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

[Fair]

continued from above

NASA Time Trial event at MSR-Cresson - 3.1 mile course

Amy and I had both signed up to drive in TT3 in the same car, once again. Sharing a car and racing it in the same class sucks, by the way. We are NOT going to do this again, because neither of us are getting enough seat time to learn the ever changing set-ups and/or familiarize ourselves with new tracks. More on that later in this post. So we arrived at MSR on Friday around 7:30 pm, quickly unloaded the car and then unhooked the trailer. By then it was pitch dark and we installed the rear wing using a flashlight, since I was worried about towing the car on an open trailer and adding excessive drag with the wing on (wasted effort - we towed on the way back with the wing installed and didn't see a dip at all in the borrowed V10 Ford F-250 truck's horrendous MPG, heh).



Note: All of these pics are from Sunday, as we didn't take any pics with our own camera on Saturday and Vorshlag's own Brandon arrived about 10 am Sunday and snapped the good ones from the event.

Vorshlag NASA @ MSR-C Photo Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...A-MSRC-031613/
Saturday NASA TT Results: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...-031613-X2.jpg
Sunday NASA TT Results: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...-031713-X2.jpg



The Time Trial group in our region has gotten too big and crowded to run on the smaller 1.7 mile road course that the NASA events are usually held on. So they put just the TT group out on the large 3.1 mile course... which is made up of the normal 1.7 mile course (which every other race and HPDE group drove all weekend) and the hyper-tight 1.3 mile course, joined together. Amy had driven the 1.3 mile course once, and the 1.7 mile course a couple of times, but joined into the 3.1 it is a different animal altogether... and it get's pretty complicated to remember, and the line changes dramatically, with a LOT of turns and transitions. They call it "16 turns" but that is just not even remotely correct - the 3.1 mile course is closer to 26 turns when you actually count the times you have to change direction. Not many 26 turn courses are easy to learn quickly, and MUCH more difficult to remember than the 11 turn 1.7 mile course most people normally run there. And what these 2D maps don't show are the massive elevation changes, the many blind corners, and off camber sections just waiting to bite you and send you 4 off.


Ignore the "passing in green zone" stuff, that is for HPDE; TT has open passing. And this course is closer to 26 turns, not 16

So Saturday we had 4 TT sessions to run in, but the 1st one on Saturday doesn't count for times, only for grid position. So we had 3 real timed TT sessions between 2 drivers to fight over. That left us 3 actual timed sessions to figure out the 3.1 mile course and get a good lap time in. Sure, we could hop into an HPDE session for more seat time, and we both did, but it would be on the 1.7 mile course only. Since I had driven this 3.1 mile course briefly back in 2011 (in our GRM E30 V8 - where I promptly exploded another T5 going over a rough patch in the transition from the 1.7 to the 1.3 course), Amy and I agreed that I would go out in the first "practice" session and she would ride along, which would normally DSQ my times in TT - but they don't count anyway. I tried to show her the line, what little I could remember of it, and failed miserably. She tried not to throw up as I slung the car around this unfamiliar course, and barely succeeded. Eventually she just closed her eyes and said "OK, enough!"

We started the day on a sticker set of 295/40/18 Hoosier R6 tires and planned to switch to the sticker 315/30/18 Hoosier A6 tures if.... 1) we were getting beat or 2) if the 295s felt funky. By TT session 2, our first timed session I was out again on the 295s and Amy had done one HPDE session on the 1.7 course. Neither of us liked the feel of the 295s but I wanted to give them a little more time to show their stuff. I was also instructing a student in HPDE1 so I was running ragged that day, with our paddock spot a long way away from the grid. I was briefly in the TT3 lead on the 295s, but Amy and I agreed that the 295s weren't cutting it. They felt... very slow to react compared to the 315/30/18 Hoosiers and 315/35/18 Kumho V710s we had raced on for much of last year at various track events.


Left: Borrowed truck and trailer were handy, but left us without a lot of our tools. Right: Getting ready to go out on 315s

By 10:30 Olof had arrived at the track and the three of us quickly swapped wheels and tires for the wider Forgestar 18x11/12" wheels and shorter/wider 315/30/18 Hoosier A6 tires. Two sticker sets of Hoosiers in one day - nucking futs! Amy quickly went out for a few laps in another HPDE session to get a feel for the shorter A6s and she really liked it, but still had no idea what line to take on the 3.1 course. She finally took to the 3.1 mile course in TT Session 3, but there was a little "incident" that shortened the session to one lone hot lap (hence her abysmal 2:31 time followed by a 4:09, which was during the red flagged lap). This incident was some inadvertent "car-to-car" contact, which I have never seen in a Time Trial session in our region in the past 6 years. I don't want to get into it any more than to say that one TT driver was completely lost, was driving the wrong course, and turned into another car.

Anyway, during that very brief session another TT3 driver had slipped into the lead ahead of me, just barely. Amy had one hot lap in a timed TT session for the day. I felt bad about it, since she only got one real timed lap in a TT session on Saturday, and offered up session 4 to her... but she agreed to let me go out in TT session 4 on the A6s, to try for the win, as I was a good bit faster than her, on this course which I knew a little better. We just had enough in class (5 cars) to pay out 2 tires to 1st place, if I could get back into the lead.

