2015 SCCA Solo Nationals

2015 Solo Nationals update time!  As you all already know, the 2015 Solo Nationals has come and sadly has gone.  For those that have never been, you really need to go to understand what it is about and I hope to see you in 2016!  Nationals is one of the times in the year that I get to see my friends that I only see once, maybe twice, a year.  It is like one giant party on the great concrete beach.  You don't go to Nationals JUST to compete... you go because it is a damn good time.

Anyway, enough harping on “good time this and that!” On to the meat and potatoes!  My 2015 Solo Nationals started on Sunday when I showed up on site to get the stickers I'd need to pass tech on Monday.  This car was “virgin” so it needed them all.  The TireRack banner, SCCA wheel, Nationals sticker, Bridgestone stickers, and the Grassroots Motorsports stickers were all applied.  The only other sticker on the car is the in-transits! :)

Monday morning I woke up and drove back to Lincoln.  There is no running on Monday, just tech, check in, and the Test'n'Tune course.  After checking in, I drove to tech and got the car teched.  I don't know who was working tech but one of the guys made comment about the car still having in-transits on it.  The tone of his voice was pretty condescending and judgmental but I figure if shit isn't broken in by the time I got to the first event at 250 miles, they WONT be broken in, ever, they'll just be broken.  At this point the car had just over 1,000 miles on the odometer.

I went up to the T'n'T course to see if Mark Walker needed any help up there or doing anything else.  If you've ever spoken with Walker at Nationals, you'd know that he has a laundry list of things that need to get done that adds stress.  I also knew that the T'n'T was packed full for all the run times so I thought maybe I could bribe work for T'n'T runs! :)  Turns out there was help needed which I gladly gave.  I spent the next 4 hours shagging cones on the T'n'T course in the rain and shine while folks ran!  At lunch time, the Rebels Auto Club out of Lincoln was looking for people to give rides to some of their members after the T'n'T shut down for the night.  I was asked and gladly accepted the offer as it would provide me with some much needed seat time with the recent changes to the alignment of the car.

So the only things that I changed going into this event was the alignment, and tire pressures.  The alignment change was discussed in a previous post but the front struts were slotted the 2mm allowance which produced -1.9º of camber on one side, -1.7º on the other side.  The rear suspension was set to -2.2º of camber.  Toe was zeroed out all around.  The rear alignment drew A LOT of criticism and comments about the car not needing it and it making the car handling worse because of it.  I set tire pressures at 38 all around.

Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate.  By the end of the T'n'T run times all the Rebels club wanted to do is go home.  No one wanted runs and the Lincoln Air Park's concrete patching crew was hell bent on fixing some of the damaged concrete on the T'n'T course.  That's all good!  I can use the exercise and don't mind helping out.

F-Street was slotted to run on Tuesday/Wednesday starting on the East Course and finishing on the West Course.  The weather was predicted to be raining earlier in the morning but it was supposed to stop before we ran.

The East Course

[URL="http://cdn.growassets.net/user_files/scca/downloads/000/009/280/2015_Solo_Nationals_East_(plane)_Course.pdf?1441382867"]Click for East Course Map[/URL]

Well... the weather in Nebraska is rarely accurate... and.... well it was accurate.  The rain had began at o-dark thirty in the morning and stopped just prior to my departure for the site at 0600hrs.  I arrived on site and promptly began cleaning the water spots off the car.  Rule #1 you know... if you can't beat them, at least look better than them! :)  I then went and walked the course.  You see, on Monday I walked the west course three times thinking it was the east course.  Thankfully the east course was not overly complex.  There were a few places where line choice was critical to doing well but it wasn't like the course was a mess of transitions where you could get lost on course easy.  While the rain had basically stopped, the sun was not fully up and the pavement was no where near dry.  By the time runs started the course was STILL wet.

As you can see, lots of sweepers, lots of power and some pretty healthy digs.  Transitions were not as complex.  This course would be a course for the Mustangs... except... that... the course was wet.  The moisture would complicate things drastically and the fact that it wasn't raining still meant the conditions would be changing throughout the runs.  The whole event was going to be determined by the final runs as the course dried out.

Boy would that hold true...

Run #1:

There is always a level of caution on the first run and then there is added caution from it being wet.  I literally have no seat time in the wet with this car so this would be a first for me.  I also had no seat time with the recent changes so that too would complicate things some.  The gas pedal was next to useless at anything resembling WOT.  Had the course been dry I KNOW I would have been in third in multiple places on the course but because it was wet there was some speed changes as I felt the car's grip out.  Front end traction was fine, transitions were tolerable but rear end traction was non-existent.  I'd come in with a 65.112.  This run would put me just outside the trophies (about 15th place IIRC) after everyone was done with their runs.

Run #2:

I bled down the rear tire pressure 2 PSI in an attempt to bring the rear end under control.  The car felt balanced and could carry speed in the sweepers but power down was still an issue.  The course dried out a little bit but was still properly wet.  Conditions were changing and people were getting faster.  On course the rear end calmed down but it was still very loose.  Throttle application was touch and go depending on the location on course and the finish was still a very sloppy and wet mess.  After I came in on this run I was supposedly in fourth place.  With the drying conditions I knew it wouldn't last but it felt good to know that I was at least in the hunt.  Time was a 63.293.

Run #3:

I bled the rear pressures down another 4 PSI (to 32 PSI) in an attempt to utilize what power I had.  The front end of the car was still really hooked up but on the previous run the power down was actually pretty solid.  Better than I remember it being at the first event.  The rear alignment didn't seem to really make the car push bad and I knew there was plenty of time on course for me to find.  The run initially felt good.  A combination of the dryer conditions (driest of all three runs) and pressure changes made the car feel good.  I could use the power and it seemed to rotate fine off power.  The problem came after the first big turn around.  I'm not sure if the rear tires just got more grip or the fronts lost theirs but the car started to push, badly, mid corner.  I ended up clipping two cones on this run and my raw time without the cones actually slowed down.  How annoying!  This dropped me from 18th place (where I was prior to 3rd runs) down to 29th.  Time was a 67.608 with the two cones (63.608 scratch).

Day 1 ended kind of bitter sweet.  I knew that in the dry I could hold my own as that is where all the seat time I had in the car was and where I knew the car would actually be able to utilize the power it had.  The problem is the Day 2 course was transition heavy and not exactly booming with power spots.  Lots of speed maintenance and transitions... I was HOPING for a better Day 1 finish to go into Day 2 in better positioning but reality didn't work out.  Turns out I wasn't the only one having troubles.  Eschantra and his co-driver in the #24/#124 car were not having the best day either.  Truthfully it turned out very few of my friends were having good day 1's!

The weather definitely helped the lower powered cars out.  The M3's benefited the most and Heitkotter put on a good school for the rest of us.  Knowing the west course would favor the M3's more than any other car in the class, I anticipated a large number of M3's in the trophies.  That wouldn't be wrong.

