We had a busy week developing some new parts for our 2011 Mustang GT, which we used at an SCCA ProSolo event last weekend. You can read all about the prep work and the ProSolo results here, as well as see hundreds of pictures and some in-car videos from the event. We show construction of a new rear spoiler and our hot new 18×11 (FR) and 18×12 (R) wheels that tuck nicely under the stock fenders. Big 315/35/18 Kumho V710 R compound tires were mounted at all 4 corners for some amazing grip!
The 2012 racing season is well underway now, but some of you are still waiting on shiny new bits you want to buy from Vorshlag. In racing, deadlines are short and missing races because you are waiting on overdue hardware is never fun. We here at Vorshlag want to apologize to our customers that have been patiently waiting for a few delayed parts that we have had on order from outside suppliers for many months. We hate back-orders and delays, but even worse than that is passing along promised delivery dates from vendors that are then missed. As much as we try to build most of our products in-house, we do not control every manufacturing process for every single part we sell and invariably a supplier will eventually miss a promised date or two.
There are two major products that we have talked about, helped co-develop (on our Mustang test mule, above), and promoted publicly that have been delayed beyond explanation in 2012. Our custom-ordered S197 Mustang 18×10″ Mustang wheels from D-Force and dozens of sets of AST 4150s are both over three months late. We cannot explain it and other than wringing our hands and angry calls to vendors, we are powerless about these two particular set-backs. We share your frustrations and we are sorry. When we get blamed for late deliveries that are out of our control it sucks, but that’s part of this business – shared blame.
Some Good News!
We were waiting on some brand new products to arrive that are now in our hands and we have made several improvements to existing Vorshlag components. All of the new parts that make up our Vorshlag S197 Mustang camber-caster plates, that we completely redesigned in Q1-2012, are finally here and they look great. Several parts are going to the electro-plater today (April 25th) and the new camber plate assemblies should start shipping within a week or so. We have been waiting to put these on our own S197 Mustang and cannot wait to get them on track!
Also, another bearing holder (see below) that is used in a number of Vorshlag camber plate designs is now back in stock in massive numbers, and many customer and dealer camber plate back-orders were built and shipped this week. We have also fully switched the coating process on all Vorshlag bearing holders to a more expensive nickel plating, which should help customers in the “salt belt” see better corrosion resistance if they drive their cars in the harsh winters. Along those same lines, all the bearing holder mounting bolts in Vorshlag camber plates are now stainless steel.
For another corrosion improvement development, we have upgraded the custom-built steel OEM style upper spring perches (used on BMW/MINI camber plates with OEM style springs) to a more expensive powder coated finish. This greatly enhances corrosion resistance in the salt belt. The base perches we use come from BMW and one part number (the 1996-99 M3 perch) has more than doubled in price this year, so there is a price increase on that particular option that we have to pass through. Otherwise there have been no price increases on any Vorshlag camber plate in nearly 3 years, even with updated designs, hardware improvements, and coating upgrades. As always our camber plates are made in the USA to ensure the highest quality standards and to minimize shipping delays from overseas.
Thanks for reading this blog entry. Please know that Vorshlag is taking actions to minimize all part delays and back-orders, and always striving to improve everything we make.
Terry Fair – Vorshlag Owner
The Evolution Performance Driving School has a new 2-day autocross event format with 3 events scheduled for 2012. The schedule and description for these events is located here. Vorshlag has joined the contingency sponsors for this series, and those details can be seen here. There are some nice prizes available for both class and shoot-out placings, so its worth checking out the series if they are near your neck of the woods! We look forward to seeing our customers doing well at these events.
The US postal service’s online shipping system is crippled for the foreseeable future. The online portal has been down for us off-and-on from March 21st through March 27th, and has been completely FUBAR for the past 3 days. We have temporarily disabled USPS shipping methods on our website since there’s just no reliable way to ship or track packages via their system right now.
We noticed a “new” online interface at USPS.com arrived around March 20th, which was awful. What used to take 4 screens/steps now took 8. It sort of worked for about one day, then it crashed and has been a disaster ever since. We’ve been quadruple charged on some shipments (on our end), had the online system time out countless times, etc. We’ve called USPS and they said they’ve had patches applied multiple times over the past week, but each time the problems have increased.
As soon as this problem is fixed we will reset the USPS shipping options for our online ordering system. But even when it is “working” the tracking for USPS is flat out terrible, so it should only be used if you must save that $1 on shipping, and only when you don’t need something to arrive on time. Meanwhile we’ll add FedEx shipping options soon to give you more choices for shipping domestically and internationally.
A somewhat hastily written project update for the Mustang became a bit lengthy and detailed. In this update I talk about the Vorshlag Open House and SCCA Tech Party, the first autocross of the year in the Mustang, design and test fitting the rapid prototype Vorshlag camber plates for this S197 chassis, our new trailer, preparations on the car for the upcoming Tx2K12 track day and Texas National Tour autocross (all coming up this weekend), and more. Lots of pictures and in-car video from the autocross, of course. You can read more about all of this and more on our latest Mustang project forum thread update.
Even as we continue to patiently await dealer pricing on the upcoming hot new RWD coupe from Subaru (BRZ) and Toyota (Scion FR-S), AST is already developing new coilovers for this car. Vorshlag has a set of 4150 prototypes on order and we will pair these with our proven camber plates that we already make to fit this FT86 chassis. We are just trying to get ahead of this new chassis and improve some of the things we saw early on that need performance improvement, such as ride height, spring rate, camber settings, wheel and tire size, and exhaust flow.
You can read more about the suspension development of this chassis on our forum here.
Come by and see our new facility, meet the Vorshlag staff, and enjoy some free food and drinks on March 10th, 2012. We will have some cars on display that show our new fabricaiton capabilities, as well as our $2011 GRM Challenge winning BMW E30 V8. The Texas Region SCCA is also having their “annual autocross technical inspection” at our facility the same day. If you run this region’s SCCA autocrosses you can have your car tech’d here on the 10th and you are set for the year – no more waiting in the tech line at each event.
Please go to this forum announcement for times, address/directions, and other information about this Open House event.
Vorshlag is growing and we need to add a draftsman to our in-house staff to keep up with our new product designs. This opening is for someone experienced in SolidWorks software that can work in the north Dallas area 20-40 hours a week. If you are a CAD expert and love racing/cars/suspension design, this could be your ideal job! Please see the job listings below for more information.
Vorshlag Forum Posting: http://www.vorshlag.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8056
CraigsList Dallas ad: http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/egr/2874281227.html
Update: This position was filled April 2012. Thanks for all of the resumes!
Some of you out there know about the upcoming “FT86” chassis – a joint venture platform being developed between Subaru and Toyota. The numbers sound great: 2600-2800 pounds, RWD, 2.0L direct injected flat 4, 200 hp, low CG height, Miata-like size. We here at Vorshlag got to crawl all over and measure a production 2013 Subaru BRZ Limited today, and have shared 45 pictures and much of the data we mined in this forum post. This could be a hot competitor to the Mazda MX5, but with 200 hp and true coupe format, it could be faster and better suited for track use.
The Vorshlag spherical camber plate for the EVO 5-9 models is back in stock and better than ever! We have had camber plates for these EVO models for years, but in 2010 we redesigned them for more positive caster. and these prototype “high caster” designs were perfected on several tester’s race and street cars. Now this version has made it to production form, with an engraved aluminum main plate and our trademark super strong, over-sized spherical bearing. These are made to fit EVO models with coilovers using 2.25″, 60mm or 2.5″ spring diameters. You can order them online here or call us at Vorshlag for more information.