The TT3 class lead was razor thin - I was less than a tenth back with a 2:26 lap - but I had a feeling that the then 1st placed car, an LS1 powered Miata with big Hoosiers and aero, would pick up time in TT session 4. I had my secret weapon - switching to the 315 A6s would surely drop some major time! What I didn't know was - he was doing the same damn thing!! Oh, the irony. We both switched from R6 tires to A6s for TT session 4, and I was lined up right behind him on the formation lap.


Partial hot lap from Saturday (Day 1) TT session 4, before the camera shifted...

You can see part of TT session 4 in the video above, right until the camera shifted and pointed at the ceiling (ruining video for the rest of the weekend). So I go out, try to learn the feel of the very short/sticky A6 tires in this lone session, and quickly realize I'm catching the LS1 Miata hard on many turns of the 1st hot lap, so I back off and build a gap. That's where the video stops.

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above

The key to doing well in Time Trial is to not get stuck in traffic. So by hot lap 2 I had backed off enough to build a nice 200 yard gap to John's LS1 Miata ahead and still had plenty of distance to a TT1 Corvette behind me so as to not impede him. Then I put the hammer down and started making up track distance to John. I want after at it for 3 hot laps, catching the V8 Miata little by little on laps 2, 3 and 4. But what I didn't realize was, John had already put in his fastest time on lap 1, when I was bunching up in his mirrors and backed off. In the end we both dropped 2 full seconds, but John came away with the win with a 2:24.643 to my 2:27.787 lap. So the win, 2 tires, and a track record went to John on Day 1, and I congratulated him after.


The LS1 Miata of John Roberts was a tick faster on Day 1 than the Mustang

I cannot emphasize this enough: The differences in the two tires were dramatic - sidewall height, overall height, compound, tread width, and steering feel. My excuse is that the changes were too drastic for me to learn with in a mere 4 laps, and I just couldn't put the right lap together. I wasn't "getting the line" right at all all day, either. I felt like I needed one more lap, but by the 4th hot lap in that last session of the day I noticed my lap times were really slowing down. The Hoosier A6 is fast, but you need to put in your fast lap or two in early, then they need to cool down.

Basically, I drove for crap. I pondered my many mistakes that night at the NASA catered party / St. Paddy's Day celebration, where I was given evil, potent shots of some green alcohol... I was blitzed out of my mind by 7:30 pm and Amy had to take me outta there and go get some food in me, to sober up!



Sunday was a new day, and I vowed was going to put a solid fast lap in on this b!tch of a course, by damn. Amy promised to do the same, if she "could get more than one hot lap all day!". There were 4 full TT sessions to get times in for Day 2, so Amy and I split them 50-50. She went in TT sessions 1 and 3, I took sessions 2 and 4. Did I mention that 2 people driving the same car and getting half the seat time sucks??? She put in a good number of laps in TT session 1 and brought the car in while I sprinted to the grid to instruct with my student.

What she didn't do was add fuel to the car, which we were doing after every other session, to both make weight and make sure the fuel pick-up didn't get starved. When we ran the car on track with street tires it wasn't ever a concern but I noticed some fuel starve in higher speed left handers at MSR-Houston with less than a 1/2 tank of fuel, and didn't want to repeat that.



I barely made it back to the car in time to grid up for TT session 2... and it showed to have just a tick above half a tank. Err... will this work??? No time to leave the grid and get more fuel, so I had to hope it was enough for a few laps. Again, I felt like I had the track figured out in my head, and I just needed one traffic-free lap, early, to get a good time in.

This wasn't enough fuel for ONE hot lap, actually. After we got through the end of the warm-up lap the front of the field was speeding up and I had a perfect gap ahead and behind for some traffic-free laps. I am building speed through turns 14-15-16 of the 1.7 section of the course, which are well into 4th gear, pushing the big car hard through this high-g series of corners right before the green flag... and the motor starts to stall. No... noNoNONONO! It clears up towards the entrance to Turn 1 (Big Bend), I dig in the brakes hard and lay into the throttle before the apex, letting the car push wide.... engine stalls again. NO! This is NOT HAPPENING! The gauge shows half a tank!?! But now, on 315mm A6s, with the wing set at a high AOA, in these high speed corners it is simply fuel starving. I throw up a fist and quickly dive into Pit In, not wanting to suffer through another 3.1 mile lap of fuel starvation and holding up the entire TT field.

At this point I'm pretty mad at Amy for leaving me way less than the 3/4 tank we had agreed on for the start of each session. I guess I wasn't clear enough. Sharing a race car SUCKS, by the way. I dejectedly head to the local gas station, still painfully in view of the lower corners in the 1.3 section. I wave at some of the drivers as the car guzzles 8 more gallons of 93 octane. By the time I'm back into the track they are on their final lap - I'd never get around in time to get in a hot lap, so I put all my hopes on the final 4th TT session, as Amy is driving next. At least I left her plenty of fuel! hehe....

