to run 30-40 pounds over minimum weight, so we're safe if we accidentally unlocked 3-4 hp.

Back in November I had blew my last set of Hoosier contingency tires on a new set of 275 A6s for the ST2 car, which meant I had no fresh tires to use for TT3 on the Mustang in January. Hmm, that wasn't too smart, but I didn't make a good guess on what we'd be doing 3 months later. Instead of forking out $1400 for a fresh set of sticker 315s we decided to just run some used scrubs and hope for the best. Fresh tires can be worth 1-2 seconds per lap, so I knew going into this race weekend we were venerable. But the TT sign-ups were a little light, and some TT3 competitors had last minute problems, so we thought we might get lucky and sneak in the win on used tires (2 race weekends old).

The other mistake we made this race weekend was NOT bringing any of our Vorshlag crew members with us. If we would have had Ryan there wrenching and Brandon shooting pictures this would have been a smoother race weekend, for sure. We get so buried with the "other stuff" during a NASA weekend that I overlooked some issues with the car. But Amy and I went down there solo, and the results were as predicted - a bit of a mess.



The track configuration at MSR-Houston is run once a year on the NASA Texas race calendar and every year they change the direction, as this track can be run Clockwise and Counter Clockwise. Amy and I looked and we hadn't run this 2.38 mile course CCW in... ever? Hmm, that's strange, we've run here a half dozen times, but it has always been CW. So we'd be learning as we drove, and sharing sessions since we're running the same car together again this year. At least we only pay one entry fee this year, from our new "Team Vorshlag" team entry. We will keep doing this until we can afford a two car trailer and two race cars, which might not ever happen.



Our crew finished up the new ligthtweight exhaust Thursday night and loaded the trailer so Amy and I could leave Dallas by about 2 pm for the 5 hour haul to south Houston on Friday. We had planned on meeting up with some friends who had scoped out a good paddock spot and got there just at the sun was setting, unloading the car in the dark and getting our 2014 Annual NASA tech performed. Our paddock was shared with two other enclosed trailers and racers, Paul Costas' GT1 Camaro and Matt White's Coyote powered SN95 Mustang ST1 race car. We were all parked right where it is marked "Grid", as our TT track map had one mistake as the actual grid was held much further down the main straight. Our trailer grouping was right there at the pit wall and when standing up on Paul's trailer's observation deck we had the best views of the track in the paddock!



I had looked at the old track records for this track layout and of course there was nothing for TT3, as this class was new in 2013 and this CCW MSR-H layout had not been run since 2012. I was hoping we could slot in between the old TT2 (TTS) and the old TTA class records, if we won. Setting a track record on old scrubs that had seen 2 previous race weekends on them might be tough, and without running Friday to learn this track layout or work on the set-up, we might be in trouble. I was also worried we might run out of tires for day 2, so we brought another mounted set of scrub 315/30/18 A6s, just in case.

2012 TT Track Records for Motorsports Ranch Houston (2.38 CCW) (prior to this race weekend)
Class Driver Car
TTU Eric Purcell Radical 01:41.896 Jan-09
TT1 Joe Woodhead Chevy Corvette 01:38.402 Jan-12
TT2 Sean Farrah Nissan 350Z 01:40.172 Jan-12
TT3 .... n/a
TTA Josh Smith Mistubishi Evo 01:42.914 Jan-12
TTB Wynn Suebhongsang Honda S2000 01:43.134 Jan-12
TTC Norman Wilhelm Subaru WRX 01:47.241 Jan-12
TTD Blake Clements Mazda Miata 01:49.319 Jan-12
TTE Josh Price Acrua Integra 01:50.969 Jan-12
TTF Ken Brewer Toyota MR2 01:58.367 Jan-10

Our car sailed through annual tech (and we're a NASA approved HPDE Tech shop, so I suspected it would) and we had a good dinner in town with Costas and his wife Anna, then bombed up to our hotel for the night. We got to the track early Saturday morning and the weather was a bit brisk, but the forecast looked good. Amy rode with me on the first TT session, which we call the "Warm Up". This session does not count for times and is used for gridding purposes in TT session 1 only. I was pretty slow in the Warm-up, as Amy is a terrible passenger with me, and fumbled my way around an unfamiliar circuit. I was 9th fastest in TT with a 1:45.5, not a good sign.


Saturday TT Warm-up (at left) and TT session 1 (at right)

I was planning to only run Saturday in the TT Warm Up and TT session 1 only, leaving Amy two sessions later in the day to get her up to speed. So that meant I needed to lay down my best lap of the day in the first timed TT session, which luckily I did. I found about 4 seconds from my laps in the Warm Up, probably from figuring out the proper line and losing a passenger, and dropped to a 1:41.457. That ended up being the 3rd fastest TT time of the session, behind Weather's TT1 C6 and Costas GT1 Camaro. It also proved to be our fastest time of the weekend, which I will explain below.



That 1:41 lap felt pretty good, but it was far from perfect. I knew there was time left in a few corners that I had hoped to work at on Sunday. For the rest of the day Saturday, Amy took over in TT Session 2 and 3, as planned.



Meanwhile our paddock area was pretty busy all day, as Costas dealt with some coolant leaks and other issues on his GT-1 Camaro and Matt had to rebuild the front end of his car after a big off. Later Costas was forced off on the back straight during a GTS/Super Touring/Super Unlimited race and tore up his splitter as well. A lot of us were pitching in to help get that car put together as he re-did the intake gaskets, repaired the splitter (using two piece of plywood and a truck tire to flatten the metal), and chased a few other fixes. There was never a dull moment in our little mini-paddock all weekend! Costas' write-up on his website better describes all of the race incidents and repairs that he and Matt had over the weekend.



Amy took her time getting up to speed and ran a 1:48.2 in the TT session 2 but was already down in the 1:44s in TT session 3 when she had an accident in the end of the final session.



She said she missed a 5th to 3rd gear downshift (rev matching wasn't close enough - she normally goes through each gear in a downshift) which locked the rears at high speed and sent the car into a spin. That spin sent her up and over the high curbing on the inside of Turn 4, where the car got beached and was stuck for a good half hour. She spun at the very end of the TT session and the track crew (3 trucks worth!) worked hard to get the car off the curb without ripping the splitter off or tearing up the underside of the car. They used a lot of boards and ramped the car down, but at one point it was stuck with 2 wheels in the air. We now call Amy by her new nickname "Curby", hehe...



I was watching from a half mile away and knew something had gone wrong. I couldn't see any damage but the car was really stuck. Amy finally borrowed a phone to call me, and said "I broke a wheel. Bad. Bring a spare, quickly." So I borrowed a vehicle and grabbed an extra front wheel and tire and a jack and zoomed out on course, which at this point was closed for racers during the extraction (there were 2 race groups left for the day). They had the car extracted and were flat towing the car VERY SLOWLY on a broken wheel and flat tire, dragging the splitter, but I quickly stopped them. Using two jacks we got the wheel changed in about a minute while it was parked out on the back straight, but the car wouldn't start so they flat towed her in. Once we got the car back into the pits it was getting dark fast (these pics have been brightened up a lot) and it was getting very hard to see.



After a long day in the sun and wind, talking to lots and lot of folks, and helping Costas with his many repairs, we were all dead tired. But with some volunteer help (thanks Toth and Robert!) and a borrowed LED drop light (thanks Marc!) we pulled the RF wheel again, swapped it to the left front (the spare set of scrub tires were really bad) so we'd have the freshest A6 on the Right Front once again (most turns were left hand). On jack stands it was hard to get under the car and see much but it looked surprisingly OK, so I spent the next half hour fixing the front toe problem - it had almost 2" of toe out. Again, it was pitch dark by now and I was there without our normal crew of Ryan and Brandon, so I didn't see the very obviously badly bent RF Lower Control Arm. I really should have asked for another set of eyes, as this was a major piece of damage that was missed, which was on me. I would have put the car in the trailer at that point and just called it a day.



The broken wheel was obvious, and it failed exactly as it should have considering the massive curb hit the car took. The wheel absorbed a lot of energy as it deformed. Once we had the toe more or less back to zero, it still ended up with the steering wheel at a 90 degree angle to its normal setting (covering up the tach and gauges while driving), but it was getting too late and COLD that I punted and figured "we'd just drive it and shift by ear". We wrapped up our paddock for the night and walked over to the Saturday night NASA dinner and annual awards banquet. We had a great time there eating and drinking and catching up with friends, listening to this "School of Rock" band made up of a bunch of kids. They rocked the house, no lie.



They handed out NASA Texas regional awards for all of the W2W and TT classes, with Amy getting a 3rd place trophy for TT3 while I got 1st for 2013. We wrapped up at about 9 pm and then hit the hotel, exhausted. By the end of Saturday several folks in TT had picked up some speed and we fell from 3rd to 7th fastest, but stayed about 6 seconds ahead of the other two TT3 competitors and had another new track record set (this car's 9th) for the weekend. Here's the end of day Saturday TT results in PDF form.



We rolled out Sunday morning and the entire area was blanketed in heavy fog. You couldn't see 100 feet and traffic on the highway was doing about 40 mph. The fog delayed the first session by half an hour, until the corner stations had enough visibility to see each other. That morning Costas was bugging me to take a closer look at the car and slap on some caliper heat indicator decals at the same time (more on this later), but I was too damned tired to do it.


What's wrong in this picture? The RF wheel should have -3.5° camber but it was more like at -0.5°. This wasn't super obvious to the naked eye

I went out cautiously in TT session 1 on Sunday more as a shake down test than anything else. I was pretty slow but I just wanted to see how the car felt, as I had a feeling something else might be broken. The car had a wicked push in left hand turns, but it was manageable. I came in early and was not all that fast, but the car was in one piece. Obviously the RF lower control arm was badly bent, and we were "missing" about 3 degrees of negative camber. This made the RF wheel go into a slight positive camber setting (see picture above) under load - not good for grip!

continued below

[Fair!]

