Vorshlag 2011 Mustang 5.0 GT - track/autocross/street Project

[DirtyD]

Terry/Jason,

Did y'all have plans to add a flare to the side skirts in front of the rear tires? THat way the lines match up and flow more air around the front of the tire.

[modernbeat]

Originally Posted by DirtyD Terry/Jason, Did y'all have plans to add a flare to the side skirts in front of the rear tires? THat way the lines match up and flow more air around the front of the tire.

Yes, we intend to build a modified rocker that kicks out below the rear flare. Just never enough time.

[DirtyD]

Originally Posted by modernbeat Yes, we intend to build a modified rocker that kicks out below the rear flare. Just never enough time.

Cool. I was just curious. That will definitely finish the look and be mean as hell too.

[Fair]

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.

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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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I also wanted to note that as badly as the Traction Control system has behaved it has mostly only happened to me and Costas when driving this car - Amy is a much smoother driver and it never faults on her.

We will test this new ABS/Traction Control module at the USCA event this weekend (on street tires) and at the Track Guys TWS track event the weekend after (on sticky tires) and I will report back with results after autocrossing and tracking this new M-2353-CA module with those vastly different grip levels.

Back to Saturday's TT Event...

So after the AdvanceTrac issues in TT session 2 and 3 and with the weather getting much colder, I sat out the 4th and final TT session on Saturday. Ended up being a good call as very few folks set their fastest in that session and we saw lots of "offs". I took pictures of the TT group, watched the AI/CMC crash-fest races, and took pictures when Costas was out in the Blitz group. Troy Messer eeked by my best time in his 3rd TT session in TT1, and I ended the day with the 2nd fastest time out of 29 cars in the TT group. And I think it was the 3rd fastest time for the entire day of all NASA race groups, with Costas getting a 1:17.3 in qualifying for the SU race (he was on some 3 weekend old, harder compound tires). That was weird and lots of people thought so as well, but I guess it was just a good day for the 3800 pound pony car. What was funny was I put two stinkin wheels in the dirt on that lap and the AdvanceTrac was going bonkers! I was excited about Sunday, hoping to beat that time - but who knows what tomorrow brings? Would the faults and CELs get worse on Sunday? Would it rain and slow us all down? No idea.



We had a great dinner provided by NASA Texas for everyone that night with killer BBQ cooked by one of the CMC racers, but it was SO cold we had to move indoors to eat. NASA Texas had a new thing that night where they handed out trophies for wins that day and track record certificates when a record was broken.



I picked up those trophies and print-outs for the TT3 win and new TT3 track record as well as for several of our friends/customers who couldn't stick around for the party.



Costas won TTU, set that track record, won both Blitz races overall and won SU class both times on Saturday. Vorshlag customer Eric Johnson won TTE and set the class record, his first class win, so he was very happy with that. Long time Vorshlag tester but first time NASA TT racer Doug Worth did his first TT event in his E36 M3 and won against the "E46 Mafia" in TTB by a couple of hundredths and set the TTB track record, but days later it was taken away after his classing sheet was rechecked came up one point short for TTB class. He has since received a dyno re-class and with 10 more pounds on board is TTB legal for the next event. Bummer.



It was close, and I didn't find out for about 5 more days, but there ended up being a car moved from TTB to TT3 class (sorry Doug!) so we ended up with 5 in class for Saturday, which meant I scored two Hoosiers for that day's win. Whew! That was good news, because I pretty much ruined one of the brand new (and expensive) 345mm rear tires in that spacer snafu. Not having any of our crew or Amy there made it more stressful than normal, and I really missed all of them that day. After a a couple of plates of food and few beers I made it back to the hotel and tried to get some sleep.


Sunday March 9th - NASA TT Day 2

Sunday dawned with Daylight Savings giving us more light but stealing an hour of sleep. I was at the track by 7:30am, got ready for TT for the day but skipped TT session 1 because it was 29°F indicated - stupid cold and well outside of the A6 tire's performance envelope. I went out in TT session 2 gridded in P1 at 10:30, and the sun had just started to peek out of the clouds. I had some nice clear track in front of me and with temps in the 40s I ran a first lap of 1:18.2 and a second lap of 1:17.310. As usual the AdvanceTrac was faulting BADLY the entire time, turning itself back on and applying brakes in that first lap. I think the car sees the g-loading and my spastic driving and calculates "Danger! This car is crashing!" It was blinking lights, applying brakes and FREAKING out. The last 4 corners on my best lap of the weekend and the damned REAR BRAKES were on the whole time. The engine was straining but I kept the throttle matted and cursed my way through that 1:17.310 lap (see in-car video from those two laps, below).



