continued from above - last one!
Looks like if we got down to 3500-3600 pounds there is still a -0.3 bonus, which means we could add even more power and still be TT2 legal, yikes. You kind of have to back into this weight penalty/bonus deal by first
choosing a race weight, looking at the Competition Weight table of modifiers and then figure out your final ratio that way. It takes a couple of iterations but isn't hard to do. With a guess at 3525 pound minimum weight (where we
think we could get without cutting up the car) that is a
-0.3 modifier bonus, which is helpful.
3520 pounds / 457 hp = (8.0 - 0.3)
7.7 ratio (legal ratio at this race weight for TT2)
Yikes, that's a big jump... so we would be going from TT3 with an adjusted 8.9 ratio to TT2 with a 7.7 ratio. Even after dropping another 250 pounds we would still be 27 whp shy of the limit for the class. Another way to look at it is that at 3520 pounds the car would be
207 pounds overweight for 430 whp. Yikes... that's a lot of power to find (read: pay for) or a lot more weight to lose (450 pounds lower than we are now, which is impossible without radical chassis surgery and/or without exotic materials). So maybe a 100% competitive TT2 build is not in the cards for this 2011 GT... and I'm OK with that. What about a "semi-competitive" TT2 car?
Say we get that "easy" 200-250 pounds out of the car, add the bigger rear wing, flare the sheet metal properly and run the wider 335/345 tires, then ballast back up to TT3 weights -or- run sans ballast and just jump into TT2 with a +200 pound heavy car? Again, we did
pretty well last year in TT3 and even beat TT2 lap records a few times at 3770 pounds. With more tire, more aero and less weight we might still be able to sneak in a few TT2 wins until the dedicated ST2/TT2 car(s) are built? Who knows. It gives us some extra performance and classing flexibility with minimal spending.
Again, there is no easy way to add another 30 whp, as the only "easy" bolt-ons left are bigger cams and a different intake manifold design (bigger cross section, shorter runners). Yet we know that these mods will likely lose power below 5000 rpms over what we have now. The popular Boss302 intake is a known "power shifter", adding a few points of peak power up top but
killing as much or more power below 5500 rpm, so that's a dead end. The other ways to add power to an engine are to improve the Volumetric Efficiency, add compression or displacement, or add boost - none of which are easy or cheap to do. I
like having a bone stock engine from throttle body to exhaust port, as it keeps the factory 5 year / 60K powertrain warranty intact, hehe.
So while I will consult some folks smarter than me and see where we can lose more weight (without cutting away big parts of the car) or gain more power (without getting into the motor), we will likely just try to improve the TT3 performance, drop as much weight as we can easily undo, and ballast up closer to the class limit... and remove the ballast and run TT2 as-is, when it makes sense. We will also make a separate ballast package for whenever Amy drives, as we are running as "Team Vorshlag" in 2014, and she and I will split driving duties. At least this way we can run the same transponder and won't screw that up, heh. Just need to make a very visible, quick to install chunk of driver ballast to make up the differences in our weights.
MCS / S197 Shock Test Video
In-car video from Nov 3rd track test with MCS TT1 coilovers on 2012 Mustang GT at ECR
Shannon just uploaded the 720P high def version of the Tom's Lap Timer video that I talked about in my last forum update. In the
video above you can now see how the MCS non-remote singles work on this somewhat bumpy track. Driving this car was effortless (exception: hanging on in stock seat was difficult!) at 9/10ths, and we put in several hot laps with some traffic in an HPDE4 session. I didn't make any crazy passes and we got held up on every lap, yet we still managed to put in that 2:07 lap there.
The 255mm street tires (Nitto Invo) were worn
smooth out, but car owner Jan has since ordered 18x11" Forgestar F14s from us (that just arrived) and we will be installing some fat 295/35/18 BFGoodrich Rivals onto those next week. This Mustang is nearly bone stock, with a 100% stock powertrain, some Carbotech XP16 brake pads, and the MCS shocks and Vorshlag camber plates. Real monotube adjustable dampers absolutely
transform these cars on track, yet with the valving turned down this daily driven Mustang rides beautifully (550F/250R rates). I think with the 11" wide wheels and 295 Rivals this car could dip into the 2:03-2:04 zone, which is just FLYING for street tires. In comparison, a
truly bone stock 2012 GT runs about a 2:12 lap at ECR, from what we have seen and timed (we tested our 2013 GT on 18x10" wheels and 295mm Nittos for our "baseline" numbers).
USCA Event at TMS is On!
There was an event we were in danger of missing in the early part of 2014 if we didn't have a street car to race - the
Ultimate Street Car Association's TMS event
March 21-23, 2014. This is the new series created by Jimi Day/FM3 Marketing to serve as the qualifiers for the big Optima Challenge shootout after SEMA, and we want to be there in this Mustang, which is a real street car. We hope to be on proper 335mm Rivals this time, too. Keeping the 2011 around will allow us to make that event in our own back yard, which is exciting. Road course, autocross, speed stop and some car show portion.
Time for some fat street tires and a run at the USCA event in March!
NASA @ MSR-Houston Jan 19-20, 2014
First NASA event of 2014 is right around the corner, as we race 12 months out of the year here in Texas. The MSR-H event is being run this year in the CCW format, opposite of 2013, so any TT3 winning time will be a track record, and possibly TT2 as well. So Amy and I will enter as "Team Vorshlag" and run whichever class has more cars, and if we can get to 5 in a given class maybe somebody will win some tires. The attendance looks pretty light right now, but that is typical for this January event - which could have really cold or windy weather, rain or fog (the fog last year delayed the start of the event) - but being Houston that could change at any minute and turn into a warm sunny day. Most people wait until the last possible minute to enter this event, which drives the NASA folks nuts!
With this renewed focus on the red 2011 Mustang and a split of TT3 & TT2 goals for 2014, we have a lot of prep work to do in the next few weeks to make MSR-Houston, unless we just take the car "as-is". I don't want to do that, of course! We almost never run the same set-up twice in a row - continuous development makes for continuous improvement. The initial changes we have planned (exhaust, flares, tires, weight) are still
much less work than is needed to finish the ST2 BMW, which needs 200+ hours of work to be a running, driving car + time for testing and sorting the new set-up. We will continue to work on that ST2 BMW as time permits but for now we'll concentrate on 2011 Mustang development until the 2015 Mustang gets here.
We are doing a tire test tomorrow at ECR in the Mustang (320mm Continental slicks vs 315mm Hoosier A6) so I will report back on that soon.
MUCH more soon!