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

continued from above


The brake temp indicator strips on Costas' calipers showed how much one caliper got hot in a session after a brake duct hose came loose

I went out again in TT session 2 and was pushing hard for another 1:41 lap, or quicker. I had watched some other drivers doing some CRAZY lines (some of them well outside the marked boundaries of the track) and noted a few places where I could save some time, while still staying on what I considered the track limits. I knew that there would likely be some pushback once people started sharing some of their videos and pictures of cars going waaaaay off course (that did happen later, as predicted). I will always show all of my best competition laps so I stuck with the "conservative line" that did not go around the outside of any curbs, over the line of the marked pit out lane, or using the paved runoff "beyond the paint". This statement will ruffle some feathers, but so be it - I think that we should all stay on the course as marked and not go 4 wheels off to gain an advantage. The TT director and Regional Director met about this and then issued a letter after the event. They noted that all future NASA Texas TT events will have supplemental regulations to clearly define the course limits for the TT group.



So back to the race weekend. I was mired in traffic in TT session 2 on Sunday but I finally got around a TT1 Corvette that held me up for two laps and was good to go. I finally had some clear track and was pushing on hot lap three, hoping to finish the lap without catching the back of the field. About halfway through this lap I noticed two cars slowing rapidly ahead of me - a TT1 Corvette and a TT2 EVO, who were now on their cool down lap. I caught them fast heading into turns 8-9-10. The Corvette saw me at the last second and jumped out of the way to let me by, which opened up the mirrors for the EVO. He tried to get offline in the middle of Turn 10 but it was too late and I was pushing too hard. I had a quick 4 wheels off and on trying to get by him while saving the lap and leaving enough room to pass. Stupid mistake, and nobody got close to anyone, but I shouldn't have tried to go two wide in that corner, even with the point by. Trouble was I could see we were catching the back of the field and knew this was my only shot at a fast lap, due to the early traffic I ran into.



Well crap, 4 wheels off DSQs the whole session for me, and the grass packed up the lower grill so it would have run hot, so I quickly came into the pits. I was on a low 1:41 lap on the predictive timer, too. I negotiated with Amy to let me take another shot and I eventually took two laps in TT session 3, then we performed a hot pits driver change and she took another 2 laps in the same session. Why would we do that driver change? Well honestly we were trying to get out of town early (and skipped session 4). She wanted to get some laps in, but I wanted to try to set another fast lap to secure the win for the day, too. Because in TT sessions 1 and 2 we had nothing but junk lap times. Turns out you are not allowed to swap drivers in a single TT session - we had asked the TT director beforehand and he said it was OK, but he since learned that isn't allowed. Oh well, live and learn.


Terry riding along with Amy, trying to pass along some pointers

Somehow I still ran a 1:41.5 that day, about a tenth slower than Saturday. And after seeing the damaged front Lower Control Arm I'm shocked we were that close with the extreme lack of camber on the RF corner. Of course if we would have seen the bent LCA we would have NEVER run the car like that on track. That was simply a stupid oversight. Oh well, gotta credit Ford for making a tank of a control arm that took a curb impact like that and still raced all day Sunday! Craziness...


photo by John Roberts

After the 3rd TT session we let the car cool down, packed up the trailer and headed on our 5 hour journey home. We missed the crazy 4th TT session where a lot of records were broken, and one driver made a mysterious 4 second improvement. There was all sorts of controversy that led to an official investigation and new rules regarding track for future events. Didn't affect TT3 so I mostly stayed out of it, but I was getting calls and texts for a week about this. And looking at the pictures and some videos of TT cars after the event, many were clearly exploiting track limits to gain time. Like I said, this is something that will be addressed at the opening meeting next time so there are no magic laps at the very end of the weekend (without any scales checks).

• Vorshlag Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...-MSR-H-011814/
• NASA Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...uston_January/
• Paul Costas' race write-up at WDMS: http://www.witchdoctormotorsports.com/ch215.htm

One thing we didn't have problems with (for the most part) were CELs and traction control faults, yay! I think I had one fuel starve moment but no Check Engine Lights, and the engine ran STRONG all weekend. This is the first time in many months where we weren't chasing CELs, so the busted cats were likely the cause of some of our recent troubles. The motor pulled solid from 4000-7000, but on Sunday without any visibility to the gauges it was hard to tell when to shift. I watched some of our Sunday in-car videos and I was short shifting at like 6200-6500 a lot, and Amy was shifting at around 5000-5500. There was simply no way to see the tach with the steering wheel cocked 90 degrees out and it was hard to discern the RPMs from the much changed exhaust note.



We ran a good old chunk of ballast in the trunk (and were scaled twice at 40+ pounds over each time) to make sure Amy wasn't going to end up light when she ran. We really need to look at a "quick change" ballast system so we can switch the weights between the 2 drivers quickly, as it is easy to forget that on grid. The lighted and switched transponder circuit was much appreciated and we never once made a lap with it turned off or unplugged. Should have done this switch panel years ago (see above left).

I'm glad we made it out of there with as little damage as we did, and was thankful that we could score two class wins and a track record on such worn out old tires (especially the mis-matched set on Sunday). Looks like our 1:41.4 lap time fell right in between the old TT2 and TTA records, but it is clear that we left a lot on the table - since I was able to nearly match my Saturday times on Sunday with a bent control arm and three degrees of missing camber on the right front, so that new lap record is fairly soft. I suspect with better familiarity with the track, better driving and fresh tires this car could have run a 1:39 or so, but who knows? NASA Texas won't run this track configuration again until 2016, and I have no idea what car or class we'll be racing by then, but at least the new TT3 record is safe for two more years. Still can't believe this heavy stick axle Mustang has 9 standing TT3 track records now.



With only 3 cars in class we didn't have enough in TT3 to get Hoosier contingency (you need 5 cars to pay to 1st place and 7 to pay to 2nd) but that's not unusual for this first event of the year, with potential sketchy weather in January. The race weekend went smoothly and the weather cooperated, so we got lucky there. Amy and I both had a blast and talked to probably 75+ people who came by and wanted to see the Mustang closer. The car sounded GOOD and the times were OK. Our yardstick class American Iron (with Spec Iron) was about 3 seconds back, with the top car posting a fastest race lap in the 1:44.2 range.



The wide variety in the TT field was fun to watch, with Costas GT-1 Camaro just accelerating like nothing else. I didn't see him much on track with the 5 second lap time gap between us, heh. Track records were broken in seven classes (TTU, TT1, TT2, TT3, TTB, TTD & TTE), so people were driving fast down the entire roster.

Overall I don't feel like I drove all that well at this event and should have been a bit quicker. The layout in this direction was trickier than I expected, as you really had to respect the pit wall near the edge of the track at the exit of turn 17, and we saw several cars back into that wall in W2W races (mostly Spec Miatas, and always with "help"). Being 5 hours away from us it is hard to get a lot of seat time at this course. compared to the other tracks within 1-3 hours of us (ECR, MSR-C and TWS). I really wish we would have done the Test and Tune event here on the Friday before, which would have let us both get more seat time on this unfamiliar layout. Oh well, don't always get to take that extra day away - especially on the busy month we were having at the shop.

Post MSR-H "Curb Repairs" and Track Prep

We didn't have a lot of time after we got back from Houston before we had to get ready for another Time Trial type event the following weekend. So we looked at the damage on Monday, explored any potential upgrade ideas, and then bought another stock Lower Control Arm and inner and outer tie rods.



Of course we looked at the Ford Racing 302S/R front LCA with a taller ball joint and new rear bushing, but that was an expensive set of parts ($1300+) that really only made sense if we had the stock rubber rear LCA bushings still on the car. The new Ford Racing bushing is much smaller than the normal beer can sized fluid filled mush, but it is still rubber. We had already replaced both LCA bushings with the Energy Suspension polyurethane long ago. There wasn't a lot of time to evaluate other options, and we were so impressed with how the stock arm failed (non-catostrophic, and that LCA's deformation saved the subframe and steering rack) that we ordered another stock lower arm instead.



The problem was that the new arm came with an all new hydro bushing attached to the ends, which had to be removed. Kyle and the guys spent a couple of hours burning off the old bushing and getting it off the arm, then prepping the stub for the Energy poly bushing, but they got it on and it works like before. The inner and outer tie rod were also replaced, as they were bent. We couldn't know how the $1000 Ford Racing steering rack fared until the next race weekend. One front stainless brake line was pulled a bit too far when the bent LCA was unbolted and it POPPED down (it was preloaded badly) so that line was replaced with another from stock. A couple of V-band clamps that were smashed on the curbing were also replaced, the car was inspected thoroughly by real techs (not me!) and they found nothing else wrong. Another 8 quarts of Mobil1 15W50 and a Wix filter were changed and that "junk" set of old A6 tires on the white wheels were mounted up. That set of tires had 3 race weekends on them and were long past the "good" rubber, but oh well.

SCCA Club Trials, MSR Cresson, Jan 25th, 2014

This was a new event held by the Texas Region SCCA during a normal Club Racing weekend (Double Divisional, Super School, Club Trials) that they called the Polar Grand Prix. The Club Trials event was only being held on Saturday but the low cost promoted several to enter, once the word got out. $75 for 5 sessions and $125 if you didn't have a transponder. All sessions were timed and there would be a "competition" of sorts. We didn't know much more than that, but Amy and I signed up in the first hours it was opened, 3 weeks before this event was to be run. The weather on Saturday morning started out COLD (27 degrees in the morning!) but it warmed up into the low 60s by days end. Amy and I actually towed out to Cresson the night before, got teched by the SCCA Regional Executive Bob Neff, and scored a great paddock spot early.



The SCCA is trying to court new club racers by having a PDX/Club Trials group run at their Club Race weekends. I am very much in support of this and hope they can take the extremely good turnout for this event and do it again, and not as a separate event as they are thinking of doing - to work as a ladder system you have to keep your DE and Time Trial folks running at the same track weekend as the Wheel to Wheel folks. I am going to keep reminding them how well this works in NASA every time they bring up excuses of why its "so hard" to have 30 extra people at a race weekend of 100 drivers.



