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

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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)

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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,