Vorshlag Blog

There have been over 6 weeks worth of events in our red 2011 Mustang that needed to be covered: Optima show + fun laps with PWC @ COTA, NASA @ MSR-Cresson, Goodguys AAS, Optima @ TMS, and lots of prep for these various events. Most of these events’ race coverage and prep are covered in detail, with pictures and videos, in the latest four-part S197 Build Thread update.

At some of these events we also prepped and competed in other cars, including two Corvettes. These are covered briefly in the same Build Thread update.

We have lots of little technical tid bits buried in this update. Thanks for reading!

After a week and a half long thrash we finished prepping our 2015 race season shop car, this 1992 Corvette shown below. We built this to compete in NASA’s TTC time trial class and are turning it into a dedicated race car with further development all year.

Our build thread is now posted on five forums (Vorshlag, corner-carvers, NASA Texas forums, GRM and SCCAforums) and you can catch up on the progress on any of those, or just click here to start the 3-part update added today.

This extensive post-race report post covers the debut event for this car. This update has dozens of pictures, videos, data and feedback from Terry after this NASA Texas event held at MSR-Houston a week ago. We also had two other TT drivers take a ride in the #DANGERZONE and they both enjoyed it immensely.

Last weekend (Dec 6, 2014) Vorshlag attended the 2014 Eagles Canyon Raceway “Toy Run” track day. This is an annual track event at ECR where the entry fees are all donated to charity, and the entrants have to also bring an unwrapped toy and canned goods to get in, and the price is so low it attracts lots of folks to the track. There were a record 150 entrants at this years Toy Run, great weather, and also a brand new 2015 Mustang GT begging to be tested!

Vorshlag’s own Terry Fair was lucky enough to be able to drive a few laps in two popular Mustangs, giving us all us a head-to-head comparison of the 2015 Mustang GT Performance Pack vs a 2012 Mustang Boss302. We had already borrowed Aaron Sockwell’s 2015 GT for some testing at Vorshlag, and the shop he works at (Dusold Designs) has quite an ambitious set of plans for this “S550” chassis, which they are sharing on their Dusold Designs 2015 Mustang GT: Project 6G Facebook page.

Aaron drove the car hard all day at ECR, running tanks of fuel through the car, and was very pleased with how well it handled in stock form. Terry took a couple of laps, then ran it out of fuel, but Aaron gave him another shot. On the 2nd session he was able to put in 4 hot laps and we have in-car Video of this initial track test, with data overlay. Remember, this was a BONE STOCK Mustang, running on the as-delivered set of brake pads and tires. So, how’d the S550 do?

click image above for in-car video of the 2015 GT on track

The 2015 GT was able to put down the fastest lap ever made by Terry in a bone stock Mustang at ECR. His 2:06.01 lap (shown above or by clicking here), with a passenger, was 2+ seconds faster than he’s ever driven in any stock Mustang at ECR, including GT500s and Boss302s. Terry has lapped ECR for 1000+ laps (in HPDE events, Time Trials and W2W races since 2008), and in probably 30 different S197 Mustangs – including the Vorshlag TT3 Prepped 2011 GT and the 2012 Boss of Jerry Cecco immediately after the 2015. The best he could do in the Boss302 was a 2:10 (running somewhat worn 295mm Nitto NT05s and Vorshlag camber plates). In the past he managed a 2:08 in a “nearly stock” 2013 GT (also running 295mm Nitto NT05s and Vorshlag camber plates). That 2:06 is significantly faster than any S197 in stock form, at least for him. Terry’s best lap in the Vorshlag TT3 Mustang was a 1:55.250 back in 2013 (on the “skinny” 315mm Hoosiers. He has been 2-3 seconds per lap faster at Texas tracks in 2014 on the 335/345 Hoosiers and new aero), almost nine seconds faster than the stock S550.

Terry also drove a few laps in the Vorshlag TT3 Mustang, which is FOR SALE listed here

Please know that this was Terry’s first time: driving a 2015 GT on track (while having a conversation with Mark), as well as his first time using a GoPro video camera, some brand new video editing software, on a brand new PC, exporting from Harry’s Lap Timer, and using Dashware software to mesh it all together. Lots of tutorials, tests, and a few mistakes later and we have this 11 minute video. It looks like the data logging works intermittently on the video, and the sound is lagging about 2 seconds behind the video, but when it works the data is helpful. The lap timing is accurate and was double-checked by outside observers. Thanks to Mark Council for riding shotgun and adding some color commentary, and thanks to Aaron for letting Terry drive his car at speed!

Vorshlag has been testing with the new S550 Mustang for several weeks now and we have new Camber Plates under development, have already spec’d and sold sets of Forgestar wheels (19×10, 18×11, and more), and have some Whiteline and Magnaflow items listed on our website already. Look for a new Motion Control Suspension coilover offering for the S550 soon, with lengths spec’d by Vorshlag and valving by MaxcySpeed and Co. And of course Dusold Designs has lots of crazy plans for this chassis, including possibly twin turbocharged 5.0L power? We will share more when we see anything new, right here. And as always, look for Vorshlag updates to this in our S550 Development forum thread.