The entry cap for this event was set at 30 cars so we quietly promoted this to many of our local customers. Of the 28 entries they got about a third of those were Vorshlag customers and testers. Everyone arrived with some track background (for the most part) and there were five NASA TT licensed drivers in attendance as well - me, Amy, KenO, DaveW and Eric.



The reason they kept the entries so low was to keep all of the PDX/Club Trials folks in the same run group, and running the 1.7 mile course at MSR only allows for 30 cars to fit on track at once. And with 26 out there at the same time (we had a couple of no shows - one car broke and another was stuck in an ice storm in Austin) of wildly varying speeds, it got a little crowded. The first Club Trials run session (of 5?!) was a lead-follow at 60% speed with the experience TT folks leading smaller groups to show them the line. It was 32 degrees and there wasn't much grip on the cold and dusty track anyways.



Our second CT session was a bit of a clusterfox, as there weren't any established times to grid cars in order. I went out first and KenO was behind me. We tried to bunch up the field but we caught the back of the group at the tail end of the first hot lap. We were passing 3-5 cars per lap and couldn't get any clear track. In the driver's meeting that followed we more clearly defined point by signals (some folks were confused) and it ran smoothly for the rest of the day.

continued below

[Fair!]

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

continued from above - last one

Now I'm not super familiar with the MSR 1.7 mile course, as NASA TT always runs the 3.1 mile configuration - because we have too many entries show up to fit on the 1.7. With 40-50 TT entries we need the extra course length to spread out and have enough room to drive at speed safely. But most of the 1.7 is part of the 3.1 course, so I knew the basic lines and such - just didn't have any good 1.7 mile course times to compare against from the past. I had run the 1.7 course many years back when we had the BMW E36 LS1, and I remembered some 1:20 lap times from that light, V8 powered race car. So when I saw the 1:23.103 lap from the 2nd CT session I was a little bummed. Still, that was with passing 2 cars in traffic and the car was a bit bouncy.



Stuart and Doug Maxcy from Maxcyspeed & Co were at this event to support their customers and Stuart noticed some rear suspension things on our car. Between my 2nd and 3rd track session he suggested a substantial rear shock compression change (full soft) to allow the car to put power down better. The rear was very traction limited, partially from the old worn out tires and partly from the cold.

I was being lazy and not using the shock adjustments to their best advantage, for changing conditions with the car and track. We had the rear shocks tuned well for new sticker A6 tires being used in warm weather, plus using the full fuel load and extra rear ballast like we run in NASA TT. Since this was SCCA Club Trials we had no minimum weight to worry about that day, so we pulled the ballast and ran less fuel. In addition the used tires we brought didn't have the grip levels of the normal fresh tires we race on, and the track temps went from the high 20s to the low 60s in the span of a few hours. Stuart's calibrated eyeball spotted how the car was behaving from the side of the track, suggested that I use the adjustments of the shocks to help fine tune the car as the track warmed up, and he was right - his tip was much appreciated. It helped us find some of the five seconds that my times dropped from the 2nd to 3rd sessions (track temps and traffic played a part as well)

I led KenO once again and we both got two full hot laps in before we caught the back of the field. We set our fastest times of the day in this session, which was in the high 50°F range.



Well that sure felt a lot better. With a little more familiarity with the course, a little more track temp, two clear laps, and the rear end settled down from the shock change, I managed to drop 5 full seconds in this session. My first hot lap was a 1:19.253 and my second lap was a 1:18.675. Looking at the other race groups, other than a few Formula Mazdas one GT car (a GT2 Corvette with a 1:18.414 on Sunday), this was one of the faster laps run that weekend. That lap felt really good and while the tires were a handful and rear traction was still limited, it was one of the better feeling laps I've driven in a while.

• Vorshlag event picture gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...CCA-MSR-01514/
• Event results: http://sowdivscca.com/raceresults/2014/20140125/

Since they don't really have any classes set-up for Club Trials yet they used SCCA Solo classing and even PAX factors for the results. I think the results kind of speak for themselves on how well that works, heh. Even with a terrible Street Mod multiplier my PAX time was still at the top of the list, seconds ahead of the rest. I was just happy to have the quickest raw time by 4 seconds, which is more than I was expecting. Amy ran in CT sessions 4 and 5 and had fun getting down to a 1:23 lap time. She finished 3rd overall in RAW and 7th in PAX.



Since we were sharing the car I worked with a couple of drivers in sessions 4 and 5 as an instructor. After hopping in with Mark Council in his 18x11" / 295 Rival / AST equipped Mustang I helped him find 2.5 seconds on his lap times. It was just small adjustments to his driving line, pushing his braking zones and actually having him short shift in one spot. Then I hopped in with Jan with her similar 18x11" / 295 Rival / MCS shock equipped Mustang and worked on a few things as well.



Kyle and Brandon from our shop came to offer track support for all of our customers that joined us. Kyle fixed a number of items on 4 or 5 cars as well as kept the Mustang fueled, pressures set, and oil topped off.



Brandon snapped a gaggle of great pictures and we kept many of the Club Trials folks warm and hydrated, as our trailer became the shelter from the wind and sun. All in all this was a great event and I really hope the SCCA can find a way to make this a regular part of their Club Race weekends. I feel that without this the W2W programs will continue to wither and die, and this region has admitted as much openly. We will do whatever we can to support racing in this area, and will be at whatever PDX/Club Trials events that they hold in the state, whether it be SCCA or NASA.

What's Next?

Luckily February is pretty dead - as the weather here in north Texas is nasty and unpredictable this month. It will be 70 degrees one day and 25 degrees the next; luckily we have a climate controlled shop, so we don't get bogged down in the cold or heat. Our annual Vorshlag Open House and SCCA Solo Annual Tech day is going to be held on Feb 22nd, plus we have some customer races and test days for race car builds going on this month, but nothing in our Mustang. Looking at March we have way more events than we could possibly enter. Some weekends have two or even three events to choose from, yikes.

Vorshlag's Upcoming Race Schedule (Feb-March)

• Feb 1st - Cars & Coffee Dallas. We drove the red TT3 Mustang to this event on Hoosiers, parked with the SCCA folks, I was interviewed for a TV show there, and I will cover that in my next post.
• Feb 22, Vorshlag Open House/ SCCA Solo Annual Tech day. Everyone is welcome, come by for a look at the shop and current projects, get some free food, talk to a bunch of racers.
• Feb 22, Open Track Day at ECR. I sure wish we didn't have our Open House conflicting with this event, because we have a lot of customers that will be out there on the 22nd. We might have a technician out there for trackside support anyway.
• March 8-9, NASA @ MSR Cresson. Time Trial will likely run the 3.1 whereas all other groups run the 1.7. HPDE and TT slots are open - sign up now!
• March 21-23, Ultimate Street Car Association, Texas Motor Speedway road course. We will beg/borrow/buy some big Rivals and run this autocross/track/speed stop competition in the TT3 Mustang.
• March 21-23, NARRA race at NOLA Motorsports Park. Man I really wanted to go to this but I promised Jimi Day I'd make his USCA event at TMS that weekend
• March 23, Texas Region SCCA Solo #1, Pennington field. We'd probably be doing this if we weren't already triple booked
• March 22, ChumpCar World Series at Texas Motor Speedway. 12 Hour Special Event, "The Cowtown Grand Prix". We will be there supporting a customer while we also run at this same venue with USCA!?
• March 29-30, Track Guys Event @ Texas World Speedway 2.9. We are signed up and will be at this Mustang-centric HPDE weekend with the TrackGuys crew, running the TT3 Mustang. Should be fun!

Running at TMS road course should be fun with the USCA

So that looks a bit nuts, with too many choices. We can't make all of these but we'll pick at least 3 weekends in March to compete in. We're also knee deep in a lot of customer projects, the FR-S should be kicking into gear, the LS1 Miata needs to make some progress, and I want to get the Rallycross SN95 Mustang started here pretty soon. It is all about time.... even working 12-14 hour days we cannot get it all done. And we cannot bring any more people on board because we're out of room, so my "new building search" is crucial. I'd really like to get some mods done to the TT3 Mustang, if we can squeeze it in. A new rear wing? The wider tires? Maybe a new set of shocks? We'll see what the budget and shop time allows.

Don't forget - our 2013 Mustang GT is slashed to $25K. Please spread the word!

More soon!

[Proehl302]

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

I know you have tested a lot of different rear upper control arms. What are you guys using now?

Earlier last year you showed a Boss302 S piece (maybe Multimatic?), and you had been using a Spohn/UPR/custom setup. I see you are selling the updated Whiteline one.

Just curious your thoughts.

[Fair!]

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

I know you have tested a lot of different rear upper control arms. What are you guys using now?

Earlier last year you showed a Boss302 S piece (maybe Multimatic?), and you had been using a Spohn/UPR/custom setup. I see you are selling the updated Whiteline one.

Just curious your thoughts.

Yea, that's a good question. I'm not sure what I'd recommend right now. There are problems with using rubber bushings in the upper control arm load path, simply from too much deflection. Polyurethane is too stiff for the upper mount to pivot well, and that use can lead to tearing of the OEM rubber mount on the axle side for the UCA. So what's the solution for the UCA?



A spherical bearing. This type of bearing has a steel spherical ball and socket joint that can both pivot and rotate in two different axis. We tried the "Del-Sphere" joint in the above arm but it loosened up and made noise in a very short period of time. After re-adjusting the joint itself several times to no avail, we gave up and went with an all metal spherical in the upper mount.



The $700 Multimatic UCA arm and mount were based on the OEM bits, but it was very well made and the tolerances were much tighter than other parts we've seen. The upper 18mm bolt fit inside the included bushings snugly, unlike the loose sloppy fit of other units we tried before.



This price-point is out of reach for most folks, and this unit still doesn't address the bushing on the axle side of the UCA. So we're still looking for the right solution to recommend. There are some new brands out there that seem to touch on all of these issues, but we've got some other goals in mind as well. If we had time we would design and build something ourselves but we're just too busy at the moment.