The West Course

[URL="http://cdn.growassets.net/user_files/scca/downloads/000/009/282/2015_Solo_Nationals_West_(Corn)_Course.pdf?1441382870"]Click for West Course Map[/URL]

The west course was a transition heavy course that was just flat out busy from inside the car.  So busy that I think if we run it locally, I may encourage the event master to pull some of the cones out to open it up slightly.  It was an incredibly fun course even though it was busy and mildly frustrating. There was really one corner that I felt was the most important.  That'd be the Teddie's Ring of Hell Fire into the finish.  Why?  If you didn't get the offsets at “Pants'd in the Hallway” right you were behind for the entire rest of the course.  I worked corner 4 and watched so many people get Pants'd wrong and end up over slowing to make it through the 414-424 cone complex and then ending up trying to make the time up at the exit and not making it into the “Wet Willy” correctly.

Going into the West Course I knew that in the dry, which the weather folk said it would be, the car was going to need some help with rotation.  I set the front tire pressures at 34 PSI and the rears at 38 PSI.  This is because the rear swaybar wasn't here from BMR yet and neither was the front bar.  I did try and modify the rear bar over the course of the night between Day 1 and Day 2 but ran out of drill battery to do so and only got one side done.  I opted to leave the front swaybar alone rather than running that staggered setup.

Run #1

The car felt surprisingly good on Run #1.  If anything, maybe a touch of high speed push but nothing that wasn't manageable with driving changes.  The car was putting down power exceptionally well but the lack of damping in the stock PP shocks and struts made this a difficult course to drive fast.  Simply put, the stock dampers are not up to the task on a transition heavy course like this.  The weight just takes too long to transfer from side to side to really attack the transitions.  It doesn't help that I'm always a tad timid with the go and woah pedal on the first run and I forgot to really backside all the cones on course.  This is most evident in corner four where I over slowed for the 414-424 cone section because I didn't backside the cone enough.  This run was a 69.518 which was slower than it should have been by about three seconds.  Only consolation prize on this was that I did run a faster time than Heitkotter did on his first run (he ran a 74.051, I think he spun or something).

Run #2

For tire pressures I kept them at where they were for the first run.  Solid choice and it worked well enough the first time and this time both.  The high speed push through the Ring of Hell Fire slowed the car down some but the car was otherwise balanced in steady state.  Given the rear alignment change I really thought the car would be more pushy.  One thing the car WAS doing well was putting down power.  When the car stepped out it was silly how controllable it was compared to my 2009.  There were a couple of “unexpected” cones where I damn near ran over them but saw them just in time to avoid them and I cleaned up the 414-424 cone section some and found time.  This dropped my time down to a 67.770 and put me in 28th overall.

Run #3

I dropped the front tire pressure down 2 psi and took my run.  Car felt great through the opening part but I clipped a cone in the opening transitions.  By the time I had gotten through corner 3 I was getting flagged down by a corner worker.  I stopped on course as instructed and would be given a re-run.  The driver in front of me took out some cones and I think spun.  I hustled back to the grid and the clock began.  For those who aren't familiar with Nationals, re-runs are given at EXACTLY 5 minutes after returning to your spot.  They don't care where they are in the run order, if you are getting a re-run, a guy is standing at the hood of your car with a stop watch giving you each minute and then telling you to go.  When it was my turn to get my re-run I went out there with the intent to find time and to clean up the run.  My free look at the course's opening section told me that there was PLENTY of time to be found and had in the opening transitions.  I decided to get aggressive with them and really attack all the transitions.  I lost some time in the first transition as the back of the car stepped out slightly but it worked out in the end.  I found some time out there and improved on my final run and kept it clean.  With a 67.584, I solidified my 28th position out of 46 drivers in attendance.

And that run concluded my Nationals runs.  At the end of day 2 I knew exactly where I stood.  I knew that my runs were solid midpack runs but a rainy and bad third run on day one really brought the final placement down from where it should have been.  I am not at all disappointed with the car's performance or my own driving and think that 28th isn't a bad place to be given how little seat time in the car I have and how far from prepped it is.  There were some big names that finished behind me and some not far ahead of me and that feels good.

So at the end of it all I've learned more about myself and my car and had a good time.  I know the pace is there even with my hack driving to be a solid mid pack finisher.  I identified one key area where I need to improve (back siding cones) and a few other more minor areas to improve (throttle application and braking points).  I know that the car is in dire need of a new set of dampers and a swaybar (no surprises there!) among the need for more wet run seat time.  By this time next year I am going to get myself deep into those trophies in a prepped car!

Speaking of:  Tom Reynolds (third place 2015 GT/PP) was kind enough to put his video on the Tube of You's so I pulled it down and made a side by side comparing our fastest runs on the West course.  You can see I lose a lot of time right after the second turn on the course in the fast transitions.  Every transition after that seems to lose a few tenths in all the major elements.  Scary thought how fast time disappears when you don't backside cones or aren't aggressive enough with the throttle or brakes!

So what next?  Well, next is getting the car prepped as best I can for Spring Nats next year!  Swaybars are already on the way and I need to test both the front and rear bars and figure out which one it really needs.  Pictures say rear as the inside front is damn near off the ground at corner exit on the power but more than a few people whom I trust with car setup advice are saying front bar is still the way to go.  I plan on testing both to see which I like more.  I know why both will work and I'm not afraid to test them since both bars are on the way anyway.

Dampers are a big question mark right now.  There are no available front struts that I'd trust or that don't require extensive modification and Koni has listed the new Mustang as a priority.  I'm sure that means sometime in the near future, but we'll see.  I also need to figure out the front alignment issue and see if there is anything else I can do to get more negative camber within the rules.  There is probably a burr holding the bolt up from it's full sweep in the strut ear.

Outside of that, I don't think the alignment needs tweaked any further.  The rear camber could probably use a little more negative camber in a world where both bars were open but for now I think we'll leave it as is.

Anyway, thanks for reading!  I hope you to see some of you next year at Spring Nationals and Nationals.  We have one more event for this year on the 20th of September so expect at least one more event after action report this year before winter sets in!

2015 Mustang GT/PP, F-Street, and August 22nd and August 23rd Autocross Points Event

Time to open up a new chapter in Cone 502 Racing's book.  As some of you know, the 2015 Mustang GT arrived on the 18th of August and this last weekend (22nd and 23rd) there was a pre-nationals Test'n'Tune and the Solo Points 6 event.  The car was by no means "prepped" but it was necessary to get the seat time in the car even.  The pre-event scramble to get things done for the car began on Wednesday.  I contacted the folks I trust to mount and balance tires and attempted to get my RE71R's off the SVE Drifts they were on and have them mounted to the stock wheels.  That didn't work out.  I didn't do the camber mod in time because of work and there were no parts for the 2015 waiting to be installed.  BMR's swaybars were not expected until after Nationals so no use worrying about that! :)

The Test'n'Tune
The T'n'T course was pretty basic.  Some sweepers, some slaloms, some eyebrows, pretty basic course but plenty of necessary practice on elements I need work on.  The first run showed exactly what I figured the car was going to do.  It pushed.  With tire pressures at 32 psi all around this was going to be an inevitability but I opted to leave the pressures the same for the next run for a number of reasons.  The biggest of which was the previous run was THE FIRST run on those tires.  The only miles on the tires were the 2 days prior to the event I drove them on the street and the drive to the event the morning of.  The first run also exposed just how short the second gear on these cars really is.  It's short.... like shift to third in some places... short.  There were two places on this T'n'T course where 3rd was not only faster but a necessity.  The shift back down to second was was relatively easy.