That time was a half second quicker than Saturday's best and a second and a half quicker than the January SCCA Club Trials lap on 315mm Hoosiers, so the new tires were working despite the AdvanceTrac system fighting me the entire time. Frustrating laps, but I was happy to reset the track record (the car's 10th standing NASA TT3 track record) and ended up being fast enough for another win with 7 in class that day.


Indicated 470°F front and 350°F rear brake caliper temperatures were a bit alarming

The brakes worked well this weekend but I got them REALLY hot, as shown in the Alcon caliper temperature indicators that we placed on each caliper. This is a standard data acquisition trick, but I learned the value of it from Costas in January at the NASA MSR-H event. So I picked up a packet of these adhesive strips and the results were a bit startling. The 470°F degree front caliper temps were the most alarming and we will need to address this before our next high speed track event. Again, we were running with driver and ballast at over 3800 pounds (much higher than most S197 racers) and seeing speeds and lap times that are probably atypical for this chassis.



Like many S197 racers we are using a single a 3" brake duct hose coming from the fog light openings right now but we had just re-routed and lengthened these hoses to avoid the 335mm wide front tires at full lock (see new routing, above). I fear that the new cooling hose routing (now located inboard of the splitter's rear mounts) with tighter bends in the hose is causing some additional airflow restriction we weren't seeing before. The rear calipers even saw over 350°F, which was a tick higher than expected. We will replace these Alcon indicators for each event and monitor the max temps reached on each caliper and possibly add a second 3" hose (or move to a 4" hose) up front and maybe even add some under-car ducting for the rear brakes. I have an idea for that which will tie into the new rear bodywork nicely and discretely.



We've run multiple brake cooling hoses to the same corner on other cars we've built before, like this C4 Corvette above. That one used a massive inlet duct, air passed through the frame rail then was diverted out into two duct hoses: a 3" hose routed to a custom brake backing plate for the inside of the rotor and a second 2" cooling hose pointed right at the caliper.

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This system worked very well and in that car's first 12 hour of racing the pads barely wore halfway, but the rear brakes (uncooled) went through two sets of pads. We might try this "dual cooling" set-up on front of the TT3 Mustang, or a single 4" hose to the rotor, or a dual 3" hose to the rotor. And a ducted rear rotor set-up is coming as well.



The front brake pads are wearing more quickly than we like (again, 3800 pound car + lots of brake heat), as shown above. We just put a new set of front Carbotech XP20 brake pads on the front Brembo calipers for the USCA event and will address the brake cooling needs soon. The old pads (shown) wore down tot he last 1/16th of an inch of material and are only good for "emergency use", to make one session or a drive home from the track for someone that had a pad failure.

In Sunday's TT session 3, the car didn't even make through the first hot lap before the AdvanceTrac faulted heavily. I barely ran a 1:18 lap and it was only getting worse, as was the traffic. I didn't even try to make a 2nd hot lap, and with the start/finish line just before the pit entrance road I just dove into the pits and did a little cool down drive to the corner gas station and back, to get the brakes and systems cooled off before parking the car for rest of the day. The ambient temperatures were getting warmer and a few guys went quicker, so I ended up only 4th fastest in TT for the day after skipping the 4th TT session. If the AdvanceTrac wasn't faulting I would have gone out and could have dropped time. After the car had cooled off I hooked up the truck to the trailer, loaded up the car and our gear, then helped Costas put his car back together (windshield, bodywork, and wheels) after he fixed a nagging brake light switch issue that was a bear to access. Once he was ready for his last SU race, where he won the class all 4 times, I headed out a little early.



That 2nd session 1:17.310 time was good enough for the win (7 cars in class) and reset the TT3 record. A Radical SR8 ran with us in TT on Sunday and was stupid fast, but its a SportsRacer and that's to be expected. Troy Messer found a lot of time in his TT1 Corvette in the 4th session and ran a 1:15.8 and Vorshlag customer Corey Wells put in a fast lap with a 1:17.290 in his TT1 classed ZR1 (street car!) as well.