For now I would leave the UCA alone. Most of the aftermarket solutions are more trouble than they are worth, and almost all of them make a lot of noise. The LCA arms are more important to geometry and do not need to pivot as much as the UCA does, so they don't necessarily need sphericals. The LCA relocation brackets are also crucial on any lowered car, so don't forget those. And then get the axle re-centered when you lower the back, by using an adjustable panhard rod or a proper watts link kit.

Stay tuned for more...

[A-pex]

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

As usual, you guys continue to do the research and keep us all in the loop!

Thanks Team Vorshlag!

Yea, that's a good question. I'm not sure what I'd recommend right now. There are problems with using rubber bushings in the upper control arm load path, simply from too much deflection. Polyurethane is too stiff for the upper mount to pivot well, and that use can lead to tearing of the OEM rubber mount on the axle side for the UCA. So what's the solution for the UCA?



A spherical bearing. This type of bearing has a steel spherical ball and socket joint that can both pivot and rotate in two different axis. We tried the "Del-Sphere" joint in the above arm but it loosened up and made noise in a very short period of time. After re-adjusting the joint itself several times to no avail, we gave up and went with an all metal spherical in the upper mount.



The $700 Multimatic UCA arm and mount were based on the OEM bits, but it was very well made and the tolerances were much tighter than other parts we've seen. The upper 18mm bolt fit inside the included bushings snugly, unlike the loose sloppy fit of other units we tried before.



This price-point is out of reach for most folks, and this unit still doesn't address the bushing on the axle side of the UCA. So we're still looking for the right solution to recommend. There are some new brands out there that seem to touch on all of these issues, but we've got some other goals in mind as well. If we had time we would design and build something ourselves but we're just too busy at the moment.



For now I would leave the UCA alone. Most of the aftermarket solutions are more trouble than they are worth, and almost all of them make a lot of noise. The LCA arms are more important to geometry and do not need to pivot as much as the UCA does, so they don't necessarily need sphericals. The LCA relocation brackets are also crucial on any lowered car, so don't forget those. And then get the axle re-centered when you lower the back, by using an adjustable panhard rod or a proper watts link kit.

Stay tuned for more...

[Fair!]

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

Project Update for March 5, 2014: After another extremely busy and record breaking month for the business, another 4 weeks has passed without a Mustang build thread post. I haven't had much "internet time", due to a lot of service/race prep work on customers cars. It got so backed up that I had to pitch in back there a few days, which is never a good sign. I hastily wrote this post, finishing it around midnight after a 12 hour work day, because this is the only time I can go more than 30 seconds without being called on by an employee, customer, PM, text or phone call. We've made some key changes to our red 2011 Mustang, the 2013 Mustang finally sold, and we are in the beginning stretch of 6 straight race weekend stint, including 3 days of racing this coming weekend. That means I will be writing at a furious pace with fewer edits - so if I sound a little loopy, and make some grammatical errors, that's due to the late hour and my compressed writing schedule.

2013 Mustang Finally Sold

Hallelujah! After 6 months of trying (or more? I'm afraid to count) the black '13 Mustang GT sold to a buyer out of state. I don't know if it was the latest of many price drops ($25K, ouch!) or the time of year was just right, but a mere 12 days after I lowered the price on January 31st the phones just all of a sudden lit UP. During a 24 hour period I had the car sold over the phone to an out of state buyer, sold and shown to a local buyer (first back-up), and then after we had 3 additional backup buyers lined up on the phone that same day - and the phones kept blowing up for another 24 hours. We finally just told the rest of the people that kept calling it was sold, before it was gone. We even had people offering $1000 over the asking price after I had accepted the first verbal offer, but we don't play like that, so I sold it to the first person who gave me confirmation and just waited for him to fly in and pick up the car a few days later.



The buyer loved the car when he arrived, then wanted to upgrade it to the full Bilstein StreetPro struts, shocks and camber plates. We had what he needed in stock, got them installed in a couple of hours, took care of the sale at the bank, and then he drove it 1400+ miles home through an ice storm that hit the east coast, with a smile on his face. Weirdest thing... so many buyers appeared during a 48 hour period, I thought I was being prank called at one point. I guess I won't ever try selling cars in December or January again, that's for sure. Probably the magic of Tax Return Season.




Was sad to see this one go, but with 8 personal cars and projects I needed to reduce the fleet a bit and this one just wasn't being used. Now it can be driven and appreciated by one of our S197 Mustang build thread's long timer readers, and with the new suspension and brake upgrades he should have a lot of fun on track.

Rear Flares Finally Happened!

So if you have been reading this Build Thread for the past 4 years you will know that I've complained about the 315mm tires we have run at all four corners are a bit on the small side and lusted for MOAR TIRE. While the "315s are skinny" statement sounds crazy to many of you, remember: we have been racing at 3770 pounds (with driver) in NASA TT3 class, and the "weight-to-tire" ratio isn't all that great with this many pounds and only a 315mm tire.


Typical TT1 C6 Z06 rear tire is a 345mm Hoosier, and these cars weigh around 3150 pounds stock, not 3550+ like our Mustang

Remember: the typical TT1 classed C6 Z06 Corvette (above) in Time Trial is on 18x12" wheels and 345mm rears under stock fenders, with the same power levels (440 whp) or maybe a tick more. And with a 400 (or more) pound advantage to our car, their "tire-to-weight" ratio is very favorable. We cannot run that light without removing large portions of the chassis, and bumping up classes, but have been making due with 315mm tires on a 3770 race weight, with similar power numbers as a stock Z06.


2012 SCCA ESP and NASA TTS wheel/tire set-up on 315/35/18 Kumho V710

Let's back up and cover the tire and wheel upgrades we've made since ditching the 18x9" then 18x10" wheels and street tires of our first 2 seasons, when we were building around STX/STU autocross classes. After a switch to ESP and TTS classes, we started running the 315mm R-compound DOT tires back in 2012 with a Forgestar 18x11" front and 18x12" rear, both of which just fit under the stock fenders (with some tricks out back to clear the 12's and 3 degrees of negative camber in the front to keep the top of the tire under the fender).


Early 2013 NASA TT3 wheel/tire set-up on 315/30/18 Hoosier A6

We have since perfected the 18x11" wheel fitment at both ends of the S197 and realize that, for most racers, a 295mm-305mm tire works and fits best with that wheel size. Fewer tricks are needed to fit the 18x11" rear wheel and that tire width, compared to the 18x12". But for our "ballasted up" Mustang making 420-430 whp, and with as aggressively as I drive the thing on Hoosier A6 tires, we were overheating the 315s within 2-3 laps. So I bought a pair of the widest DOT radial tires made by Hoosier: the 345/35/18 Hoosier A6. They fit the rear 18x12s "well enough" and looked liked they fit the car without any fender mods (but didn't really).



I did four autocrosses with these big 345 rear tires: a Pro Solo, a National Tour and two local autocross. It looked like it almost fit, until you started cornering and loaded up the read axle, and then they rubbed like mad and made billowing clouds of tire smoke. It was rubbing so badly on the rear inner fender sheetmetal that the car would bind up on the tires. It would start to load up in a corner, the tires would rub and slow down the car, unload the suspension and free up, lurch back into cornering then rub/slow down/lurch - rinse and repeat. But man, the traction off the line at standing start events was EPIC, and it cornered VERY WELL right up to the point where the rubbing started. Putting the 315s back on the car was a huge let-down, and I was determined to get them on this car again, eventually.


Failed experiment: 345 Hoosiers made tons of smoke from excessive rubbing under stock rear fenders

Back then we were using much softer spring rates (450F/175R) on the AST 4150s and a panhard rod, which of course doesn't control the rear axle location as well as a Watts Link. So why didn't we try the 345 mm tires out back after we went to the Whiteline Watts and upped the spring rates 3 different times on the Motons? Because it still wouldn't have worked on a road course. We noted that as hard as we pushed the car on TRACK with the 18x12" wheel/315/30/18 tire we still had a little whisper of tire rub, both inboard and outboard. It may have worked in a parking lot speeds, but no way would it have been safe on high speed road courses with long laterally loaded corners and the added speeds/downforce we see there. There's a big difference in some tire rub at 20-50 mph for 30 seconds at a time and then from 60-150 mph for ten minutes or more on track. We played with spacers and got it to a "pretty dang good" compromise spot with very minimal rubbing on the 12" wheels and 315s, but any addition of tire or wheel width would go back to the rub/lurch/unload scenario, which was terrible. And at road course speeds that would quickly destroy a tire and potentially cause a catastrophic failure.


Ugly cut front fenders at Hallett 2013 clear the now wider 18x12" front wheels

Before the June NASA Hallet event last year we cut the front fenders (a replacement pair of OEM units - the stock front fenders are in my attic, along with the OEM trunk, front bumper cover and hood) to clear a new wider 18x12" front wheel, to make the wheel set-up more "square". We ran it this way for a couple of months and in August of 2013 we finally made over-flares for the front. We made these in our shop using a vacuum formed ABS plastic material just before NASA Nationals last season, and made them big enough to clear a 335mm tire. But with stock rear sheet metal we kept all four corners at 315/30/18 sizes.


"Ugly but Functional" front flares. We say that phrase a lot, I know...

They were not the prettiest things to look at, but they were functional and aerodynamically correct - you want to COVER the entire FRONT of a spinning tire, as that reduces drag, and you want to EVACUATE the rear portion of the tire by leaving it UNCOVERED on the back side. This helps pull air from the wheelwell and undercar areas, increasing brake cooling + engine cooling and reducing lift. This is a trick used in sedan car racing and was easy enough to emulate.


Testing the mega-splitter at ECR, August 2013, days before making the front flares

We added a MASSIVE front splitter to the car at the same time and integrated the front flares/wheel spats into it. I had wanted to flare the rear wheels at the same time, and switch to the 335/345 tire combo before Nationals, but we simply ran out of time (and Amy said NO!). After Nationals I wanted to attack that at our shop, as we've done steel flares as well as wide-body conversions in steel before, such as these cars below (but Amy said NO!).