The second run on the Test'n'Tune course was much like the same... until the end.  The very end was an increasing radius sweeper that mandated a shift to third.  Well I shifted to third... the back end stepped out and I carried the drift through the timing lights, past the finish cones and then promptly spun the car, not once, but twice around.  No harm, no foul, car didn't even stall!

The rest of the test'n'tune involved bleeding front tire pressure down to 30 PSI and letting the rears climb to wherever they went.  The car's handling balance still involved a push but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.  I would end up running about 20 runs in the car to get used to it and it's quirks.  Note, still no front camber... front tires would show their hate for this type of driving by the end of the day.

Here is a list of observations about the chassis:
1.) Overall, car balance is a hair to the pushy side in tight stuff and in faster stuff.
2.) Cars with real power are not forgiving of abusive relationships with the throttle pedal.
3.) Brake pedal works, although the initial bite is large, the middle of the pedal is kind of soft which makes modulation easy.
4.) Dat body roll.... it exists, but is overall quite controllable.
5.) Corner-to-Corner porpoising sucks and the GT/PP needs better dampers. Overall though, compared to the 2009 stock... no comparison, the 2015 is flat out better.
6.) When people say the car "drives" narrower than it is, they would be speaking the truth!
7.) Track Apps is a lot of fun to play with. Max lateral G today was 1.16, max braking was 1.01, max acceleration was .76
8.) The car could use an aftermarket rear swaybar...  BMR bars incoming with a slight possibility of showing up before Nationals.
9.) Grip + Speed + Shifting = Need for Harness... harnesses ordered already!
10.) Overall speed: This car is fast and runs good times!

Solo Points #6
The event was held on a more complex course than the Test'n'Tune and looked to be very fast.  Lots of VERY fast transitions mixed with some tighter turns.  I really felt like the course was an absolute riot to drive.  The high speed stuff did exacerbate some of the pushyness of the car but overall I didn't think there was a huge issue with the way the car handled in relation to the course design when driving the correct line.  Like I said above, the car's brakes work and a brief brush of the brake pedal allowed the car to really take a bite into the corner.  Transitionally, the car is slow to transition.  While the stock shocks are tolerable, I miss the quick transitions of my 2009 on coilovers.

My first run actually came in with some ridiculously high time.  This was due to a timing error from cars finishing too close together.  A re-run was granted and I took every bit of an advantage from that.  A free look at the course never hurt anyone!

Anyway, run #1, I left the car's tire pressure where they were at from the previous day which was probably a touch low.  That's ok.  The tires were starting to wear in and feel better.  First run of the course was mildly timid.  I had no idea where the shift points would be, if there were going to be any.  In the first run I didn't find the rev limiter so no issues there.  That said, it wasn't as fast as it could have or should have been.  The first run was a 53.921 which was .3 slower than the other 2015 Mustang GT/PP on site but still good enough to be in 3rd or 4th of ten.

Run #2 set forth little in the way of changes to anything but driving.  The run found .15 seconds to drop the time to 53.750 but the other competition was improving faster than I was.  By this time the tires were hot, like properly hot.

Run #3, I bled the air pressure down to where they were for the test'n'tune.  This course was open enough that those tire pressures were working.  Still pushy, but not so bad that it couldn't be driven around.  The fronts were most certainly hotter than the rears which is not a surprise given the car's balance.  I knew that changes in tire pressure were not going to be a permanent fix to this problem as it was a far larger handling adjustment needed than tire pressures could allow.  Of course, lazyness doesn't help either and I was that! :)  This run dropped some time and ended with a 53.417.  I was not getting fast enough to take over first place but I was dicing around the first 3 slots in F-Street up to this point.  The other 2015 GT was running just a few tenths faster in the 53.3XX range and I new I needed to beat that.

Run #4 was more of the same from the previous run.  I new there were places out there to make up time out there so I went out there and tried my damndest to find it.  It didn't pay off as I lost time through some rather big mistakes.  Go figure right?  Get a little bit of red mist going and that's all she wrote!  Final time was a 53.652.

Run #5 started off with the news that the other 2015 GT/PP had dropped time down into the 52's with a 52.906 run.  I was hell bent on finding the 52 that I knew was out there.  Big driving line mistakes in the previous run showed a few places to really push harder as I was underdriving.  The left hand sweeper going into the back offset slaloms was one area and the quick "kink" after the long right hander before the finish as I was slowing down too much.  This was an area at Spring Nationals at the T'n'T course where I found some good time.  It paid off, at least partially.  Aggressiveness where due really shaved some time off.  I think that had I had one more run on the course I would have dropped a little more time.  The final run came in at a 52.904.  That is .002 faster than the GT/PP in the lead at the time of my run.

So that was good enough for the win right?  I sure thought so!  Then I found out that our local Shelby GT driver and frequent attendee of Nationals ran a smoking 52 flat time.  Well that just sucks the wind right out of the sails doesn't it!  Still, second place in an under prepped car against prepped competitors wasn't a bad place to be.  I finished 14th overall, which given the talent pool of the rest of the people wasn't too bad either.

You can view the full results here:
http://nrscca.com/files/results/1150413754SoloPoints6Results.pdf

And the PAX results here:
http://nrscca.com/files/results/1717828943SoloPoints6PAXResults.pdf

So what happens now?  Last night I did the F-Street legal slotting of the stock struts.  I also pulled the lateral link of the front lower control arm out and pushed the strut tops in to take out any tolerances there.  Preliminary measurements indicate that this gave me approximately -2.3º of camber.  Yesterday I also had the wheels and tires swapped over so I'm F-S legal for Nationals.  An official alignment is coming on Monday to give real numbers.  I think I'll tweak the rear camber out a half degree and even it out side to side.  Zero out the toe.  If the BMR bars show up, I'll throw the rear bar on and we'll go from there.

Scrothe Rallye 3, DOT approved 4 point Harnesses are also on the way from Solo Performance Shop and will be here before Nationals too!

Stay tuned for that update after labor day!  Thanks for reading and watching!

2015 Spring Nationals - #23 STU

I've been putting off this update out of sheer leazyness.  I'm actually behind two events.  I'll just summarize the event we are missing:  It rained after the first runs, I placed second to a car that was modified outside STU limits (more boost, aftermarket intercooler, etc) and the car is a handful in the rain with the constant understeer at entry, oversteer at exit.  Turns out that it was going to be good practice for Spring Nationals as the weather threatened rain all weekend.

Ohh yeah, we had a second Test'n'Tune event as the Starting Line school wanted the pad for their school.  I got a bunch of runs in in varying conditions ranging from wet, to drying, to completely dry.  During this I made the swaybar change and put the front bar at the middle setting.  During the pre-Spring Nats nut and bolt I found out that the passenger side was in the middle and the driver side was in the stiffest setting.  Apparently I wasn't paying attention on the one side!  This was fixed before Spring Nationals.

