A Return to the Blog - New Project Car!!!!

Sometimes a Great Notion – 1989 Fox Body Build

Introduction

Sometimes a Great Notion, truer words could not have been used to more accurately describe this project. To lightly scratch the surface, SGN is, without a doubt, the biggest exercise in good ideas leading to doing things the hard way for the sake of what should be a fun adventure! So what is it? Well it's a 1989 Mustang GT... but more than that, it's a 1989 Mustang GT with a Cobra IRS! Well that's not unique, that happens all the time... FINE, it's a 1989 Mustang GT with a Cobra IRS that will be powered by motor that only a three other Mustangs have had in them! What motor? The 6.2L Overhead Cam V8 out of the Raptor... well... ok, this isn't a full Raptor motor, it's the motor out of a 2013 Ford F250 which is a camshaft change away from the Raptor motor! Did I mention the plan is 18x13 wheels at all four corners and 335's onboard? Ohh, and the inspiration for this is the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Foxbody Mustang from the early 1990's, with some tweaks!

Choices, choices, choices...

Someone is probably thinking to themselves, why in the heck isn't he just building a 302 Windsor, or a 5.0L Coyote, or a 351 Windsor or Cleveland? Why not do something easy? Well... lets look at that for a minute.

Why not a pushrod V8? While rebuilding the 302 that was in this car would be extremely easy, I priced out the cost of building a 331 stroker using a factory block and to say the least, the cost of doing it the RIGHT way was expensive enough to pay for the 6.2L motor itself. Power options in the stroker range are somewhere in the mid 400's with valvetrain stability and motor balancing being extremely difficult to overcome without spending cubic dollars. It is possible to make a pushrod V8 that runs at 7,000 RPM all day long for lots of money, but stiff valvetrains, and the constant fear of breaking a valve, pushrod, lifter, cam, etc, were all present in my mind while weighing the options. Needless to say, I see a lot more "dead" pushrod 302's and 351's from autocrossing than any of the modular engine family or it's derivatives (which is what the 6.2L is).

Ok, so why not the coyote? The reasoning here is more petty than anything... I hate the way the coyote sounds and I really don't care for how "common" the swap has become. It sure would have been an easy button swap. For the cost of doing a Coyote swap, I can also do a 6.2L swap which is more unique. The Coyote is VERY capable of revving up high and so is the 6.2L. So really this boils down to sound and uniqueness. Lets talk about power then! It's no secret that a Coyote can build great power, with more than a few 500 RWHP N/A motors in existence. The thing with these motors is the torque curve, something which only displacement can handle effectively. To achieve those high HP numbers it involves relatively low torque relative to the HP number. With the high frequency of which RPM killing corners exist in SCCA autocross, having torque can be a good advantage in addition to the HP and the larger displacement 6.2L should have torque in spades at the low end!

The 6.2L Motor

Ford's 6.2L OHC Boss motor is quite often forgotten in the world of Ford's modern V8's. It's easy to understand why. It's biggest impact statement to the world was as the main powerplant of the 2010-2014 Ford F150 Raptor in which it made 411hp and 434lb*ft of torque. It can also be found as the gas V8 option in the F250 and F350 superduties making 385hp and 405lb*ft of torque. Not exactly earth shattering power numbers given the displacement advantage over the 5.0L coyote and I suspect this is because Ford wanted to keep some reserve in the motor for additional expansion. Those peak numbers don't tell the whole story... specifically that low end grunt thanks to the torque created by the added displacement.

Lets discuss the differences between this motor and the modular engine family that encompasses the Ford 4.6L, 5.0L Coyote, 5.2L Voodoo, 5.4L, 5.8L, and 6.8L V10 motor. The 6.2L motor is NOT a modular V8. The modular motors all had a common bore spacing to simplify machining. Many of the parts from one V8 transfer to another, but not all of the parts do. The 6.2L has a wider bore spacing but not a significantly larger overall platform. In fact, the 6.2L is barely wider than a Coyote but it is obviously longer thanks to the wider bore spacing. Other simularities to the Modular platform are the deep-skirt block with cross bolt mains, crankshaft driven oil pump, bellhousing bolt pattern and being an overhead cam motor. That's where the simularities end. One of the biggest change in the 6.2L is the head configuration. The 6.2L employs a rockershaft valvetrain arrangement due to the hemispherical combustion chamber and requires two spark plugs per cylinder. The advantage here is that camshafts can have more aggressive profiles with lower spring pressures and it retains valvestrain stability at a much higher RPM's than a pushrod V8.