I get back to our paddock spot, switch transponders, and get her helmet in the car. She waltzes back from somewhere... "Where you been? Why aren't you on track?" Oh that was the wrong thing to ask right then, as the TT field takes the checkered flag. Somehow after arguing for a few minutes it ends up being my fault, don't ask me how ... I always lose these fights.



So Amy goes out in Session 3 on Sunday and gets a couple of hot laps. and drops a second from Saturday, which put her ahead of a Ferrari 355 Challenge car running in TT3, so she was happy with that. There is a great sequence of pics starting here showing her hounding this F355, then sticking a door inside of him "for a look", backing off, and getting a hast point by. She was all smiles after that small victory. The rest of her session was spent in traffic, moving up through the field, with a best lap of a 2:30.8.


Amy getting a look at then passing a Ferrari F355 Challenge racer

Amy said she never felt like she had the right line on the 3.1, and complained about a lack of seat time - which I agree with. But now it was my turn to go in TT session 4, still with zero timed laps for the day. It was the end of the day, end of the weekend, and there were very few TT racers left. All of the faster TT1 and TT2 cars had bailed, so I was at the head of the grid. John's Miata had blown up a halfshaft in TT session 2 and left him stranded mid-track when I was off getting fuel, so he was out (they had to black flag the session to get him out of the way, so I never would have made it back for a hot lap after fueling, in any case). I still needed to get a good lap in, as John's early 2:27 lap was still leading the TT3 class. I wanted more than the 2:24 I had from Day 1, and knew it was in the car, if only I could get some clear track and put a lap or two together.

Luckily, with being in the number 1 grid spot and setting the pace on the out lap, bunching up the field, I had 100% traffic free session. I only took two hot laps in TT session 4, and both of them were fast enough to win and reset the TT3 track record. I managed a 2:22.753 and a 2:22.798, both laps a solid 2 seconds ahead of my Day 1 times (which shows how poorly I drove on Saturday). After seeing those laps I called it a day, knowing that the A6 tires were likely going to slow down significantly for lap 3. We had only 4 entrants in TT3 on Day 2 so there were no tires for the winner, oh well. Should have put one of these laps together on Day 1 - my own fault for jacking around with 2 very different sets of tires, and sharing a car for the same class, limiting our seat time.

NASA Texas Lap Records (only updated "semi-annually") http://www.nasa-tt.com/Texas_Track_R...6_articleid/11 - this doesn't even have the January 2013 event updated yet, so of course the March event isn't in the books.

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above

After my TT session was done I worked with my HPDE1 student one more time and signed her off for solo in HPDE2 in her S197 5.0 Mustang. This was the mother of two daughters who are also HPDE drivers, one in a 2013 Camaro and another in a second S197 5.0, with the father of the clan running HPDE in his Miata. Like they say, a family that races together... sees each other more on race weekends? Cool family.



What's Next?

The next event for the 2011 GT was on Saturday March 23rd at Eagles Canyon Raceway. Amy ran there for one session, but it rained and hailed like mad, so they rescheduled for April 6th. I'll talk about both of those events in my next update. If you would like to join us for an informal ECR track day on April 6th you can learn more at the link below. We also have a NASA event coming up at Texas World Speedway April 20-21st. Again, see the link below to sign up or learn more. And in between those two weekends is the SCCA ProSolo in our back yard. Friday night of the ProSolo weekend there’s a Welcome Party and dinner, “Grilling on the Barbi” on site, sponsored by Vorshlag Motorsports. All food is free of charge & of course FREE beer from a little town in Texas called Shiner. I will be speaking in an Australian accent and working the grill myself.

• Eagles Canyon Track Experience - April 6: https://www.facebook.com/events/480654921999822/
• NASA Texas April 19-21, 2013 - Texas World Speedway: http://nasaproracing.com/event/1618
• SCCA Mineral Wells ProSolo, April 12-14, 2013: http://www.scca.com/events/index.cfm?eid=5464

We missed the College Station SCCA National Tour, which was the same weekend as the rained out ECR Track Event. Damned shame. During the NASA MSR-C weekend we killed the brake pads and the rotors didn't have enough thickness to turn again. The pads lasted a few events but these rotors have been on for a long time, first as a dedicated "street set", then turned and used for many track weekends.



To prepare for the March 23rd ECR next track event we replaced the Carbotech race brake pads and rotors with fresh units. We went with the aggressive/hard XP20 front compound again (they were out of the new XP22) but stepped up from the XP10 rears to the XP12. Rotors were again Brembo rear rotors and the OEM replacement fronts we have had good luck with. Once we get caught up we will add all of that to our shopping cart - did I mention we were insanely slammed, and have been buried in work for the last 3 months?



Epic Amount of Busy

Vorshlag has been trying to grow to keep up with demand of our products, both the ones we design and build and those of the other companies we partner with. We are now getting through a bit of a backlog of camber plate backorders, due to an unexpected surge of orders and beyond-record-sales, and are now stocking more of the popular S197 Whiteline Watts Links and LCA brackets, both of which are selling very well. We are sold out of AST 4150 coilovers for the S197 chassis at the moment, but they assure us we will see more "soon". Please call or e-mail if you want to know more and thanks for your patience.