Spring Nationals:
The Thursday of Spring Nationals, I drove out to the event in an attempt to get the car teched and to see Eric and Jojo.  The test'n'tune course was up and running and Eric and Jojo both wanted to drive the car.  Well I got distracted at the T'n'T course and didn't get the car teched.  That's fine.  A small tweak to the car's shock settings made Eric and Jojo happy enough with the car setup to give it the "doesn't suck at handling" thumbs up but there was one glaring issue with the car that they felt was really holding it back and another potential source of lost time.  In fact, their 2013 Gotta Have it Green Track pack GT was running faster raw times than my car at the test'n'tune course by about a second on a 30 second course... IE: an eternity.  Now if you question my driving ability, that's fine, but Jojo would end up taking second and Eric third during the tour.  Jojo placed first at the Pro-Solo in F-Street as well.  Suffice to say, they can drive and they do it very well!  Ohh yeah, that one issue:  Power.  My 3V in it's current form makes somewhere around 290 RWHP and 300 RWTRQ with just the CAI and tune.  It would max out in STU trim somewhere near 305/320.  Other cars in the class are making similar to more power and hustling around a lot less weight or were AWD.  They were surprised at how much grip the car had and how well it handled the course.  Like I said the only real changes to the car done at the T'n'T were rear shock rebound changes.  Both thought the 5.0L was the better car to have for STU after driving my car.

It was quite hilarious to ride with Jojo in my car and see him shift to third.  I scolded him for doing so and informed him of the 74 mph 2nd gear top speed and the fact that the car was missing a forward gear compared to his 2013.  After that he ran a run that was about a second and change off pace of his own car.  He did remind me that his track pack car needs to shift to third on the T'n'T course as the back opening radius sweeper really tops out their car because of the short gearing.  When I drove their car there were a couple of things that really made the car different.  First:  The coyote is such a sweetheart of a motor.  It isn't a brute and that really improves driving in autocross as the torque and power builds linearly.  Second:  The Brembo brakes have a lot more initial bite and a lot more woah down on those rotors than my puny 12.4" front rotors and 2 pot sliders do.  Part of this is pad compound (Carbotech 1521 vs Hawk HP+) but the additional rotor diameter certainly doesn't hurt.  Third:  Dem Bridgestones are something else.  Like an RS3 in feel (not as precise as other street tires) but with more grip and a lot quieter.  They don't talk as much to you but you can feel when they let go of grip so it is a pretty moot point.  They are definitely faster than the RS3 is at Lincoln.

Anyway, on to Spring Nats Day 1:
The day started off with rain.  STU ran in heat four so I wasn't worried about it as the rain was supposed to end pretty early on.  In fact it ended early enough that the course was basically completely dry by the time STU ran.  The Day 1 course was the west course from the 2014 Solo Nationals, run in reverse and a tweak to the finish.  STU was an 8 driver, 6 car class that composed of the usuals (STi's and Evo's) a 350Z and myself.

Run #1:
One of the things I've learned through the two events on these RS3's is that the first run always starts off... well... interesting.  They don't have the cold grip that one really expects in a good autocross tire.  That first 2-3 corners are almost always a handful until the tire really warms up.  Once it is warm it has good grip and tolerates some over driving.  Run #1 would come in with a 64.715 after a cone (so 62.715).  After coming in from the run the tires were scalding hot.  I unleashed a torrent of water on them to cool them down some before the next run as I found they don't tolerate the heat like the RS3V1 did.  Tire pressures were at 32F/30R and the car felt fine after the tires came up to temp.  Turned in well and was easy to keep on line.  In general, very easy to drive.  As the times came in for the competitors, it was evident the car was off pace.  Mark Hill came in with a smoking 58.494 and Robert Pendergest came in with a 57.942.  That's a lot of time out on course to try and find!

Run #2:
This run felt really good to me and the time confirmed my suspicions.  I came in at a rather smoking hot 17 seconds.  The announcer made some comment about there being a timing glitch and that I'd get a re-run.  I told the guy handing out the time slips that it was BS that they weren't going to count my STU winning run and make me take a re-run and he thought it was funny.  I didn't!  I'm convinced that there is some form of conspiracy that is keeping the Mustang down in STU.  It isn't my fault the car can warp space time and finish a run in 17 seconds!  Sheesh!  The re-run felt pretty decent.  Not as fast as the 17 second run but it came in with a more believable time of 62.539.  An improvement but not much of one.

17 second run:

The re-run:

Run #3:
As with every run my goal is to improve on times and learn about the car's handling and tweak as necessary.  Without any other changes being made to the overall balance of the car this run also felt pretty good.  The car transitioned well and put down power well.  It was up to the nut behind the wheel to really show what the car could do.  I was determined to get out of my last place and into 7th but it was not meant to be.  The run was faster at 62.276 but it wasn't fast enough to move into 7th place.  I would go into day 2 a half second out of 7th.

So the finish of day one put me about a half second behind the 7th place person.  Not a great place to be (considering I was hoping to be closer to the middle) but I could still achieve my goal of not being DFL with a solid drive.  The day 2 course had a lot of elements that benefited my car through both balance and power but it was up to me to really drive the car and accomplish that.  The course was designed by Nebraska Region member and CSP National Champion John Hunter and proved to be a fun and interesting course with some challenging lines and places where a set of cojones went a long way to carrying speed.

Car setup wise, nothing changed between the days.  I stabilized the pressures back at 32/30 and that was about it.  The shock settings determined at the test'n'tune course and recommended by Eric and Jojo were left in place as it worked extremely well on the previous day's course.

The day did start out with rain as seems to be the norm but the course had completely dried by the time I had gotten to run in heat 4.  This certainly kept my spirits higher than they otherwise would have been as rain, STU, and RWD don't mix for good times.

Run #1:
I went out on Run #1 and did my best to lay in a good clean run given the cold tires and relatively fresh surface and the new course.  I had walked the course 3-4 times so I knew it well in my head and new where the interesting areas were at.  This run felt good except for the extremely cold tires caused for some interesting understeer and oversteer conditions that weren't entirely unexpected.  The showcase turn had a bit of throttle induced oversteer that I carried pretty far through the turn.  It wasn't a lot of oversteer, but enough that countersteer was necessary to keep the car from swapping ends on course.  This run came in at 63.371 and would place me in first in STU for the second time during Spring Nationals (the first time being the first run on day #1 :P)  Of course this promptly was smashed as the faster drivers came in.  The fast guys were only 3.5ish seconds a head of me.

Run #2:
After spraying the tires I went out and attempted to get faster.  I drove the start differently (shifted after the turn rather than before it) and got a little more aggressive in the places where I could be.  That did NOT pay off as I ended up coning the run.  Unfortunately the run was also a slower scratch time anyway and came in with the 65.725.  That is rather unfortunate but one run to go!

Run #3:
After hating the run #2 performance I went out and cleaned things up as best I could.  I attempted to go faster in places, slower in others and by the time I got to back slalom things had changed for the worse.  The rear tires got hot and greasy (even after spraying) and the higher rear rebound lead to getting way too tail happy and this unsettled the car way too much.  The run slowed down.  I personally don't know how it slowed it down that much but shit happens and it did.  This run was a 65.161 which was two seconds slower than my previous two runs.  I'm not sure how I went two seconds slower as I wasn't that conservative in the driving and the mistake wasn't that big I didn't think... I dunno.  I was sorely disappointed with my driving.

The unfortunate part is that my driving put me a hair shy of one second behind the 7th place person after two days.  This disappointing drive put me in a pretty sour mood and to be honest I was ready to be done autocrossing for a long... long... time.  But after really thinking about it, it didn't make any sense to just give up on this hobby all together.  There was a long build up to get this far and the car handles really well but I think the deficiencies in power and grip really conspired to make this car a non-starter for STU.  There was nothing about Eric's Coyote that led me to believe it was too much motor as I had previously believed.