Left: Boxed flared E30 we built. Right: Widening the OEM flares on this Pikes Peak raced 2005 Subaru STi at Vorshlag

Problem was we just got too buried in customer fabrication work, plus Amy absolutely REFUSED to let us "cut on her car". Yes, even after we made the ducted hood, massive rear wing and mega front splitter... Every other thing we had done to the car for 3 seasons could still be unbolted and replaced with the OEM sheetmetal, but cutting on the unibody was verboten. Plus it would take away our technicians from paying service work, and when you are trying to save $$ to buy a building, every dollar counts. So we had the new front areo and big flares, but no additional tire... we raced it like this at Miller in September on skinny 315s, and TWS in September, and ECR in November, and MSR-Houston in January, and Cresson with the Club Trials in January. ...I simply had enough...


This is just some of the custom bodywork Shiloh has done for us...

When we realized late last year that the all new 2015 Mustang was going to likely be delayed until Fall 2014, and decided to keep the 2011 GT and race it in the 2014 season, I REALLY wanted to do the Big Tire Upgrade. RIGHT. THEN. AND. THERE. But we were too busy to tackle the rear flares, so I called Shiloh at Heritage Collision in Sherman, Texas, who had done such an amazing job on the custom flares for McCall's Z3 LS1 project (above). He worked the rear fender contours to clear that car's massive rear tires, then made front flare sections that he integrated into a carbon fiber hood, then made flared lower fender sections to blend it all in, and even fabricated some little splitter sections for the nose. That car looked AMAZING, so I took him the 2011 Mustang...


Dropping the car off at Heritage Collision in early February - 345s installed and spaced out 1/2"

Amy was NOT AWARE that I had done this, of course, as I knew she wouldn't approve. I figured it would better to ask for forgiveness than permission in this case. So it was done during a very hectic time in the shop, hoping she wouldn't notice the red Mustang being gone for a couple of weeks during the ~5 week break between Race Events we had from Jan 31st until March 8th.



Our shop guys (Ryan, Kyle and Olof) had blown apart the front splitter, front grill block-off plate, bumper cover, and rear wing uprights to have all of the aluminum bits blasted and powder coated (no more rattle can black paint or raw metal), as well as the Gloss "White" wheels (which were to be blasted and powder coated Anthracite grey with a semi-flat clear coat) then we loaded the car in the trailer and I dropped it off at Heritage. I discussed the timeline, budget and look we wanted with Shiloh and he said it would take a week or two. Well in 2 weeks we had our annual Open House and SCCA Tech Day, and I wanted this car to be there, so that was the absolute latest deadline we agreed upon.

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

Behind The Scenes : Making Custom Steel Rear Flares

Trust me - you don't want to see this kind of bodywork being done on your pretty car. Here's are some pictures that Shiloh was texting me while the rear flare work was ongoing, and my near mental breakdown that ensued. At first he showed me a method (these two below) that might have worked with a narrower tire, if we didn't need the extra clearance for lateral movement of the axle (even with a Watts there is some movement + tire deflection).


Before and After - this was just the outer panel separated, moved out and massaged. "Looks great!"

He cut the tack welds that join the outer rear fender skin to the unibody inner structure and WORKED that panel out about 2 inches. It covered the edge of the 345/35/18 tire we mounted to the 18x12" rears just barely, and it might have worked.... for hard parking but NOT for road course use, though. This method yielded about 1.5" more wheel clearance and never even touched the paint. It was beautiful, and damn I wish that would have been enough. But we were already getting tire rub with the 315s on the 12" wheels under the stock fenders, and the new shape really needed 3-4" of additional room or flaring beyond stock to clear the 345s and a potentially wider 18x13" rear wheel (coming soon, I hope?)


"Wait.. what just happened!?!"

After those pictures got my hopes up, he sent these terror inducing "making of the sausage" pictures. At one point I sent him a text: "AHH! I'm freaking OUT! Please stop sending me pictures until it is in primer!" He said to have faith, and reminded me that he had never let us down in his paint and body magic before, so I stressed out for another week while they made ALL NEW FENDERS from steel, added 4" of wheelhouse to the outboard side of the inner fender, and got the shape bodyworked and perfected.



That SHAPE was looking much better, but I still couldn't see the final look in raw steel. Once the bodywork was done and the fenders were in primer he sent me these pics below ...and I calmed WAY down. Unlike a lot of flare jobs I've seen, Shiloh and his guys at Heritage understand racing, proper suspension travel and tire clearance under full bump loads - so they pulled the rear springs and compressed the tire up into the fenders they created to make the most room possible. This adds a on of work, but that's the right way to do flares. Shiloh said that this same job would cost around $3000 to fabricate, test fit, clearance, weld, seam seal, bodywork, prime, block and paint if he were to do S197 flares like this again. Two weeks of late nights and LOTS of hours, but now LOTS of tire clearance. We've sent lots of racers and friends to Shiloh for paint and body work and it is worth the drive north from Dallas - they are that good. If you are in or near DFW area and need crash repair, custom paint or wild flares like this made, call Shiloh at (903) 891-3040.



But by now Amy was getting suspicious, and I couldn't keep her out of the shop every night she came in (after her day job) to do our accounting work. Luckily, with end of year bookkeeping she was pretty busy and somehow never noticed her car being gone. Now I never lied to her, and if she had asked "where's the Mustang?" I would have fessed up immediately, but I dang sure didn't volunteer the information!



We took it down to the wire, as Heritage needed the full two weeks we had before our deadline to get it bodyworked, painted and buffed. They even painted the ABS front flare sections for us, as the red vinyl wrap job we had done was not sticking well and starting to peel off. Shiloh really wanted to make steel front flares for us, and I wanted him to as well, but we simply didn't have time.



As it was, I didn't get back to the shop 5 pm on Friday, with the car and the many powder coated aluminum bits picked up from Crosslink Powder Coating on the way back (another great resource run by another real car guy). We needed the car assembled for the Open House the next day at 9 am, and still needed to clean up the shop - which was a disaster! Our fabricators and techs have been working nearly around-the-clock on customer race projects for weeks and we had to clean until the wee hours that night.

Meanwhile, as I'm taking the trailer back to our remote storage lot Amy drives up to the shop right after I left. CRAP! I ducked down and hoped she didn't notice me... in the giant red F350 dually with 36' enclosed trailer behind me. See, I was hoping our guys would have a chance to reassemble the wing and front end parts before she showed up and noticed the massive rear flares and missing rear graphics. Nope, she walked right into the shop while four of our guys were standing right next to the Mustang, which had the front end exploded apart on the floor (below) in front of it...



They all looked innocently at the pallet racks or stared at the ceiling while she asks them "Where is Terry going with the trailer???" It took her about 30 seconds to notice the new J-Lo booty on the Mustang, then her jaw dropped. Luckily she really liked the work, but that didn't stop her from calling me and giving me grief. 10 minutes of expletives began, and she really lit it up. I thought was in the dog HOUSE, I tell ya... I was thinking about sleeping in that trailer that night. Finally then she cracked, started laughing, and I could hear the whole shop rolling on the floor. She told me it looked great, and let me off the hook. WHEW! Two weeks of panic and stress were lifted in seconds.



After I got back from dropping the trailer the entire shop was in full "CLEAN MODE". We still had to re-arrange all of the "Stuff" and throw out junk (the scrap guy came by three times and was all smiles), and we cleaned up for many hours that night. I had to help sweep, scrub and mop the floors in the shop, too. Somehow we managed to clean up the messy floors, get most of the ongoing project cars shined up and presentable, get the lobby looking good, and got a few hours sleep before I had to be there at 7 to get ready for the Open House the next day.

Vorshlag Open House + SCCA Solo Annual Tech Day, Feb 22

Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Car-Show...use-2014-SCCA/



This Open House event went even better than the two previous years' did, and we had 100+ people through the shop that day. Dozens came for the SCCA Annual Solo Tech, which saves them 15+ minutes during each of the 9 autocross events that Texas Region SCCA SOLO holds each year.



Lots of our customers came by, and we had tons of food and drinks. Breakfast was kolaches and donuts and lunch was catered Mexican food by Ryan's mom's place, Ojedas. MMM, mmmm it was good! We also had cake, cookies, chips, queso, salsa, and lots of beer.



I never sat down from 7 am until 5 pm, when it all wrapped up, and I talked so much I was hoarse. Lots of people looked at the Mustang's new flares, the C4 Corvette cage we had just built, the Scion FR-S and NB Miata LSx Alpha projects, a customer E36 M3 LS1, among other projects underway.



One of our customers, Tyler, brought his Unimog out that day and rolled up in line for tech. The SCCA tech guys just shook their heads and laughed. He then proceeded to drive up every incline in the surrounding property in front of our shop, giving rides.



All of the Vorshlag crew (9 of us) were there at the Open House, except two. Ryan was sleeping in after pulling a string of all-nighters at the shop the previous week, and Jason was co-driving the vintage 1963 Saab 96 rally car at the 100 Acre Woods Rally that weekend.


Left: Jason at 100 Acre Woods rally - Photo by Alex Wong of Emotive Image. Right: Kyle reassembling the TT3 Mustang

During the Open House Kyle stayed busy all day, when he re-assembled the Mustang's splitter and front end, installed the wing, and then worked on a customer's Corvette race car - all while the rest of our crew was eating food, drinking and goofing off. Nicely done, Kyle!



To be fair, Olof helped him for the Mustang front end, and mounted the 335 tires on the newly refinished 18x12" front wheels. Of course Brandon was busy taking pictures all day and we were all busy talking to folks and giving tours of our little shop, too.



Just want to give a shout out to all of our crew here at Vorshlag for a job well done, after the two busiest months we've ever had. It was good to kick back and take a day to eat, drink and bench race with our friends and customers.

New 335 front 345 rear Hoosiers + New COBRA Seats



So the whole point of (last year's) front and (new) rear flares was to house these wider tires. We knew the 335/30/18 Hoosier A6 fit up front, and I had a pair of scrubs that were mounted up for the Open House. The rear got another set of scrub 345/35/18 Hoosier A6 tires, which I have about 10 of (from the pair I purchased earlier plus some more I acquired).