The call volume is what is killing us, and we are all working 10-12 hour days trying to keep up (we quit answering the phone at 6 "when we close" but end up working until 9 or 10 trying to answer emails and build orders). It got so bad that I posted an ad for an inside sales person during the middle of writing this post, and have since filled that position. I posted it to the Vorshlag Facebook page for those of you lamenting the timing.

Mobil1 The Grid



Amy was one of several Texas Region SCCA Solo drivers featured in the Mobil1 The Grid episode that aired March 23rd, 2013. You can see the 4:11 clip from the episode during the "Grassroots" portion, that features the autocross event coverage in this link. She did great on camera and was interviewed multiple times the day they shot the video, and ended up in two on-air clips, plus a few scenes of her driving the red Mustang on course. The best part was how she called me her tire warmer, heh. Big thanks to Joanna of Sunset+Vine studios in London for spending so much time with Amy that day, and getting some great video for this clip.




Ironically enough this was from the last SCCA autocross we did in that car, back in Nov 4, 2012 (covered in this Nov 16th project update). At the time when I made this video from my last run that day, where I took the win and 2nd in PAX overall, I had no idea it would likely be our last autocross event with SCCA. Or was it?

continued below

[Fair]

last one...


SCCA - Making Progress in Solo?

There have been some very positive developments in the SCCA Solo world in the past few weeks, specifically the introduction of a radical set of changes for the entry level autocross "Stock" class, now to be called "Street". Gone are the custom remote reservoir double adjustable shocks and pricy Hoosier gumball R compound tires. In their place were added the much needed camber plates/adjustment provision (this pays for itself in tire wear savings, ten fold) and a 2nd optional swaybar provision, up from the previous one. And 200 treadwear tires are to be mandated in these "Street" classes by 2015, like much of the rest of the motorsport world has done to their entry level classes.

Read this for more explanation: http://www.solomatters.com/2013/03/s...sal-explained/

It wasn't like "Stock" was even remotely like factory stock, and with these proposals that have taken some of the big $$$ mods and really lowered the tire budgets in this entry-level category. Now with the BFG Rival, Dunlop Z2 and Bridgestone RE-11A all sporting 200 treadwear - and better wear rates than before - this is a smart, progressive, and necessary part of the category update. These are changes that we here at Vorshlag and other competitive racers have been asking to be implemented for years. We sell the custom shocks that are allowed under the old ruleset and it gets a little crazy - the things we can legally do for Stock class racers. I personally wholeheartedly agree with every Street class provision of these proposed changes to "Stock" classes, and it still baffles me that this is the same group that made the Watts Link change. I just hope enough people write-in to the SEB to support these changes (use this link!) and I hope the same "let's get out of the 1970s rules!" mentality can find its way to Street Prepared and Prepared, both of which categories are badly mired in the past.

These "Stock-to-Street" changes are "out for member review", should likely pass (but don't ask me, as I cannot predict a damned thing) and could become the new entry level class for Solo by 2014, with some final aspects phased in by 2015. Read more here. Again, the irony is that the Solo Events Board (who made the Watts Link change I so vehemently disagreed with) is the group made these radical but much-needed Stock-to-Street class proposals, against the wishes of the Stock Advisory Committee, some members of which are getting shut out for fighting the changes and not getting this much needed update done sooner. So now I find myself agreeing with and even publicly defending the same group of 7 people (SEB) that I felt made a bad call in January.

Their bold move here prompted me to not only renew my SCCA membership, which I had let lapse in disgust, but to also sponsor the ProSolo welcome party next month. The world is a crazy place sometimes - right as I had given up hope on this club they make the boldest proposal in 40 years, completely restructuring an entire category. I just hope they don't lose any steam and quit making these much needed updates to the oldest of classes.

Oh, and please don't clutter up this Mustang build thread with more "Street class" proposal banter - there are lots of forums blowing up with discussion of this set of changes. Just look for any forum that talks about SCCA Solo and you'll find a massive thread where you can chime in. Or if you are a member on the Vorshlag forum, feel free to chime in to this thread. Thanks!


Sharing a Race Car Sucks! (new Daily Drivers Added)

So I dropped the above line in this thread update several times, because it is true. Every time Amy and I have had to share a car for a track weekend it makes for two problems: 1) we don't get as much seat time individually and 2) it is very hard on the car, if we take extra track sessions. This isn't at all like autocrossing, where two drivers often benefit from driving together, and you have only 3-4 minutes of driving per day. We're putting 80+ minutes of track abuse on the car each and every track day. We've also both been complaining about daily driving our two S197 Mustangs, Amy in the 2011 Mustang (which has been getting a bit more radical over the past year) and me in the 2013 GT (which I've been using to commute in as well as pick up/drop off parts with various Vorshlag vendors). I put nearly 2000 miles on my '13 in the past 5 weeks, too, nearly doubling the odometer reading. Both cars were also already pretty stiffly sprung and have only gotten stiffer springs and worse ride characteristics as the on-track competitiveness has ratcheted up.