So the biggest advantages are cubic inches, uniqueness, and a traditional V8 sound. All good things! About those cubic inches... just how much displacement can this motor support? With sleeving the block and custom cranks, this motor can support 460 cubic inches! Try that with a coyote!

We wont get anywhere near that ridiculous with this build. The initial build will probably be no more radical than just getting it in there to run, maybe oil pump gears, maybe cams (made by Livernois, the only people I know who do them), springs, and obviously the exhaust which is mandatory due to the swap being unique. I'm hoping for upper 400's in RWHP and RWTRQ thanks to the use of a Megasquirt MS3 Pro Ultimate ECU, E85 (a bit overkill for this low compression N/A motor) and the fact that the engine wont be pushing around a 6000lb F250.... The "Sometimes a Great Notion" idea is to sleeve this block, pay cubic dollars to obtain the custom crank, rods and pistons to get an 12:1 compression 427 cubic inch (7.0L) V8 using this motor. That motor should make somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 RWHP and RWTRQ which is overkill for autocross. That's kind of the "dream" if you will, reality will probably be more gradual. Livernois sells a stroker kit that gets you to about 400 cubic inches but only at 9.5:1 compression. I haven't called to inquire about that going to 11:1 or higher compression... Manley also produces an 11:1 compression piston and rod combination. No increase in displacement, but higher compression for more power! That said, options exist to go for a more "formal" approach... everything else will have to be custom... GO FIGURE!

The Car:
The car is a 1989 Mustang GT that I purchased from my co-driver. It was a vehicle he bought when he was in high school. It was involved in only one small accident with a deer that damaged the radiator support. Very little rust on this car, in fact the only issues with the body is some light surface rust on the lip inside the rear wheel well and a crease in the driver side C pillar. Nothing damning or unfixable. I found some rust in the driver side wheel well but again, nothing damning. The only other issue with the chassis side of things was the driver side seat had one of the forward bolts tearing out of the cross member it was in. No biggie, will get that fixed before carpet goes back in.

The car was purchased for a steal of a price with everything included but the drive train out of the vehicle. The stock 302 needed rebuilt after some machine work, the T5 needed a rebuild and then everything needed assembled. The "stock" 302 was anything but stock but as you already know, the whole notion of running a windsor in this foxbody was tossed as soon as I found the 6.2L for as cheap as I did with as few of miles as it had. The car also had an upgraded rear end with a locker, upgraded 28 spline axles, and drums... all tossed as well! So, the truth is, I bought the car for the straight chassis and sold everything I didn't need from the drivetrain, which was, well, everything!

Keeping Things in Suspense:
As stated, the car has a 2003 Cobra IRS under it (now) which I was able to find for a good price locally. This is nothing unusual as IRS swaps are common enough in fox bodies. In truth, nothing unique will be done to this IRS... I plan on swapping in a Torsen T2R as I have extensive experience autocrossing with this differential. I plan on doing the full Full Tilt Boogie Racing bushing kit, bumpsteer kit, bracing, etc, to keep the IRS happy. I'll also be replacing the cross axis joints in this IRS. Wheel bearings seem fine for now so we'll rock those until they give me an excuse to replace them.

So why not go with something more, err, well, easy, like the MM torque arm + PHB setup for a live axle? The truth is that I'm not overly keen on live axle setups. Even though homefield is the Lincoln Air Park, home of the SCCA Autocross Nationals, and it is relatively smooth, the IRS offers some distinct advantages as far as kinematics are concerned. Mostly, it's the ability to have dynamic alignment changes to help the car. A live axle with dynamic alignment changes beyond roll steer is either broken or about to be! :) In truth, I felt like there was an advantage to be had with the Cobra IRS and the setup basically bolts into a Foxbody with minimal headache. No reason not to take the leap!

Up front is a bit more complicated... actually the setup is easy... it's nothing more than the MM K-Member, MM forward offset SN95 length control arms, and coilovers. This was NOT my original plan, but the original plan has been "in development" for several years and has yet to materialize. The original plan was to put a Short Long Arm (SLA) front suspension on this car, and I will eventually do exactly that. Real life has a funny way of injecting itself into project cars! I need this car to be mobile enough to move it out of the way, or move it in it's entirety, if I leave my current job. This is a long, drama filled "adventure" that I'll spare you, suffice it to say, having the car able to move is almost as important to me as finishing it. I get project ADD at times and not having the car running and just sitting there means little will get done. If it at least moves, I'll be more motivated to work on it since I can experience the changes sooner...