After thinking about where the car could go and how much money it would cost to do so, I determined that another path was necessary.  So there is now a new direction.  The 2009 is going away.  There is simply no way the 3V has enough power in ESP trim to take on a coyote with the same mods in an otherwise identical chassis.  I think the absence of properly built S197's with Coyotes has exacerbated the thought that the 3V has a chance.  IE:  THere haven't been enough builds that really maximized the available tire width from the Hoosier lineup to show the true speed of a Coyote S197.  The weight difference is so minute in ESP trim that it wouldn't be enough of an advantage.  Unless there is something else I'm missing it doesn't make sense.

CAM, well... CAM is a bottomless pit of money and frankly that doesn't appeal to me at all.  This meant two things:  Buy a 2011-2014 Coyote or buy a new Mustang GT.  Well duh, what do you think I chose?

A 2015 Mustang GT, base, 6 speed manual, and performance package was ordered in Ruby Red:

The above isn't actually mine but is a picture representative of what was ordered.  It should be here in 4-6 weeks if all goes according to plan.  The 2009 is getting traded in.  The plan is to play around in F-Street for a while and harass those people.  The car is competitive there and will most likely be competitive in ESP when parts become less expensive.  That is the new plan!

As always, questions, comments, concerns, gripes, bitches or complaints welcome!

2015 Season Opener - NRSCCA - LAP-N Solo Points #1

April 11th represented the start of the 2015 Autocross season for the Nebraska Region SCCA.  It took place at the Lincoln Air Park Nationals site and started with a Test'n'Tune on the 11th and the first points event of the year on the 12th.

Testing and Tuning (Read: Making Pigs Dance)

I set out with some pretty basic goals for the Test'n'Tune:
1.)  Confirm gross car setup (understeer/oversteer and turn in)
2.)  Play with damper settings
3.)  Check tire pressure and response to heat
4.)  Gather seat time

Part 1:  Well the car was set up grossly if you ask some people, but overall with the exception of some transitional laziness the setup works.  When the BMR Watts link shows up on the doorstep, I don't think I'm going to change anything with regards to height of the rear roll center or dick around with bars.  Really it worked out better than I hoped.  The new tires didn't change much in the way of setup changes for the car which wasn't that surprising considering how close the RS3V1 and RS3V2 are supposed to be to each other.

Part 2:  Damper settings were very straightforward.  I started off with no additional damping and worked my way up to where the car transitioned like I wanted it to.  Not surprisingly those settings are dang near identical to what I ran last year.  One thing I did notice about the tires is that you can definitely feel them moving around more than the 265/40/18's do.  I assume this is because of the higher grip levels produced by the tires.  This means a little more sloppiness in the transitional response of the car as you wait for the contact patch to move from one side to the other.  These are shorter in overall height too which should have reduced that feeling some, but it seems either about the same or worse.

Part 3:  Tire pressures.  I forgot to fill up the tires before going to the event so they were at 32 PSI all around.  Didn't even check them while I ran either.  There was substantial delay between runs and the tires had ample time to cool down.  Add in a lower overall surface temperature and the tires just never got that hot.  At 32 PSI I was getting a little more roll over than I wanted so for the event on Sunday I opted to put 36 PSI into the tires and work down from there.

Part 4:  Well, there was about 12-15 runs completed on Saturday.  Not as many as I hoped for but they wouldn't let us hot lap our cars because the Modified and Prepared folk have cars that do idling in the line very well.  So instead of letting us run as many runs as we wanted we had to wait for a person in charge of the grid to come and allow us to go.  At the end of the day this did not produce tons of laps for any competitors at all.

I was able to get some decent videos of the updated rear suspension and front suspension components for this year and I'm seeing a lot of wheel base changes on and off the gas.  I guess the grip levels are compressing those poly bushings pretty hard.  Up front, hard braking is still causing the suspension bushings to deflect.  Even the poly suspension bushings are deflecting still.  Probably less than the rubber bushings would but more than I expected they would.

During the Test'n'Tune I also got to meet some novices and give at least one of them some pointers and help them out so they could be ready for the solo event on Sunday.  This was a great privilege and I think they had fun!  I hope so anyway.

Solo Points #1

On to the good stuff!  Sunday was supposed to be about 70º and raining.  As Saturday's Test'n'Tune came to a conclusion the weather dipped to less than 50% chance of rain and only in the afternoon.  Good news everyone!  It was dry.  This meant that my Mustang could deliver the powerr!  Of course the new wide sticky tires should help with that too!  Even more epic was the course designer had just purchased an S197 5.0L and wanted to have a course where he could really open it up.  The course was very much so a power course with just a few basic transitional elements and big long straights with sharper corners on them.

Some really good cars for the course present too like the above GT3 of Sandboxer Charlie Kim which not only looked great but sounded great too.  I'm glad he was able to stick around and run on Sunday as the car looked wicked fast out on course and it was a good course for the car too.

STU only had one other competitor, a BMW 135i, who this was his first event in the car after making huge changes to the car and only casually autocrossed before.  The usual competitors didn't show up as one of the regions in Kansas was hosting an event so Mark Hill was out and the other local Evo driven by David Cosseboom is waiting on overnight parts from Japan that didn't come overnight to fix a broken AC Clutch.  The WRX driver, Joel, is apparently not autocrossing anymore (he hates us! :( ) so only one competitor in class.  

Run #1:
With knowledge from the test'n'tune the day before it was pretty quick to get the car exactly how I wanted it to be.  Tire pressure was set at 36 PSI on each corner and boy was that a mistake.  The whole car felt like it was on pin needles.  Grip was there but there was no steering feel at all.  Of course the tires were cold.  Pavement was warmer thanks to running in the last heat of the day and it had been "cleaned" by the drivers before.  Drove pretty conservatively to get a clean run in and ended up with a 50.094 which was a pretty respectable time all things considered but I wanted to be much, much faster than that and given how many places on course I was on the brakes way early, there was plenty of time to improve!

Run #2:

Run #2 didn't get recorded because they were launching cars at an 18-20 second pace (which is fast for us!) and we only had about 30 people in a heat.  This meant that by the time I got the tire pressure bled down to the 34 PSI front and rear and back in the car, I forgot to turn the GoPro back on until I was in the line and it didn't record.  Anyway, the pressure was bled down to 34 PSI and this calmed the car down a lot.  Run didn't improve in time as I made a pretty substantial error in the last turn around and killed a bunch of time by being an absolute moron.  Run ended up being a 50.432.

Run #3:

For Run #3 I got adventurous and dropped rear pressure down to 32 and kept the fronts at 34.  I also decided that the front tires were entirely too hot so I decided to attack them with a water bottle and cool them down some.  This ended up working out really well and made for a very fast run.  I suspect spraying will just be the norm from now on at events.  Everything lined up really well and I ended up pulling in a 49.340 which would be my fastest time of the event and really a solid time overall.  Fourth fastest of the ST classes in attendance (beat by three STS cars).  I was finally starting to get the hang of the new car setup and was beginning to really enjoy the course too.