"new" Daily Drivers for Amy (BMW 740iL) and me (GMC Sierra 1500 "shop truck")

In the past two weeks we have added two more "daily drivers" to our fleet of cars and trucks. We have actually been looking for good examples of the above two vehicles for quite some time, and it was just luck that we happened upon two great deals/examples, mere days apart. Amy is now daily driving in in a silver on black 2001 BMW 740iL, which is a really clean V8 Baviarian cruiser. Now we finally have an actual 4 door vehicle that we real adults can ride in the back seat with - craziness. And since my custom ordered 2013 F-350 diesel dually isn't here, which I don't want to use it for commuting/parts deliveries anyway, and I sold my Dodge diesel tow rig in late January, I picked up this fine example of the GMT800 chassis. This 1999 GMC Sierra 1500 has the short bed, regular cab, 2WD, and a 5.3L V8 under hood. A previous owner even added some ugly 20" wheels and leaking headers, but those will be removed and replaced soon. This truck will be our shop "parts runner" so we can finally pick up pallets of parts again, and I can quit pounding needless miles on my 2013 GT filling the role of a truck, and the tow vehicle dually can just stay a tow vehicle. Both of these recent purchases will be covered in this sub-forum[/URL], with their own build threads, linked to in this paragraph.

So now that have two more functional, comfy daily drivers, what to do with the Mustangs? First thought - Make them faster. Yes, in the last thread update I said I was going to sell the 2013 GT but that was 6 weeks ago! I thought about it and now, I don't think so. The 2013 GT was just so cheap to buy new that I can't make myself get rid of it. And I need something of mine to race, without Amy's squeamish limitations that are imposed on "her" red 2011 GT. My 2001 BMW 330 LS1 race car is still months away from being race ready, and I don't want to "share" her Mustang with her for the bulk of the 2013 season.


Back to a two Mustang team?

Amy suggested, without any prodding or Jedi mind tricks from me, that I "should just race the 2013 GT" myself. So before she realizes how much I'll likely spend modding this one, we're going to quickly prep it for TT3 use, and do ALL the things we wanted to do to this car when we bought it for ESP use: wider wheels, flared fenders, more power, less weight, no back seat, etc. We just won't have as many tortured rules to limit us that we originally had in our ESP build plan. We've already picked up 14" Brembos and have some other cool bits arriving soon as well. This car has remote reservoir coilover monotube doubles (AST 4200RR) installed, and we will put even more suspension goodies on this car than the 2011 GT has. Since NASA TT3 class has two optional Power-to-Weight formulas to choose from (9.5:1 for non-stock aero and 9:1 for OEM aero), we'll go with a lighter set-up on the 2013 GT to see how it stacks up against the 2011 GT's winged/splittered set-up. My hope is to have both cars at the NASA @ NOLA event, May 4-5th. We should have our new truck by then and hopefully the GMC "shop truck" will be more trailer capable by then as well.

Sorry this update got so long, but we have a lot going on, and more coming up. By my next update there will be some bombshells and hopefully progress from the 2013 GT build.

Stay tuned until next time!

[Fair]

Project Update for April 27, 2013: Has been 5 weeks since my last Mustang project thread update already? So I started writing this on April 27th and it took me until May 2nd to finish it and post it on all of the forum threads. I keep saying "We're so busy" here at Vorshlag but looking at the books it appears we had an all time record month in March. Then we broke that record again in April. Wee need about 4 times as much space as we have now, and 'm looking at much bigger commercial properties. So onto the Mustang work - we have been to 3 track events since my last post, a drag race, several new Mustang parts have been installed, and we are loading up the red car for the NASA @ NOLA Motorsports Park race this weekend. I better get to it...

Five Star Ford HPDE at Eagles Canyon Raceway - March 23

Corey White, who has sold us both the 2013 GT and now a custom-ordered 2013 F-350 Dually, is a dealer at a local Ford house. He sells a lot of Roush, SVT and, Boss302, GT500 and regular Mustangs and Raptors to folks all over the country. Since he deals with a lot of Mustang folks he convinced the dealership to support both car shows and track events, like this one on March 23rd. We always try to come out and support his events so Amy entered this one in the red '11 Mustang, with Ed and me along for track support. Since my custom ordered F-350 wasn't built yet I borrowed Ed's Duramax dually and his open trailer, too. We could have driven to the track in the Mustang (well, 2 of us), but with the cold weather and rain in the forecast it is always nice to have a truck nearby to store your extra stuff in. And if (when?) something breaks it is handy to have that trailer there to get you home without a call for a flat bed. We have had incredibly good luck with this Mustang for almost 3 years now but eventually something is going to leave is stranded... (foreshadowing!)

Photo Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...SF-ECR-032313/



You sharp eyed readers will notice the 18x10" D-Force/Vorshlag wheels on the red car; that's because we kind of knew it might be raining, so we mounted that old set of 295/35/18 Nitto NT-05s (which we cannot seem to kill) onto a set of these 5-spokes for the event. It wasn't a timed event and even just on street tires this car is... well, usually pretty quick at these Mustang-centric events. The Nittos still had visible tread if it was wet, and if it was dry and I wanted to try to kill this cursed set of tires. I left the set of rain-friendly Bridgestone RE-11's on the other set of 18x10's at the shop, foolishly...