The sticker set got here today. So the plan is that we will have the Mustang loaded in the trailer on the four scrubs, with the sticker 345s mounted on the spare 18x12" rears and the sticker 335/30/18s loose in the trailer. Blast out to MSR and test in the afternoon on the 1.7 mile course on the scrub tire set.



Then take the front wheels off and mount the sticker 335s trackside at PST (since Amy busted one of the extra pair of front 18x12s at MSR-H and the replacement isn't here yet). That Friday night I'll mount the sticker front and rear wheels onto the car after I'm done testing.


The old seats that came out of the 2011 GT. These will be for sale on our Clearance Page soon.

While we were getting the car cleaned up for the Open House I noticed how faded the COBRA seats have become. The passenger seat, a narrow ("normal width") Suzuka kevlar fixed back composite racing seat, is from 2005 and with nearly 9 years of use in two of my cars without tinted windows, that often get parked outside during the day (to make room in the shop to work), is fading fast. And it is a bit narrow for most folks, so my passengers have had to suffer (it is really made for folks under 160 pounds). The driver's seat is also a Cobra Suzuka, but the "GT width" version (wide, which fits 90% of the people in the USA) from 2009. The fabric is perfect on that one, but the outer left side edge has seen some sun fade also. It isn't noticeable unless you sit it next to a new set, though.



But with an event in March that will be televised (USCA) I wanted to put in a fresh pair of COBRA seats, and get that narrow passenger seat upgraded to a wide version, that will make it easier to give rides at track events and autocrosses. So I took the Cobra Evolution GT seat from our lobby, and another Cobra Suzuka GT we had in stock, and had Olof and Kyle put them in the Mustang. They had to modify the (fixed) bracket on the passenger side, but it is all good now. We routed the OEM seat belt through the head protection section and down through the lap belt hole of the Evolution seat, and it fits across my shoulder and hips just like it does on an OEM seat. So yes, a racing seat can be safe in a street car, if you keep the stock belts and route them properly... I had a whole article written about seats, roll bars and harnesses (for autocross, track and street use) but it needs some more edits. I'll post it in a week or two.

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

Call Vorshlag For 315mm Scrubs!

So now that we've finally made the switch to 335/345 tires, we've got a shop full of my used Hoosier A6 (and even six R6s) DOT race tires in 315/30/18 that we need to move. They have been stored in our climate controlled shop and all are less than one year old. These are all my TT scrubs, and I've been saving and hoarding them from last season - I think I used 32 new A6s last year, and most of them are still here. They'd all work great for autocrossers, even track guys - if you don't mind the fastest TT laps have been taken on each set already. These cost $376 new, selling them for $100-125 per tire. Call us and see if we still have any left. I'll be moving the 335 and 345 Hoosier scrubs pretty soon as well.



And of course we still have several sets of new Continental 305 and 320/650/18 racing slicks. All of these are either in our Clearance Page now or will be soon.




Getting Ready for NASA @ MSR Cresson March 7-9th

Amy is out of town so "Team Vorshlag" will be just me, driving solo this weekend. The signups were a little light for this event in TT, and TT3 only has 4 cars right now. That means: nobody can win tires. It also means that we only have 27 in TT, not enough to warrant the extra track length (and 3 extra corner stations) of the 3.1 mile course that TT normally runs at MSR (the race groups and HPDE always have smaller run groups and just run the 1.7). Most of the TT racers are bummed about running the 1.7 mile course, but after that 1:18 lap time in January, I'm not! I had one of my best drives on the 1.7 five weeks ago, and that was on worn out 315s. What will the car run on sticker set of 335/345s? Who knows but I doubt it will be slower.

Here's the old NASA TT track records on both the 3.1 mile and 1.7 mile courses (NASA TT hasn't been run the 1.7 since 2010):

Motorsports Ranch Cresson (3.1 CCW)				
Class	Driver	Car		
TTU	John Page	     Chevy Corvette	 02:19.489	Mar-11
TT1	Troy Messer	   Chevy Corvette	 02:16.519	Mar-13
TT2	Mike Perkins	  Chevy Corvette	 02:18.353	Mar-13
TT3	Terry Fair	    Ford Mustang	   02:22.753	Mar-13
TTA	Josh Dunn	     Mistubishi Evo	 02:23.043	Mar-12
TTB	Dysen Pham	    Honda S2000	    02:24.302	Mar-13
TTC	Eric Foss	     Mazdaspeed 3	   02:28.562	Mar-12
TTD	Eric Foss	     Mazdaspeed 3	   02:30.047	Mar-11
TTE	Steven Farrell	Mazda Miata	    02:37.153	Mar-11
TTF	Ken Brewer	    Toyota MR2	     02:37.955	Mar-13

Motorsports Ranch Cresson (1.7 CCW)				
Class	Driver	Car		
TTU	-	-	-	
TT1	Troy Messer	Corvette C6	 01:17.113	Mar-10
TT2	Sean Farrah	Nissan 350Z	 01:20.283	Mar-10
TT3				
TTA	Ken Orgeron	BMW E46 M3	  01:22.755	Mar-10
TTB	John Zepeda	Mazda Miata	 01:27.682	Mar-10
TTC	Josh Konkle	Chevy Cobalt   01:27.006	Mar-09
TTD	Terry Fair	 BMW 328	     01:29.811	Mar-10
TTE	Josh Price	 Acura Integra  01:26.583	Mar-10
TTF	Ken Brewer	 Toyota MR2	  01:29.804	Mar-10

My 2:22 record for TT3 set last year on the 3.1 is probably a little soft, so I could have worked on improving that if we were to run the 3.1 mile course, assuming I could get a clear and unobstructed lap (which never happens on the 3.1). But it seems we're running the 1.7, and my 1:18.6 from January slots in there quite nicely in the old lap records. Of course nobody has set a TT record on the 1.7 in 4 years, so I suspect all of those old 1.7 TT records will fall. Hopefully, maybe, fingers crossed we can set the TT3 record on the 1.7 this weekend? That's assuming everything goes according to plan, which it almost never does.



This is the 1.7 mile course everyone will be running this weekend with NASA

Weather could play a major factor, and rain is in the forecast this weekend (but it changes by the hour). We've seen days as recently as this week where it was 80 degrees and sunny in the afternoon one day and then 16 degrees and sleeting the very next morning. Totally psychotic temperature swings, with 4 freak ice storms this winter season - unheard of in Dallas. So it is anyone's guess how this weekend will go.

The Car Guy Show

So in my last update I mentioned that we went to Cars & Coffee in the red T3 Mustang in February. Amy drove out on the 315 A6 tires and I drove out in the 2013 GT. The weather was COLD but the crowds were HUGE, and out of the 1000+ cars there that day a film crew for a new TV show was on site and interviewed about 6 car owners. One of those was our red car, with my goofy ass standing in front of it - wired up for sound, talking to the host and answering questions on camera.

The first show of this new series aired March 1st in the Dallas TV market only (so far), and somehow they used about 2 minutes of my interview in the pilot episode, spread across 3 different segments. This wasn't scripted; it was just some questions they asked and my answers given off the cuff. Pretty cool that this made it on the show. The on-track segments we filmed with this crew December 28th might get re-shot soon, once they get their filming schedule opened up, and they might even shoot a bit at our shop. We'll see.



You can watch the pilot episode of The Car Guy Show at the link above

This show airs on KTXD Channel 47 Saturday's @ 11:30am with encore presentations Sundays @ 6pm and Fridays @ 1:30am. This is a Dallas CBS affiliate network, but the show is supposed to make it to more TV markets in the coming months. So its not a nationwide show, and not a huge deal, but was a nice surprise to see that I made this show's first episode. The promo video they made for 30 second commercials for the show has in-car footage from our TT3 Mustang, shot at the December 28th film shoot.

Cars and Coffee Dallas, March 1st

While the pilot episode of The Car Guy Show was airing we were at Cars & Coffee Dallas once again, bright and VERY early Saturday morning, parking with the SCCA Solo folks to promote their events. We drove out on the Hoosiers, this time the 335/345 scrubs that I will test with on Friday. The crowds flocked to the car even more this time, as the rear fenders were fairly obnoxious looking. The Car Guy Show crew also brought out a couple of cool cars, including this Viper and this Mosler MT900, which parked next to our Mustang.

Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Car-Shows/Cars-Coff030114/



They filmed some B-roll out there and a few brief "we'll be right back" segments with some folks. Vorshlag's Ops Manager Sofi rode her Cafe themed Honda motorcycle (that she hand built) and also parked with us. The weather was PERFECT and the lot was jammed with 1200+ cars and thousands of people.



At about 10:30 who walks up? None other than Aaron and 5 of his guys from Gas Monkey Garage. Even though he hates Mustangs, Aaron stopped and talked to me about the car for 20 minutes, and we realized that one of his crew was someone I knew that used to work at a shop we dealt with a lot. Then the subject of his '63 Falcon came up and the Pikes Peak 2014 race, which Aaron is entered in. We've supported racers at this event in the past, and Vorshlag's head engineer Jason has crew chiefed there 4 or 5 times, and will again this year.


Left: Me chatting with the GMG crew. Right: Aaron's recently purchased 63 Falcon is sweet!

We talked a bit about the tricky nature of this treacherous hill climb event, the altitude and prep you need to tackle. Aaron is going to be getting more seat time in the Falcon at NASA events, a Bondurant school, the upcoming Goodguys autocross, and the Ultimate Street Car Association's event at TMS this month as well. Our own beared wonder Jason spoke with Aaron at the PPIHC event last year, and I suspect they will trade some more Pikes Peak stories at one of the events we will see the GMG guys at in the coming months.


Left: In Texas we have everything from Exotics to Bubba Trucks. Right: Yep, that's wood grain on an Audi R8

After C&C we went and had breakfast with the SCCA Solo peeps Brad and Jen Maxcy, with me and Amy plus Brandon and Sofi from Vorshlag. Best breakfast ever = the Chicken and Waffles at Whiskey Cake Cafe. Bacon is infused into the waffle...!! And After four mimosas it was nap time for Terry, and Amy drove us home. Then we switched cars and went to some Irish Festival all afternoon, where I had plenty of Irish beer and ale. And that was my first day off in about 4 weeks, which was epic.