All in all this was a great weekend and the Vorshlag Mustang really came alive on the bigger Hoosiers I have lusted after for the last three years. Just as I predicted, it dropped a lot of time AND I was able to get in 3, 4, even 5 hot laps before the tires got overheated and greasy - unheard of when running at this weight on the 315mm A6 tires. The extra grip probably caused these additional AdvanceTrac faults and one CEL issue, so we're installing a new ABS/TC module that hopefully eliminates all traces of factory traction control once and for all. Again, I really missed having Amy and our crew there, and the only pictures I got were with my Nikon that I took, and the only shots of our car on track were those that Jamie Beck shot with my camera on Friday in practice. I watched all the video and saw plenty of driving mistakes so there's no telling what this car could have run without the AdvanceTrac faults and my hack driving. I know a 1:16 was possible without the brakes being applied by some stupid computer when I wanted to be WOT. Maybe next year NASA will run the MSR 1.7 course again. I sure hope so, as this course was more enjoyable for me than the 3.1 mile course we normally run in TT.

Making Weight by the Hair of My Chinny Chin Chin!

One little scare I had on Saturday was after TT session 2. I came after running that 1:17.7 lap and was sent to the scales. I wasn't too worried, as I had thrown a 25 pound ballast weight plate into the trunk mount moments before the session began, after I noticed a somewhat lower fuel load than I had wanted (normally I was going to grid with 7/8ths to a full tank). I made weight that time by 2 pounds!!!! And that took two tries...

The first time they put the car on the scales after that session it was 8 pounds light. As per the rules, that would have been technically legal on my first weighing of the day (10 pound grace on first weighing) but I knew that weight couldn't be right. I asked them to roll me off, make sure the scale pads were under all 4 tires all the way, and we rolled it back on. That time it was 3804 pounds on a 3802 minimum. Whew!



I went to the paddock and immediately threw 20 more pounds of ballast and a full tank of fuel went into the car for each successive session all weekend. I was weighed a couple more times; once it was 3835 and another it was 3853 pounds! So getting spooked by that "close call" 2 pound weight check made me run too much ballast all weekend. I'm sure with our crew here I wouldn't have overshot that so badly, but oh well. It was fully 51 pounds overweight on my 1:17.310 lap Sunday.



Jason Toth (the Alpha LS1 Miata owner) made his TT debut on Sunday in an Audi A4 (loaner, shown above left) and had a blast. He borrowed my spare AMB so he graciously ran in TT3, which made for 7 in class. Hoosier pays all the way down to 2nd place so Jeff Tan won a tire that day in 2nd and I won 2 more in 1st. Which was good, because I blew my tire budget all to pieces with the new A6s for this event and BFG Rivals for Goodguys/USCA. I'll save the newly arrived 4 tire winnings for April's NASA TT event and use 3 of these 4 tires from this weekend as my Friday test set if we go down there a day early. Gotta get a replacement 18x12" wheel so we have two complete sets - running around and getting tires swapped and mounted minutes before my first TT session Saturday was a bit too hectic. Congrats to Mike Patterson (shown above right), who won all 4 AI races, reset the track record for that class in the low 1:20 range (on the new Toyo RR tires running 18x9.5" Forgestar F14 wheels he bought from Vorshlag), and ran in TT3 both days as well. He also works as race director for another race group, so he was a busy man!

Official Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...Cresson_March/

Vorshlag Photo Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...SA-MSR-030814/


Left: Saturday's NASA TT results. Right: Sunday's NASA TT results.

Decal Removal + New BFG Rivals + Prep for Goodguys & USCA

We had to steal a tiny sliver of shop time to get the red Mustang ready for the next two "street car" events, so we took it. The guys made sure the car was street legal and re-attached the horns and double checked all of the street car systems like the wipers, lights, signals and the rest. We ran out of time to get the car reinspected (it was a few months out but it just got re-inspected today) but they got it all street worthy and up to snuff. On Thursday March 13th the set of BFG Rivals I found a couple of weeks earlier (TireRack was out of stock on the 335s) arrived in town and I went out to an undisclosed location to pick them up.



On the Friday before Goodguys Olof got the 315/30/18 pair mounted to the front 18x12 wheels and the 335/30/18 pair mounted to the rear 18x12s. Once mounted on the car they were swallowed in the massive rear flares and even the 335s looked small.

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