This event was like many other HPDE's: made up of a curious mix of sports and sport cars including lots of Mustangs - from GTs to Boss302s to GT500s to a couple of old Fox AI cars - modern RX8, several Miatas, an STi, and some exotics - a Mercedes SL, a Ferrari 360, a Ford GT. The track was already wet from an early morning rain shower, and it was 45° and windy (cold for Texas!), so they sent out the Advanced group in these treacherous conditions first to help "dry the track". Just for some slow laps to remove the dampness...



Well it was cold and it was wet and these Nittos excel in either condition. In the first Red session there were cars slipping off track left and right (I think there were six or seven 4-offs) and even Amy (who prides herself in never having had a 4 off at any track - yet) had a quick 360° spin, but stayed on track, braking into the "canyon" after Turn 9. She said it just zipped around in a quick pirouette, was slick as snot out there, and of course she came in for a look. Never left pavement, nobody was even remotely close to her at the time (they were all going as slow or slower than she was), and no damage done - so no harm, no foul, and I sent her back out.



After that 20 minutes of slipping and sliding around it quit spitting rain, but it was still wet and plenty cold. So after a lengthy delay they sent the Novice group out with instructors, going ultra-slow and "testing the waters" as it were. More spins, offs and not a lot of fun.



Then they put in a 2 hour delay, waiting to see if another storm cell was going to hit, and hoping for sunny weather with some track drying winds. Ed and I had a feeling, and smart phones with radar apps, so we quickly loaded up the Mustang when Amy wasn't looking, before the skies opened up again. Just in case. We told her we could quickly unload it if the sun popped out. While we were all warming up in the clubhouse eating food provided by 5-Star Ford, and cooked by Corey himself at the grill, the skies opened up... rain, thunder, then some light hail. Well, that sent the owners of beautiful Mustangs and Ford GTs scrambling to get the more costly machinery under cover of the ECR garages.



The hail made quite a racket on the metal roof of the clubhouse, and while it was not serious enough to cause any damage to delicate sheet metal, it put an end to the day early. The other big storm cell was coming, so they called the event off (it rained for most of the rest of the day) and gave everyone "a mulligan", with free entry to another ECR track event in 2 weeks...


Eagles Canyon Track Experience - April 6th

This HPDE was already scheduled but became the make-up event for everyone that paid for the March 23rd track day. This was another low stress HPDE, put on again by the folks that own the Eagles Canyon Raceway track north of Dallas, with help from some local racers ("The Two Brians") to organize and promote the events. Amy entered and again drove in the Advanced group, but this time I popped in for one of her sessions, too.

We still had full depth brake pads, left over from the previous and much shortened March 23rd event. Since we didn't win any tires at the MSR 3.1 NASA TT event (not enough TT3 entrants on Day 2), we had to save the freshest Hoosier A6s, so we rummaged through the old junk tire pile and found 8 very abused Kumho V710s in my favorite 315/35/18 size. We picked the best 4 and I had Olof mount them "inside out", opposite of how they are marked (not directional but they do have inside and outside marked sidewalls). These tires were long past their prime but had some usable rubber left, if we ran the inside tread mounted out. How bad could it be, right? (hint hint...)



Once again I borrowed Ed's Duarmax diesel crew cab dually, but this time I sprung for a gooseneck hitch (installed by Kurt at Janco Fab, where I store the trailer) in his truck, so it could tow our enclosed race trailer. Ed was all for the idea, as now he can tow my gooseneck trailer with this truck for his own race car, from time to time (like April 28th, when we went drag racing with his car). Having the Mustang stuck on an open trailer in a hail storm two weeks earlier taught us to not skimp on the trailer, even with a borrowed truck - bringing the enclosed trailer brings shelter for the car and people, as well as a LOT more of our tools, gear, spares and food.

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above

Photo Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/ECR-040613/


Left: world famous top fuel drag racer Eddie Hill was racing in an Ariel Atom. Right: Mark Boothe in his Grand Sport C6, a NASA TT1 driver

So this day had a LOT better weather, with cool temps and sunny skies. Perfect "Spring in Texas" weather, without the hail storms. There were a lot more cars at this event, both from from the mulligan entries two weeks earlier as well as a few more entrants that heard about the now more regular "ECR run events", with The Two Brians in charge of running the day.



Amy was quick along with a handful of others in Red group this time, putting in some fast-ish ~2 minute flat laps on these godawful tires. She complained bitterly about the twitchiness of the car, wondering "What new parts are on it now?!" And while we rarely give here the same parts set-up twice (always trying new things!) the issues sounded like they were from the "flipped" Kumhos. Well I needed to see how bad they were, so I stole the keys and one of her track sessions...


My 1:58 lap was a handful with the tires flipped and HORRIFIC traffic

The video above shows a lot of bad habits in the first few laps, both from a "rolling roadblock" driver in front of a train of faster cars, and from some frustrated drivers held up behind him, myself included. This was in the Advanced group now, so supposedly not full of noobs. There was a GTR driver blocking a line of cars 9 deep for 3+ laps. Poor Eddie Hill was stuck behind him the longest, and I got held up in the train behind Eddie's Arial. Problem was neither the Atom nor our Mustang had enough extra power to pull by this modified GTR on the straights, but OMFG we were both held up badly in the corners. Guy was braking 300-500 feet early, coasting through the corners, then blasting out and blocking us on the straights. At this event we were supposed to wait for a point-by to pass, but this guy's arm was apparently broken, and his mirrors were blocked.