I drove the Mustang to the shop the next morning, with a healthy hangover, after the temperature dropped by more than 60 degrees. It began raining then sleeting on my drive in, of course. Oh well, the defrost and wipers worked just fine, and the DOT Hoosiers had enough grip on the slick roads to where I didn't even notice the slick conditions (left the traction control on, just this one time). Worked about 7 hours while it continued to sleet and I drove another vehicle home, towing an empty trailer in much worse road conditions... passing inexperienced winter drivers on the highway. Good grief, Texas drivers on ice are terrible.

Dyno Retune Finds Some Lost Power?

Yesterday the tuning gurus at True Street Motorsports in McKinney, TX made time for us in their busy schedule and we got them the 2011 Mustang for a re-tune and dyno check-up. We have changed the exhaust (added the lighter Magnaflow mufflers and dumps) and needed a re-tune and NASA Time Trial Dyno Certification Form for this season. We don't plan to make any more changes that would affect power.


Dyno pulls from 3/5/2014. Left is STD correction factor, right is SAE correction factor (which NASA uses)

So in the past ~8 months we had been making from 419 whp to 421 whp and around 402 wtq, right before Nationals and again in a late December dyno test. That's the number we used to get to that 3770 pound TT3 race weight, which we used to ballast up about 45-85 pounds to meet (depending on fuel load and driver). Well this new dyno pull kind of threw a kink in those numbers.


Left: New TT3 classing sheet, page 1. Center: New TT3 classing sheet, page 2. Right: Dyno Certification Form

The 442 whp and 429 wtq STD corrected numbers were a little shocking, until I realized that the SAE numbers were only 432 whp and 419 wtq - SAE numbers are what NASA uses to get to the correct power-to-weight for our TT class. I've included the updated TT1/2/3 classing sheets as well as the dyno certification form. I did the calcs and it looks like the bump in power was only a modest bump up in minimum weight, going from 3770 to 3802 pounds with the new power boost. This was helped by the fact that at 3801+ pounds we get the highest bonus possible from weight, +0.6. The non-OEM aero penalty is -0.4, taking the 9.0:1 base TT3 ratio to 8.8:1. Then if you do the math... 432 whp x 8.8 = 3801.6 pounds, rounded up to 3802. While it might seem backwards how we came up with these numbers (and it is opposite of how the TT sheets have you calculate it), this is exactly how the NASA TT National Director (Greg G) showed us how to do it at the 2013 NASA Nationals.



I asked Olof to modify the existing weight box bracket to make it a bit more robust ballast, to hold additional weight. I never liked the old one (it was the black 1x2" tubing that bolted in at 2 points/4 bolts), and the new design is a "T" shape with two more mounting bolts + an all new thicker/stronger M14 bolt to secure the weights with. Please don't over-analyze this brace - you can lift the back of the car from that bolt and brace.



We figured the new flares and especially the much wider (and taller rear) tires would add some weight, and boy it did. With nearly a full tank of fuel and me sitting in it (210 pounds, been eatin' good!) with my helmet and the new weight box bracket we're at 3822 pounds sans ballast, so that is overweight now by a solid 20 pounds. And that was after removing the rear seats today (33 pounds) because it was way over minimum an hour earlier. Granted it has about 80 pounds of fuel in it, and it can probably go down to 1/2 tank on this course safely, but dang this car is heavy. Those new tires added some pounds, but a lot of added width - should sill be quicker, I hope? We will see soon enough.



Olof and Kyle did a ride height change in the rear - Shiloh had it "tucking some tire", which looked cool for pictures but it bottomed out on the street a bit much. Then they did a corner balance adjustment to get the cross weights even.


Getting a quick corner balance done on the car after some changes. It was at 48.2/51.8% cross but we got it to 49.9/50.1%

And yes, for TT2 we're still WAY too heavy (even without ballast) and WAY down on power to hit the power-to-weight ratio limit for the class (for us it would be 8.0:1 -0.3 for weight = 7.7:1 at 3500-3600 pounds). We'd have to drop nearly 300 pounds and gain another 30 whp to hit the 7.7 ratio (3500 pounds and 454 whp) to max out for TT2. I think we've found the limit of power for this car with a bone stock engine from throttle body to exhaust port, and I don't want to dump time and money into a built motor and gutting the car to get to that weight. Not even going to entertain that idea.

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[Fair!]

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

What's Next?

This weekend we have the NASA TT event, plus testing Friday. Then the following weekend is Goodguys at TMS. If you are near DFW, have some 200 treadwear tires, and have a domestic car or anything "domestic powered", come out and join us on Sunday. Its only $40 to run the tightest autocross you will ever see. It will be a good test for us for the following weekend, which is the BIG event we've been waiting for since last Fall...

USCA @ TMS March 21-23 - Mention Vorshlag to Save $200!

This is the big event in March I am really looking forward to. This is the 2nd round of the all new series from the Ultimate Street Car Association, which will be a TELEVISED and consistent 3-day format competition event leading up to the Optima Challenge in Vegas after SEMA. All cars must run on a 200 treadwear, and there is no restriciton on makes and models - you can bring anything from a Civic to an EVO to a late model Mustang to a classic muscle car, as long as it is street legal and meets a few basic requirements to prove that. The treadwear rating of the tires are the great equalizer, too.



This USCA event at TMS is going to be very similar to the Optima Qualifier we ran over in 2012 (and even run by the same crew) where we did the speed stop and autocross at the Horse Track in Arlington, then did a 70 mile road rally (to prove these are street cars) to Eagles Canyon, where we had a time trial event and a 5 lap shootout. Our Mustang did pretty well at that event, 3rd fastest in the time trial, winning the autocross and taking 3rd place overall (I tanked the speed stop event - long story).



That Optima Qualifier event was a BLAST and we got to run our Mustang against some serious machinery from all over the country. And we got on TV - everyone did. So, what are you doing March 21-23rd??? Why don't YOU come join us at this event???



I have heard from a lot of folks that the $500 entry fee for this 3 day event was too much to stomach. The entire event is held inside the oval at Texas Motor Speedway, with the autocross and speed stop held on some big parking lots and the Time Trial on the 1.4 mile infield road course. This course is a blast and we ran that with Global Time Attack in 2012 and the local Texas Region SCCA Solo group runs it every year for their one road course autocross.



I talked to Jimi Day of the USCA and he wants to get more LOCAL TEXAS RACERS to enter this event, so we worked out a deal to get the price down for you by two hundred bucks. Here's the deal: Go to this link and sign up with either Gold or Platinum entry ($500), then note that you are WITH VORSHLAG somewhere. You will then get a $100 refund after you sign up. Next, come to Vorshlag with your car (not your buddy's car) within the next 6 months and get $100 Credit towards service work at our shop, effectively bringing your price down to $300 instead of $500. Of course if you are out of state this $100 service credit doesn't do you much good, but I am trying to get LOCALS to support a race in our back yard. That service credit can be used for fabrication work, repair work, race prep, parts installation, whatever.



That $300 price gets this 3 day event in line with a typical 2-day HPDE or Time Trial, and you will get a FREE MEAL Friday night after the road rally, a FULL DAY of autocrossing and speed stops (Saturday), and a FULL DAY of laps on the TMS Infield Road Course. That's a lot of seat time for the money. So please, if you have anything with 200+ treadwear tires, PLEASE COME JOIN US!



I'm calling you out, Texas Region SCCA Solo people! You've run this road course and tons of autocrosses on this pavement at TMS. We need you to REPRESENT! And I'm calling you out, Texas NASA Time Trial racers! This is a chance to get on TELEVISION! Get your TT car on some 200+ street tires and come REPRESENT! Just remember to say you are with VORSHLAG to help save you $200 off the $500 entry fee ($100 refund + $100 service credit at Vorshlag). Nobody else is getting this sweet of a deal...

USCA Rules: http://ultimatestreetcarassociation.com/usca-rules/
Sign Up Here: http://ultimatestreetcarassociation....x-march-21-23/

That's all I have for now, more next week.

[Fair!]

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

Project Update for March 20, 2014: As usual this started out as a "quick update" but grew into a monster, and it only covers two weeks worth of events and car prep. We had a great time with NASA at Motorsports Ranch Cresson March 7-9th, so I'll go over that race weekend. Then I'll discuss the last nagging problems we're having with the car, which slowed down the lap times once again (AdvanceTrac faults!). We stripped all of the graphics off the red Mustang in preparation for Goodguys and USCA events as well as installed a set of BFG Rivals. We also got a chance to install the new BMR "UTCA033" spherical Upper Control Arm for the 2010-14 Mustang as well as a new set of Cobra seats (Monoco) in one of our Tester's GTs. Then we get ready for USCA this weekend.... let's go!

NASA @ MSR-C, March 7-9th, 2014

In my last update we went over the modifications and rear flares that were involved to the rear fenders to clear the big 345/35/18 Hoosiers back there (see below). The front flares we made last August were always intended to clear the 335/30/18 up front, and this was the first event where we got a chance to run this new tire upgrade.


Mmmm..... big flares.... big tires.... NASA @ MSR means it was time to finally use these in anger!

We drove at MSR track in January with SCCA Club Trials to a 1:18.675 on used 315mm A6 tires, so I was hoping for a 1-2 second time drop with a sticker set of the wider Hoosiers on the same 1.7 mile course... if we even ran the 1.7 course. You see the NASA Texas Time Trial group is normally too big to fit on the 1.7 so we normally use the longer 3.1 mile course - and have done so for the past three years (2011-13). We've had as many as 47 cars enter into TT group at our events, but this time we only had 26 signed up about 4 days before the event, so Dave B made the call, "TT will be running the 1.7". The cut-off for minimum TT entries to run the 3.1 was 32 cars, and we just didn't make it in time (but we did by the end of the race weekend!)