Run #4:

I bled pressures back down to the 34/32 split I had above and decided to water down both front and rear tires.  I haven't done a frame by frame but I felt like I was faster into certain areas and slower in other areas on this run.  It still felt like a good overall run and the time wasn't bad it just didn't improve upon Run #3's time.  It ended up being a 49.485.

Run #3 put me in first in STU and 20th overall in PAX.  The results can be found here:
http://nrscca.com/files/results/863053701Solo-2015-04-12.pdf

and PAX:
http://nrscca.com/files/results/1932338202Solo-2015-04-12-pax.pdf

Lots of "Vehicle Information Not Available" due to a motorsportreg issue and the import into the computer system.  This event was plagued by some technical issues but once we got rolling the heats went by pretty quick.

I really "like" those results but by the same token they don't exactly show me much of how the car is doing.  I need Mark Hill or some other top level STU drivers to show up at an event to really get a gauge on how things are going with the car.  I don't put much faith in PAX numbers but I suppose 20th of 90 is still better "Top%" wise than the previous year's average finish but only barely.  In other words, I can't wait for the next event on May 3rd where hopefully there will be some more STU competitors to gauge how the car is doing.

FWIW too, I got lots of comments about the car looking good on course and sounding great.  Don't get me wrong, I like a great sounding car, but I'm still interested in placing well against competition.  From a performance standpoint I think the car is beyond my current driving level (well it always has been) and there is still some learning to do.  Particularly with the brake pads which change character a bit with some heat in them.  Odd for a street pad really but the nice thing is with how forgiving the pads are due to the long pedal travel, you can really get on the brakes, still be slowing down fast, but not be in understeer mode due to ABS engagement.  I need to do some work on those braking points for sure!

What's next?
Well, generally I tell you how I'm going to continue to throw money at the car but what items are left are well outside what I'm budgeting for this year so I wont be spending any more money on the car except for maintenance stuff.  Really all that is left are underdrive pulleys, longtube headers, high flow cats and appropriate mid pipe, lightweight battery and seats.  The suspension is basically maxed out so any tweaks there are going to come as tuning changes with spring rate more than wholesale changes in components.  I suppose I could see if I can get a hold of some of the new pimp street tires (Bridgestones seem to have a lot of nutswingers going for them but no 285's) but really I'm not sure the RS3V2 is that far off those tires out at Lincoln.  I could very well be wrong though.

I've already signed up for Spring Nationals and look forward to competing there and the next event is May 3rd at LAP-N.

As always, questions, comments, concerns, gripes, bitches and complaints are welcome!

Even MOAR Season Prep!

New shoes for the car, more brake stuff, new tools, moar fluid swapping!

Sounds like a epic night of listening to Daft Punk at the local club dancing the night away!  Sadly not that entertaining.  In this installment we'll cover the new wheels and tires going on and initial impressions of them, the stainless steel brake line install and brake fluid flush, manual transmission fluid swapping and a few new fun tools to make the work less painful!

New Shoes!  In the previous posting I showed you what the new wheels looked like but I didn't show you the tires or them on the car!  To recap, the wheels are 18x10 ET43 SVE Drifts in Dark Stainless.  They are 24lbs each and while not the lightest, the price to performance ratio was hard to beat for a wheel that was in the $170 per wheel range.  Contrast that with the half inch wider and 2lb lighter PF01's common on ESP Mustangs that are over double that price per wheel.

It took a while for me to find a suitable location to take some photos but I finally got the car cleaned up, the new wheels and tires installed and dug the camera out of its hibernation.  Here is what they look like on the car!

I really enjoy the way the wheels look.on the car.  While I don't mind the shiny chrome factory "Bullitt" wheels, the excessive use of "look at me" chrome on competition vehicles is just asking for trouble.  Add in brake dust and they are a pain to keep looking nice.  Black, is also the wrong color for this car.  It mutes the side profile of the car far too much and makes it look incomplete.  There are a few Dark Candy Apple Red Mustangs that can pull off black wheels but my car isn't one of them.  These wheels are somewhere between the two, almost like a tinted chrome paint.  It is black in some light, chromish in some light and anthracite in other light.  It is just a cool color and it is the right combination of subtlety and taste. 

It also isn't a color you see used on the S197 very frequently.  In fact I struggled to find photos of these wheels before purchasing them.  I bought them more on a whim.  Sure there are "gunmetals" out there which are more gray than silver that look good too.  It really is just hard to describe these wheels accurately and I really like it!  In the brief days I had them on the car to get the mold release off the tires the number of complements, thumb ups and looks increased quite heavily.  Which is great in my opinion!  Let them look!  I do feel like the car might need to be lowered slightly to take some of the wheel gap away.  It doesn't look too bad at the moment but these 25.9" tall tires really do add wheel gap where the taller 245/45/18 ZI Star Specs I have on my stock wheels fill the wheel wells better.

Of course those "meats" also added almost an inch of tire width to the ground which should really help this car scoot around corners.  Initial driving impressions are really odd.  The RS3V2 has less steering precision than the narrower 265/40/18 RS3V1's I used the previous two years.  They are incredibly numb on center and you can really feel the sidewalls moving around.  Tire pressure is at 32 PSI for each corner so that may have to go up to compensate for that some.  There is a slight, and I do mean slight, rub at full lock with these wheels and tires.  I'm half tempted to buy a 5mm spacer for up front to cure this and bring the front wheels out to a more "flush" look.  Then my car would be stanced yo!

So as many of you guys know, Kelly Aiken at BMR Suspension was supposed to be getting me one of their new chassis mounted watts linkages to test against the Fays2 unit currently on the car.  Their unit has undergone some design changes and Kelly assures me this latest revision to the frame is the production spec unit.  That should mean that I will have the BMR Chassis Mount before the first season's autocross on April 11th and 12th.

Beefy!  Also looks to be pretty lightweight and have plenty of room for swaybar clearance and over axle pipe clearance (not that this is an issue with the Fays2).  Kelly says the upper most hole for the center pivot is about the axle centerline when the car is lowered 1.5".  I'm a good bit lower than 1.5" in the rear of this car so we'll see how it compares to the Fays2 upper hole when the unit arrives.

I plan on fully testing the new BMR unit on April 11th and 12th.  The 11th is the Nebraska Region's Test'n'Tune out at the Lincoln Air Park.  The 12th is the first points event of the season.  The new tires will be scrubbed in, brake pads tested ad naseum and this watts link should be tested too! :)

Speaking of brakes, in the last update I showed you the newly installed Carbotech 1521 "Bobcat" pads front and rear with Centric Rotors.  I also purchased Goodridge Stainless Steel brake lines, some Valvoline DOT3/DOT4 brake fluid the Motive Power Bleeder and a bleeder catch bottle.  The install for the Goodridge lines is extremely painless.  The Motive Power Bleeder made bleeding the brakes an absolute breeze too!  I'm going to start adding brake fluid swaps to the every other year maintenance list.  The brake fluid that came out of lines was chalk full of contaminants and was nearly black at times.  Waaaay too long to wait to swap the fluids (nearly 6 years).  

Some will probably wonder why the Valvoline DOT3/DOT4 fluid.  The biggest reason was local availability.  Another reason is the absence of a need for anything more heat tolerant than a fresh DOT3 fluid.  I've never had brake fade while autocrossing or driving so I really don't see the need to spend big bucks on expensive fluid that needs more frequent maintenance when a cheaper alternative works just as well for my needs without breaking the bank or requiring special maintenance proceedures.