So after a lap and a half of of this nonsense I gave up - I only had one session to run the car that day and I really wanted to push for one lap - to try to see how much the tires were affecting the car's performance, if any. Eventually the guy nearly spun off track into Turn 4, where Eddie pointed me by, and into Turn 6 I passed him in his ridiculously early braking procedure. Apparently he had almost the entire Advanced group ready to kill him by day's end, so I wasn't alone. "Time for the Green group, pal"...

As I say many times in the video, the tires felt terrible beyond words. Flipping these Kumho's inside-out made for super twitchy car under braking, and mid-corner the car would swing wildly from under- to oversteer. So yea, don't ever flip a Kumho V710 inside-out! This isn't always the case on asymmetric marked tires, but Kumho MEANT it. Lesson learned - always try to learn something when we are at the track, even if it is a little thing about a certain tire brand's "mounting limitations".



Amy was back in the car for sessions 3 and 4 and having a good time. Her parents and her uncle arrived mid-day and were cheering here on and watching her drive on track. For the 4th session she asked and was allowed to take a passenger, her out-of-town uncle (above), who was all smiles in the right seat. She went out to take some ~8/10ths laps in the final Red session, and somewhere in Turn 2 on her first hot lap something broke...


Click for in-car video of the transmission going "BOOM!"

As you can hear in the video above, Amy knew something broke in the transmission and she even figured out that the other gears still worked and managed to get the car back around to the pits. Once she got back I took it for a quick spin around the paddock and realized that, yep, 3rd gear was GONE. All other gears worked and the transmission functioned silently, just minus one gear. Hmm....

It was the end of the day and we drove it into the trailer for a diagnosis back at Vorshlag. This ECR track day was still a lot of fun, with good cool weather and some quick-ish laps, other than the traffic in my session and the whole "trans go boom" issue.

Some Repair Work + Upgrades

So I'm not going to talk about the transmission repair, other than "the entire 3rd gear was blue" and it failed due to heat, not poor shifting or a bent shift fork, like I had assumed (many others have broken shift forks in these cars). It was fixed within 5 days, and I will leave it at that.

Now how it failed is still unusual. Amy and I are not ham-fisted, speed shifting Neanderthals... we both shift smoothly and quickly, but delicately. Three fingers to pull the shift ball back, a light palm to push upwards in the pattern, ala: the Bob Bonderaunt school/book/instruction. She and I both noted a little "snick" from the 2-3 upshift in a few early laps that day, but that was the only pre-failure warning; this and the wonky inside-out tire twitchiness were the only out of the ordinary things with the car at ECR that day. The trans fluid was at the proper level and is checked regularly, and is synthetic.

Again, we were told it was heat that fatigued the gear, and 3rd gear was a different shade than all of the rest - which were inspected and given a clean bill of health (Ford is awesome, by the way). We took 4 sessions in the car that day (and only completed 3 of them) and the ambient temps barely got to 70°F, but we think the damage was cumulative and from previous heavy heat days. We have used Redline synthetic fluids in this Getrag MT-82 from day one and it amassed 17,000 miles before 3rd let go. We had the OEM shifter and few issues shifting, unless the transmission was loaded up under power, when the body-mounted shifter was easy to mis-align with the transmission. No, we don't have pictures of the old parts, and I didn't see them. I won't and can't speak further on the transmission repair.


Red Mustang in for a check-up after TWS. Note the impact (tire klag? rock?) that the LF fog light grill took

Sure, we have put a lot of track and autocross miles on this car in the past 3 years and some sort of driveline failure was bound to happen, I guess. We still have a 100% stock engine, cooling system, and clutch. The rear axle has had heat issues already (melted axle seals, burned up stock differentials) as have the brakes (we've quit replacing the caliper dust shields, which I can melt and/or catch on fire in one session... sometimes in one lap). The Tremec TR-6060 has provisions for an internal pump and external cooler, which the World Challenge and other endurance racers utilize, and this is something we are exploring for the Getrag, to prevent this from happening again. We will have to use an external pump, though.

Joe D from Tremec is also working with us to get a Tremec T56 Magnum 6-spd swap kit together for 5.0L S197 Mustangs, which a lot of people would like to see. There have been a few swaps but this will be a more comprehensive swap, with a driveshaft, clutch/pp, and proper shifter. The TR-6060 is a body-mounted shifter but the T56 Magnum is a direct mounted shifter, so driveline-to-body movements won't cause a mis-alignment. We are doing the T56 swap on his 2013 Boss302 Leguna Seca very soon - I will show the swap in this thread once it is complete, of course.

continued below

[Fair]

continued from above


Other things we noticed and worked on included the brakes. After this entire day of racing the new Carbotech XP22 pads looked brand new. Normally we can see a sizable amount of wear in one day of racing, and neither Amy nor I are "easy on brakes", but they still looked very good. And even after the next TWS event (which I'll talk about next) they still showed very little wear. Finally - a brake pad we cannot kill in 2 days! This 3800 pound car (ballasted up for TT3, w/ driver) normally chews through pads at a rapid clip, so this is good news.