This decision was weighed heavily against the option of waiting... I could have jumped into the Agent 47 or Griggs Racing SLA's and I'm sure they are fantastic bits of kit, but my experiences with both companies has been less than steller... not having huge chunks of money to throw down right when I called will do funny things with customer service it seems. The other company I planned on using has been excessively patient with my timeline for making certain decisions... that company is Cortex Racing. Filip and I had been talking about the SLA for a while and it has yet to appear... so... with that in mind, I needed an alternative. Leveraging friendships I made during my S197 years, in comes Josh Gladish at Ridetech! A set of Ridetech TQ3's are on order and being built as I type this. They will form the foundation of the suspension until I decide to get creative later on, or until Ridetech decides to release their SLA kit for the Foxbody! (Hint hint, Josh...)

We've Got, the Meats!
Lets talk wheels and tires for a minute. I guess to do that, I need to explain what the car is going to be used for right? Truth is, if I ever get this thing done, it'll be used for autocrossing, maybe some track days (I said that about my current 2015 Mustang GT/PP and it has yet to see one :P) and probably a bunch of street driving. Maybe some car shows, but not as a beauty queen! #MeantToBeDriven. So with autocross, and specifically the Classic American Muscle car class as the goal, that means we are going to be shoving some real tire under this car. With a 3250lb minimum weight for CAM-C (going to play with the big boys even though I don't have to), and everyone running on no less than 305's at all four corners, we are going to run at least that, if not wider. The real "want" is 335 wide tires on 18x13 CCW classics but as with everything in this build, the priorities are to get this thing moving under it's own power and then worry about other niceties like wheels that nearly cost as much as the coilovers I went with... sooooo.... with that said, I have a set of 18x10 SVE Drifts that'll get shod in 285 wide 200 TW extreme summer tires for next year until I can swing the cost for the big meats. That'll also minimize the body panel modifications somewhat.

Other Random Bits of Gray Matter

The only other "major" thing going on with this build is the extent to which weight is coming out of the car. With a 3250lb minimum weight, even with the Cobra IRS and overweight 6.2L motor up front, I want as much weight out of this car as possible so I can add it back in (in the form of ballast) where I want it, preferably over the rear wheels and as low as possible. That extra weight is primarily coming from things such as the 8 billion pounds of sound deadening in the car... cheese and rice, for how loud a Foxbody is in factory trim with all the sound deadening, I wasn't expecting there to be ANYTHING in this car as far as sound deadening... I was wrong... the sound deadening pads in a Foxbody are insanely heavy and horribly inefficient. I very well may end up doing some dynamat style product on the rear of the car for easy weight and to deaden sound some (not that I'm expecting a luxury car), but seriously! Also, out came the HVAC stuff. I may improvise a light weight setup in the future, but for now, it's out.

Ohh yeah... since so much of this car is changing, from ECU, to engine, to fuel system, etc... I figured it's probably best to just start from scratch on the wiring. The car had some bad grounding issues anyway per the previous owner so it's just convenient to remove all the wiring and start fresh. In comes Ron Francis Wiring to the rescue! The kit looks great, but I've only just started installing it.

Ohh yeah, the end goal of this car is to make it look like a more modern version of the DTM Foxbody. There will be a lot of body panel modification and aero done to the car to the limits of the CAM class rules (which is basically no real aero). I'll probably even go with the Black/Red paint scheme since that is what I like!

We Aren't in Kansas Anymore!
So where are we now? Well, we are sitting here, with a car with no interior, no wiring, no transmission, no front body work at all, and waiting on parts! Such a fun time waiting, and waiting, and waiting! It's like Christmas, except a month and change early! Where we ARE is, the engine is in the engine bay. I need to fabricate custom motor mounts for the setup to get it in there. The wiring has just begun and as such, not much is done. I'll be taking some time off here in a few weeks to really work on this car and get as much done as possible. 

Here is the car's current state!  Mostly gutted...

Stay tuned for more updates!

The Autocross Season Begins Again! April 10th and April 24th Events and the April 23rd Test'n'Tune

At the end of last year I ended the year with a new respect for the car and my (limited) driving capabilities.  I had a solid idea of what the car did and didn't do well and what needed to happen to address those issues.  I also found that I really suck at driving in the rain which ultimately lead to a poorer finish than I wanted.

