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