So if you've read this thread from the beginning you know we've tried a number of rear Upper Control Arms (UCA) on the 2011 GT here and the last iteration (Spohn arm, UPS upper mount, with custom Vorshlag bushings and new, larger mounting bolt) worked out pretty well, but still had some noticeable clunking. When a friend PM'd me about a Boss 302-S UCA set-up for sale on a Boss302 forum, new in box, I jumped on it.



This set-up is made by MultiMatic out of Canada and costs over $700 USD. It is based on OEM upper mount and UCA assembly, strangely enough, but it is heavily modified. Gone is the rubber mount in the UCA itself, as it looks like the lop off the rubber bushing end and weld their custom machined spherical bearing holder end in place. The also reinforce the factory upper chassis mount and machine their own bushings to actually fit their own spherical and the bolt - wow, what a concept, right?! That's what we did with the Spohn arm and UPR mount piece, neither of which fit each other or the factory bolt. This is a very nicely made set-up and we put this in the car before the TWS event. We don't sell this set-up, and there's of course a few little things we'd change, but overall it is a great unit... for a race car. Most folks will see the $700 price tag and laugh. But if you saw the parts in person, felt the fit between the components compared to most of the stuff out there... you'd likely understand. Very, very nice parts.



Another nice set of parts made by another company is the Maximum Motorsports 4-point roll bar we ordered and received for the red car. Wow, this is a nicely made piece of kit! Sure, it is 1.75 x .134" wall DOM and not the normal .120" wall tubing you see in most road racing cages, but it is stout and put together with very fine tolerances. The MIG welding is great and the Laser cut, CNC bent, and welded lower platforms are amazingly well done. Just click on the images below, and look at the factory stamped steel bits they replace.



Ryan spent about 5 hours fitting, installing, and tack welding the bar in the car before it came out for final welding. The rear bars are shipped loose, with stubs welded in place for final fitting. This way the entire unit ships flat for big cost savings, and it likely makes for a much better, custom fit to the car this way. I think he said he had it in and out of the car 4 or 5 times but that is normal - patience is your friend, as you don't want to rush a roll bar or roll cage install if you want it to fit well and base safe, or scratch up interior bits. They include great instructions and a "fit-up bar" made of PVC for marking the side panels that have to be trimmed and a hole cut, to fit around the rear downbars.



Due to time conflicts with other customer work and an upcoming race we left the bar in raw steel and hooked up the harnesses and reinstalled the Cobra seats for the TWS event at NASA. This bar mounts right onto the back seat "shelf" so it is behind your head, for 100% safe use in street driving. Having steel tubing near your head (roll cage or a closely mounted B-pillar main hoop) is just asking for major head trauma in a street crash, sans racing helmet. But in the two pictures above (taken in the past 48 hours) you can see that we have since removed the bar, powder coated all 5 pieces (bar + 4 mounting plates) and weighed it all at 63 pounds (which is almost exactly what I predicted it would weigh, and nearly identical to the Kirk Racing 4-point bars we've installed in BMW E30. E36 and E46 cars). The gloss black powder coated roll bar is going back into the car as I write this, with the back seat, rear interior panels, and the Cobra seats are going back in.

Speaking of Cobra seats...


Vorshlag now Authorized Cobra Stocking Dealer

We bit the bullet and made a big WD buy-in for Cobra seats. We have needed to become a dealer for this brand for years, as we have used their seats in too many of our own builds, not to mention installed customers' Cobra seats. That buy-in also gave us access to Puma, Aplinestars, OMP, Sparco, Momo, Schroth, Bell, Arai, Peltor, and much more. We're still sorting through this big shipment of Cobra Suzuka, Sebring, Evolution, and Imola seats and do have plenty of inventory.


Installation of Cobra Suzuka Pro GT Kevlar seats, custom sliders, Schroth harnesses, and Sharkworks harness bars into a C6 ZR1 at Vorshlag

Ryan is going to build some display stands for a few models of Cobra seats that we want to keep on hand, so pretty soon you will be able to stop by and test out various Cobra models in the Vorshlag lobby. We already have two different Cobra Suzuka sizes in the 2011 Mustang GT, which stays up at the shop now almost all of the time, too. Two more will go into the BMW E46 Alpha car, also kept here at Vorshlag. And we are making better chassis bracket solutions for several cars as well, and hopefully can make produciton runs of these soon. I have yet to see an Off The Shelf bracket solution that fits a given car without putting the seat into the roof. Look for more info about these various seating products on our website soon.


SCCA ProSolo at Mineral Wells, TX - April 13-14th

Now we didn't enter this event (the car was still being repaired, and it isn't legal for pretty much any SCCA Solo class), but Vorshlag sponsored the welcome party on Friday. We bought and cooked food for 150+ people, with Amy and me at the grill for about 3 hours. Glad we were there, as we got to talk to a lot of friends, fellow racers, and even chatted up some SEB members. Some encouraging hints at the changes to Stock/Street class for 2014-15 and beyond. Can't wait for the next FasTrack to be published...

continued below