The 1.7 mile course everyone ran at the NASA event Jan 8-9th

The main thing I lacked at the Club Trials event in January was simple, SEAT TIME. I almost never run the 1.7 mile course at MSR, and have a lot more seat time on the (seldom used) 1.3 and 3.1 courses. I only drove the Mustang at speed for two sessions on the 1.7 mile course in January and put my best laps in early, in the 2nd session. Amy co-drove with me that day and drove in the last two sessions of the day, when it was warmer (it was very COLD at the start of that event, in the 29-35°F range). Well for this weekend Amy was at a wedding for a cousin out of state, so I was going to get to run the car as much as I wanted. Instead of learning the new tire set-up (and this track) during the four daily TT sessions on Saturday and Sunday I decided to head out to MSR on Friday afternoon to get some laps in at the "Test-N-Tune" event normally held the day before any NASA Texas event.

Friday Test and Tune at MSR

MSR is fairly close to our shop and after trying a new route (thanks Google!) I got there in under 1.5 hours. Problem is I didn't leave the shop until after 1:15 pm, as the guys were thrashing to get the car prepped and loaded. And normally I bring along one of our techs for each day to these local events but all of our guys had something going on that weekend, so I went out by myself. So no crew, no Amy, no Brandon (our photographer) - what could go wrong?




I had planned on getting there a bit earlier to reserve good paddock parking for my trailer and 2 others (Matt and Costas), but when I rolled up after 2:30pm the place was PACKED. NASA has commandeered the covered grid area for tech/scales, so they moved grid area to one of the parking lots normally used for paddock - which made the remaining paddock spaces disappear. I got the best spot I could find, unlaoded the car quickly, and went to the clubhouse sign up for the T-n-T event. Only $100 to run in the afternoon, but for all MSR run member and test days you must wear a fire suit and full race gear. No worries, I always bring my gear bag. They said that with our TT3 prepped car with the times it runs I could run with either the "race cars" (W2W prepped cars) or the "sports cars" (mostly HPDE and TT folks). There were 6 sessions left (30 minutes each), so I hopped in the car, set-up the new AiM SOLO DL, and went out to drive.



One of our testers Jamie Beck was there with his AST/Vorshlag/Whiteline/Cobra equipped 2013 Mustang GTs (above) to run in HPDE3 on Saturday and he was nice enough to snap these pictures of me driving - the only pictures I got all weekend of our car (I shot pics of TT cars in sessions that I wasn't driving on Sat/Sunday). We had just rebuilt his rear axle (diff bearings were shot, swapped in a new Torson and 3.31 gears from 3.73s - he loves it) and had some new gauges, a shift light, Ford Racing Sparco wheel and some "blip shift" device he was testing in HPDE3. He also borrowed my "loaner" AiM SOLO timer, which came in handy. So I went out Friday on the 335F/345R scrub set I had picked up for this car and was going to do just a couple of shake down laps, but once I got up to speed and scrubbed off the old rubber the car was flying around the track and I was having a blast.



I came in after 10-15 laps and hopped out under the "Tech shed" area to take a quick look and make sure nothing was leaking or rubbing. Well don't you know that the underside of the back of the car was dripping in gear oil. WTF?! I took a peek and thought I saw the problem... drove to the paddock spot, shimmied out of my driving suit, got the back of the car in the air and yep, the differential vent line for the vent/catch can system we built long ago had popped off the fitting on the rear axle. That was an easy fix. I cleaned up most of the leaked fluid, which looked like much less than a pint, and got back out on track.



After that was fixed I drove in two more 30 minute test sessions with the race group and got a TON of laps in - more than I normally get in several TT weekends. Fine tuned suspension set-up, tire pressures and worked on my driving lines. Adjusted the new seat a little bit - took the bottom seat cushions (they are Velcro'd in place) out of the new Cobra Evolution seat and got a lot better seating position, but then the submarine belts were too long, and the belts I have in the car aren't very good (I have new Schroth Profi2 harnesses going in today).



Since I was on scrubs and normally mired in traffic I was just out there getting seat time and learning this track better - something I have lacked in the last few events (I didn't know the 1.7 course well at the January Club Trials nor the MSR-H track in that direction at the January NASA TT event). Put a tank of fuel through the car, had a lot of fun, and used up a good bit of brake pad material. The scrubs were A6s so they got greasy after 4-5 laps and times would drop, but the Mustang seemed to be passing everything out there and I never had to worry about anything crowding the mirrors, which wasn't what I expected.



The best lap I saw was a 1:19.2 but that was with passing 2 cars on that lap, so I didn't worry about it too much. I came in at 5 pm, even through there was another session I could have run it. I got the front of the car in the air and pulled off the front wheels, which I needed to re-use for the new tires. Then I quickly moved the trailer (to leave room for Costas), unhooked the truck, and hauled the two loose wheels to PST. I got there by 5:20, whew. But... they closed at 5. Doh!



They said they'd get the tires swapped first thing Saturday morning, but they opened at 8 am and I also had a TT meeting at 8 and had to be ready to leave the grid at 8:40. I told them I'd be there early and hope for the best. Got back to my paddock spot, changed the rear wheels for the other pair with fresh 345mm A6 tires mounted, checked the fluids, and then wrapped up for the day by 6:30 pm.



Jamie joined me for dinner and we met Marc Sherrin and a bunch of other TT drivers at the "Rib Shack", which was a literally a shack out in the woods, but they had some good BBQ. (this is the first of 4 BBQ meals for the weekend)


Saturday March 8th - NASA TT Day 1

Arrived at the track Saturday morning at 7:30 am, stopped at the gas station in front of the track to get ice for the cooler. Noticed the line into the track was 30+ deep so I went ahead and ordered a bacon and egg breakfast burrito from On The Brazos BBQ next to the gas station. Best breakfast burrito I've ever had in my LIFE! This thing was HUGE, and chowing on that $3.50 burrito made the wait for the front gate go by quickly. Once signed, wrist banded and inside the gate to my paddock spot. Costas had arrived at some unholy hour and was already unloaded. Our single-trailer width paddock spot grew to three trailers stuffed in there with Costas' 28' and Jamie's 24' trailers jammed in front of our 36'. Their cars plus the Mustang, Toth's Audi and Cody's E36 M3 were all parked together next to Glen's CMC Camaro over the rest of the weekend, too.

After I got inside the gates I raced over to PST to buy a freakin tire gauge (it wasn't loaded in the trailer), and they had my two front sticker tires mounted and balanced by 7:45 am - they rock. Thanks AJ! Ran back to my paddock spot, mounted the front wheels with sticker A6 tires, checked all the fluids and put a tiny bit of oil in it.



Which is all I normally need to do to this car - just keep it full of fluids and drive it. This Mustang is a TANK, I tell ya. Bled tire new tires' pressures down to where I thought they needed to be in the 36° temperatures we saw in the first TT practice session - 29psi front, 27 psi rear, shooting for 33F/31R hot (it overshot that goal by a good bit, as each tire grew by 6-8 psi). First session for TT was of course early and cold, so the track was very slick.



Wind chill put ambient temps in the high 29-30°F range, brr! So I figured there would be no grip on track. At least - for once - I had plenty of seat time on the Friday before an opening TT race session and felt pretty good about the set-up, and I hoped I could drive better than I did in January at the SCCA Club Trials. I have watched my laps from that event, plus many others, and knew I was leaving time on track just in my driving (braking too early, lifting in corners that I should take flat, and being "smooth"). Even after 27 years of autocross and track experience I still have plenty of areas to improve with "the nut behind the wheel".

As I was installing the front wheels I was farting around with the front spacers - something just didn't look right and had the front wheels on and off a couple of times, getting the wheels to fit right. I was confused and knew something on the car needed to be changed with respect to the spacers when I ran the different set of wheels (one pair of 12's has very different offsets from the later set of 18x12s). We had a quick TT meeting in at 8 am, and I was very rushed all morning. I then got the car to grid but something was nagging me.. ballast! I drove back to my paddock spot and looked for the 35 pound plates, but they were still at the shop. I had like 2 minutes to spare so I grabbed a 25 pound plate and hoped that would be enough. Bolted it on and drove back to grid. I ended up getting there as the one minute warning whistle blew. Crap! Go go go!



I am belted in and look over to the passenger seat and see... the harness belts on the passenger seat were unlatched and the seat cushions were sitting on the floor - all of which which would fly around and be a huge distraction on track. I had to get out of my harness, get out of the car, go around to the other side and secure the belts and cushions. Long story short - I didn't make it out in the first grid spot as planned for the first session and had to rush out and catch the field once I had all of my crap together. Not having Amy or anyone else from the shop with me this weekend was a constant struggle to make it to grid on time and get the car checked over between runs. I had some help from Jason Toth and Paul Costas but they had their own cars (and students) to attend to.



Went out dead last in TT, about a minute after they had left, so I blasted out of the grid and caught the back of the field on the formation lap then scrubbed the sticker tires a bit. Costas snuck out there in his GT-1 car late as well, but held back and left a half lap gap to me, so he had all sorts of clear track on his first couple of laps. Smart! I caught a ton of traffic on every lap, of course, but everyone was cool and I was passing 3-4 cars per lap. Worked my way up through the field and took five laps, which is a lot for this car in TT (normally overheating the tires by then).

I can smell and hear a tire rubbing and smoking, and eventually I figured out that the right rear is rubbing inboard badly. Then I finally remembered which spacer I was supposed to change - the rears! I really needed to get a sub 1:20 lap so I took a few more laps even though I saw and heard the tire rub. Needed a fast lap to get up the grid for TT session 2, so I wouldn't be mired in traffic and slow all day. That was probably a mistake, as when I finally did come in I had damaged the tire a bit more than I figured.




Did manage a 1:20.4, which was 4th fastest and moved me up the grid. Way better than I thought I'd get with that much traffic and these cold temps, so I guess it helped after all. We ended up having 29 cars for the day after 28 signed up, some didn't show, and then we had several new drivers get check rides from HPDE 4 and move up to TT. I came in, pulled the rear wheels and put the correct spacers on back there. Checked the tire, despite the rub, it was still OK and had not cut all the way through the outer rubber and into the carcass. Made quite a big "tire baby" out of the shaved rubber from the right rear. Oops.

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