The end result was far less fortunate and nice though.  Everything went well with the swap so no issues there.  It did not, however, take care of the pedal effort I was experiencing with the new Carbotech 1521 pads.  The 1521 pad compound is heavily oriented towards street driving and I figured they'd be about on par with stock.  They will lock up the brakes just fine but you really have to get on the pedal to get them to do so.  Really they just lack the initial bite that I like in the factory brake pads.  I'm sure these pads will be better for modulation though so we'll give them a fair shake before we start looking to step up pad compound to the AX6 compound. 

With the new Motive Brake Bleeder kit and the brake fluid catch bottle, I also purchased a DeWalt 1/2" electric cordless Impact that uses the same 18V batteries as my cordless drill uses.  I have access to air tools but my air compressor is pretty small and doesn't like being used too much.  This makes it good for basically removing lug nuts (one wheel at a time) and making a lot of noise.  I hope to address that issue when I move into a house on a permanent basis.  The electric impact has the longevity my current air setup doesn't have.  It outputs 300lb/ft of torque which is more than I need it to output and it uses some pretty common batteries for other tools I have.  Well worth the investment and it should make making changes at the Test'n'Tune coming up a lot easier!

The last bit of maintenance I performed was a fluid swap in the Tremec 3650 5 speed Manual Transmission.  Ford puts ATF in these transmissions (Mercon V ATF to be specific) and the result is some pretty gritty, notchy and nibbly shifts.  I've grown accustomed to how it shifts (requires laboring shifts when at high RPM) but really I wanted to smooth things out.  Tremec recommends GM Syncromesh, which is rare as hens teeth and comes in about 8 dozen different forms from what I've read.  They recommend Penzoil Syncromesh as an alternative to the GM stuff (it is probably the same stuff really) and the swap was pretty straight forward.  Out comes the red ATF, in goes the clear brown Syncromesh.  End result was a much smoother shifting transmission.  You can feel how much slick the shifts are when you move the shifter.  It didn't cure the notchy, nibbly or gritty shifts but it reduced it to a more manageable level.  A short throw shifter would be a good investment but it is really low on the mod list at the moment!

Last bit of prep I have to do is a coolant flush and an oil change and this car is ready for the next season!  I keep listing out what all if left to do before this car is "prepped" and really the list is getting short enough where we are almost to the "point of diminishing returns" on parts purchasing.  There are three major items left on the list:  Seats, Battery and finishing up the exhaust (longtubes and high flow cats).  After that we are really nit picking allowances for minimal gains (accessory pulleys and the like).  The direction of this car can go any number of different ways.  STU for sure this year and probably next if the tires hold out that long but I have not ruled out CAM from the list of places to end up either.  We'll see how STU goes before making that decision.

Speaking of decisions!  I'm also looking for a Co-Driver for Spring Nationals, Nationals and possibly the Midwest Divisional Championship.  I'm pretty easy going but I am looking for someone who can really show what the car is capable of.  If you are interested, track me down on one of the various forums I'm on and let me know!

That's all for now!  Next update will most likely be after the 11th/12th of April!

More 2015 Season Preparation

Things are continuing nicely as we near the 2015 season opener.  The schedule of events has been posted and the season opens on April 12th at the Lincoln Air Park.  It continues on May 2nd with the Tire Rack Starting Line School (which I hope I get the offer to help with again) and a Nebraska Region solo event on May 3rd.  The Tire Rack Solo National tour makes the first of two stops in Lincoln on May 22nd through the 25th for Spring Nationals.  June 21st marks the third Nebraska Region solo points event and is followed by Solo Points #4 on July 12th.  As the season progresses into August we hit the Midwest Divisional Championship at Lincoln Air Park on the 1st and 2nd with Solo Points #5 on the 23rd.  September marks the end of the solo season with the Tire Rack Solo Nationals and Pro-Solo Finale at the Lincoln Air Park from the 5th through the 11th.  The final points event, #6, ends the season in Nebraska on the 20th.

With the vacation filed, work on getting the car ready for the season has begun.  Kelly Aiken at BMR Suspension has one of their new Watts links headed my way which I await eagerly.  I was also given the information to a person in LA that was selling a set of sticker 285/35/18 RS3V2's for a price I couldn't argue with.  They were paid for and should be here well before the start of the season.  The wheels are already here and they are a set of SVE drifts, 18x10, in Dark Stainless:

At 24lbs they aren't the lightest 18x10, they aren't the heaviest, but the price to weight ratio is just impossible to really beat.  These wheels are $169 a piece from Late Model Restoration and have been used on a large number of track driven Mustangs.  They'll serve me just fine with 285/35/18 RS3V2's!

The other major servicing that needed to be done was to the brakes.  My rear brake pads were in need of replacement, a product of having co-drivers who don't remember to turn off the traction control system, and the tons of runs done on a car with a clutch based differential that wears out easily.  Combine that with C-Clip axles and your outer brake pads wear quicker than the inner brake pads.  With the T2R, if there is any additional wear on the outer pads it will be minor in comparison to what it was with the T-Lok rear diff.  

Carbotech 1521's replaced the factory pads and Centric 120 series rotors replaced the factory rotors.  This is a relatively simple process to do but it is time consuming.  After some 2.5hrs of fiddling with the brakes, they were installed.  Bedding these new pads in to the new rotors was relatively straight forward too.  Carbotech recommends a series of stops from 60 down to about 25.  A short break and then another series of stops.  I did 5 stops, a 5 minute cool down and 5 more stops.  That produced a very nice transfer layer on the new rotors.  Not that I took photos of that because that would make sense!

As for the pads themselves?  Well, I'm a bit underwhelmed by them but they are so new I'm not sure I can really pass judgement quite yet.  What I'm noticing is that initial bite is about the same as the factory pads.  The pedal effort, IE:  How much pedal needed before ABS engagement, has increased.  It takes A LOT of stepping on the brake to get the ABS to engage, even with snow tires.  I'm curious to see how that works out when there is some serious rubber under the car.  On that note, I suspect a lot to blame in the factory lines and fluid still in the car... if nothing else they don't help at all and are on that "shortlist" to replace.

I should also note that in addition to the brake lines and fluids the car is in need of a transmission flush and a coolant flush.  I suspect that at 55,000 miles it's high time to take care of those things.  I'm sure the spark plugs are coming up on replacement too.  The Tremec 3650 5 speed manual transmission has a recommended oil of Penzoil Syncromesh or GM's Syncromesh.  I plan on using exactly that.  That should smooth out some of the shifting.  The rest is just maintenance... I suppose the brake fluid is more than just maintenance... not sure if I want to do the brake lines just yet.  If I go to that level of work I'll do the clutch line too because why not?  Lets remove all the rubber from the lines that use brake fluid!

That's what is next.  I'm hoping to have that all done before the start of the season so the car will be as fresh as possible for the return to National Competition.

January 9th, 2015 - #23 STU 2009 Mustang GT Project Refresher

It's January 9th, 2015 and to kick things off on the new blog, I've decided to bring readers up to speed on the #23 STU 2009 Mustang GT.  For those that followed the #23 STX build, some of this will be a refresher, some of it will be new information.

Before we get too far, I want to thank Jason at Hypermotive Performance for his involvement in the car by emptying my wallet (at reasonable rates!) and giving me parts in exchange.  Without him, this past year would have been very frustrating.  If you guys ever need parts, please hit up the Hypermotive Performance crew and tell them I sent you.  The customer service and price is unmatched in the industry!

I also want to thank Filip Trojanek at Cortex Racing.  Some will remember Filip's name being dropped in the run up to the Midwest Divisional Championship in the fall of 2013 before SCCA Autocross Nationals.  Filip worked with me to get a torque arm on my car while retaining SCCA Street Touring class rule compliance.  This involved a custom differential bracket designed to work with a differential cover it wasn't designed to work with.  He did this without whining, grunting, or otherwise showing displeasure.  He has taken care of me at every turn without so much as a complaint and he has provided me with a solid part that fits within the framework of the SCCA Street Touring class rules.

Finally, I want to thank Kelly Aiken at BMR Suspension and BMR Suspension as a whole for being an active member of the Mustang community.  For those that may not know, BMR Suspension has been a class leading suspension producer for the big three's pony cars.  From the 1967 Camaro to the 2015 Mustang, BMR Suspension has been an integral role in the Cone 502 Racing #23 STU Mustang build.  Kelly Aiken, the Ford Representative at BMR Suspension has been there at every turn for the car and supported the build with solid parts and advise!

Ok, lets get on with it and look at the car.  The car is a 2009 Mustang GT Premium with 3.55 rear gears and a 5 speed manual transmission.  The car was purchased without intentions of ever being autocrossed!  In hindsight, a base 05 or 06 GT would have been a better place to start but this car was never purchased for this role and has been co-opted into doing it against its will!  This car has been through a lot of setup changes going originally from lowering springs and aftermarket off the shelf dampers to a coilover setup with softer springs to the current setup with stiffer springs.  It went from being a 3 link + panhard bar (PHB) live rear axle setup to being a torque arm + watts link setup.  Through it all it has remained a daily driven vehicle with 53,000 miles on the chassis and body!  It even gets driven in the winter time!

With that in mind it should be noted that this build has limitations.  Because the car is a daily driver it will not have an engine that is tuned to the absolute limit of safety and the suspension components will be rigorous enough to handle being daily driven and then beat on on the weekends!  With that comes a budget too!  There is no fancy race shop that Cone 502 Racing operates out of setting up six figure race cars.  This is literally a garage build done by an average Joe on jack stands and basic tools!  That doesn't mean parts were purchased willy nilly either and I plan on walking you through those decisions as the blog progresses on.

Here is what the car has currently done to it. If it isn't on the list, it hasn't been changed from stock.
FRONT SUSPENSION:
-Ground Control Track/School valved Koni SA Coilover Strut
-Ground Control Street Camber Plates
-550lbs/in Eibach 8" coilover springs
-Moog Front RK Lower Control arms with RK factory height ball joints
-Energy Front LCA Bushings
-Strano Performance Parts (Hellwigg) 35mm Front Swaybar

REAR SUSPENSION:
-Ground Control Track/School valved Koni SA shocks
-Ground Control weight jacker spring perches
-275lbs/in Eibach 8" coilover springs
-Fays2 Watts Linkage (changing soon to BMR)
-BMR TCA022 lower control arms
-BMR CAB005 lower control arm relocation brackets
-Cortex Racing Torque Arm
-FRPP Boss 302 Finned Differential Cover

DRIVETRAIN/POWER:
-JLT Generation 3 CAI
-SCT X4 tuner with Hypermotive Performance 91 Octane Tune
-Ford Racing 3.55 rear gears and install kit
-Torsen T2R rear differential
-Roush Extreme Catback exhaust
-Redline 75W90 NS gear oil

BRAKES/WHEELS/TIRES/ALIGNMENT:
-Carbotech 1521 Bobcat pads
-18x10 SVE Drifts in Dark Stainless (competition wheels)
-18x9 Enkei PF01's in Painted Silver (DD wheels)
-Hankook RS3V2 285/35/18 tires or Dunlop Direzza ZII Star Spec (competition tires)
-Hankook RS3V1 265/40/18 tires (DD tires)
- -3.0º Camber, 0 Toe, +7.8º Caster

There is still a lot of allowances that could be taken advantage of from the Street Touring class rules however I've reached a point where most of the big performance modifications have been done and taken care of.  This leaves a lot of diminishing return items left such as seats, and harnesses.  Stuff that will decrease weight and improve the driver feel of the car.  Important, but not going to drop massive amounts of time off the clocks.

There is a lot more time to be found in tuning the car's performance.  A lot of big changes were made during the 2014 season that are in need of fleshing out.  For one the car received the BMR CAB005 rear LCA relocation brackets which have three different locations for mounting the axle side of the LCA's.  By changing this location I can tune the levels of %Anti-squat.  Right now the car sits around 65% Anti-Squat which isn't a bad place to be.  The next biggest change of 2014 was the change from the factory clutch based differential to the torque biasing T2R differential.  This changes the driving behavior of the car somewhat and takes some tuning to utilize correctly.  The last bit of tuning that can be tweaked is just the overall car's balance.  Whether that is tuning with shock damping, swaybar rates (I do have a Strano Performance Parts (Hellwigg) 25mm rear bar), spring rates, rear roll center heights, alignment, and so on.  There is now the issue of tire compound.  ZII Star Specs or RS3V2?  The RS3V2 is a known quantity, fast in the dry and wet but is the ZII SS faster overall in the dry?  I don't know.  The Tire Rack seems to think the ZII Star Spec is the faster tire.

So the focus for 2015 is to bring the car back to Spring Nationals in May and Nationals in September and have it ready for National level competition.  I have plans to take on a co-driver for next year as well but have yet to hear if he is going to commit to it or not.  I hope he does as I think we will push each other to become better drivers and increase the capability of the car at the same time.  If not, I don't plan on giving up participating in those two National events.

That's all for now!
Chris Jepsen

Cone 502 Racing - About and History

Welcome to the new blog for Cone 502 Racing!

HISTORY:
   Cone 502 Racing was founded after the 2013 SCCA Solo Nationals in Lincoln Nebraska.  The name originates from the incessant destruction of cone #502 on Sam Strano's East Course at the 2013 SCCA Solo Nationals by me, Chris Jepsen, driver of the #23 STX Mustang.  In total I had five runs on the east course due to downed cones and timing errors and when it was all said and done, on each of my 3 counted runs, I hit ONE cone and it was always cone #502.  Hence, the name was born.

ABOUT:
   So why the hooplah?  I found that while my blog outlining the details of the #23 STX Mustang Build attracted some attention, I found that maintaining the blog and several forum posts became laborious as various forums restrict word count and image count.  I've also found myself examining parts, in depth, on those forums and felt a singular place to express my opinions about the parts I've tested would be beneficial.  Of course that goal does not fit 100% into the build thread for a car that is no longer in STX (is not in STU) and has evolved from the semi-serious into a serious build.  My goal for this page is to not only outline the details of the now #23 STU 2009 Mustang GT build but to talk about my driving experiences and car setup experiences on a variety of Mustang platforms!

Without further ado!  Welcome to Cone 502 Racing's new blog, hang around and enjoy the reading!
~Chris Jepsen