Having made some decisions on bar choices after Nationals (BMR front swaybar went on for the last event of the year for the Nebraska Region as well as a Des Moines Valley Region event at Adventure Land) the only thing that really remained was the shocks/struts.  After Nationals I made some calls to various manufacturers and distributors to entertain the idea of replacing the factory shocks and struts with some serious hardware.  At a cost of about $3200 I could get a set of MCS shocks and struts and really transform this car and then later upgrade.  Great I thought, I even had the money, but the wait time was astronomical with no guarantees of availability before the season started.  I opted instead to hold out for the Koni Sports that were due out "any minute."  When the Koni Shock sale started and The Tire Rack had the 2015 Mustang Koni's listed as available I jumped on the first order!  Thus began the biggest journey of this build so far... when would they arrive?!

Before we get there, lets talk about the car.  After Nationals I installed the front swaybar in the stiffest setting.  I knew this would be A LOT of work to make it work out perfectly right and boy could I not be any more wrong.  We ended up running a modified version of Roger Johnson's west course in which the bar actually helped out A LOT.  About the only real change tot he course was a squaring off of Teddie's Ring of Hell Fire.  Tire pressures on the Bridgestone Potezna RE71R were a 32F 34R setup which helped the car rotate fine.  One thing I noticed, with the help of my soon to be 2016 Co-Driver was that the full stiff position on this bar actually destroyed the front bushings on the bars.

After chatting with Kelly Aiken at BMR Suspension about the issue he told me that BMR never really anticipated the bar being run at full stiff and seeing the deflection it was seeing on my car.  He sent out a bunch of new bushings and told me a full rework of the bushing design was going to be done to eliminate the problem (which was due to the grease fittings thinning out the top too much).  I did notice a touch of push in the car and had plans to drop the bar down to the middle position anyway.  I replaced the bushings and prepped for the DMVR event at Adventure Land in Des Moines Iowa (well Altoona, but same difference).

The DMVR event was a real eye opener for me on just how fast these cars accelerate in a straight line.  One of the biggest features of this course was a very long basically straight section.  The end of said straight was a curb, ditch, fence, and ditch away from a major road so it turned into an abrupt left hand turn... well.... like normal, I bonzai rushed the corner after making an epic exit to the turns at the beginning of this "straight".  Nothing says frightening like 435 HP, 400lb*ft of torque and stupid short gearing going 70+mph in 3rd gear in the parking lot of an amusement park with the "screwed up" zone being a very totaled car and possibly seriously hurt me!  It was a great event for me and a real confidence booster.  I met some new friends and saw some old ones and in general had a blast!

If you'd like to see the videos from either of those events, head on over to my YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/UrPeaceKeeper

Enough yabbering about the "distant" past, on to the "present"!

April 10th, 2016 - NRSCCA Solo #0 (Non Points)
So having ordered said Koni Yellow shocks and been given several different shipment dates for them, I came to the realization that nothing will have changed from the previous year's setup for this event.  The only change I made was adding my co-driver who is former ESP 1998 Cobra driver Justin Eckles.  Justin co-drove with me at the end of last year after we talked about co-driving together in 2016.  He wanted to save some money and not beat up an otherwise very nice Cobra by running it in ESP.  I was and still am glad to have him on board!  Having only run in the car once, he'd still be learning the car.  I was too so this was going to be a lot of learning!  To compound the continued learning of this car was the addition of data in the form of SoloStorm and it's connectivity package.

If you aren't familiar with SoloStorm and what it entails, let me explain it to you in better detail.  SoloStorm is a data acquisition program for Android devices.  It uses a Bluetooth OBDII reader and Bluetooth GPS receiver in conjunction with the accelerometers, and camera to provide a fairly comprehensive picture of what you and the car are doing on course!  Setup is extremely easy and for the most part is intuitive in it's use.  It is a GREAT investment and the ability to compare my runs to Justin's runs to anyone else who drives the car's runs is extremely powerful.  I am finally able to see where the fast guys are kicking my butt!  On that same note, Justin can see exactly where the few places are that I'm actually faster than he is!

The course was a first time design from one of the up and coming locals driving a NC Miata.  It definitely had all the makings of a Miata course but was ridiculously fun!  I know I'm going to love the courses he comes up with in the future.  I just hope he learns to open them up a bit more though as this course was pretty tight for a sight on the Nationals concrete!  The car really felt great out there aside from the complete lack of shock control from the factory shocks.  The car wasn't pushy and put down power well in the places it could be used.  Justin would go on to place first in FS, I'd go on to place 5th of 10.  One second covered the spread from first to fifth place.

Here is my best run:

And Justin's best:

The take away from this event was quite simple... while our lines are very similar (SoloStorm had some massive GPS drift and it makes it look weird) Justin was using more throttle sooner and in just about every location.  This resulted in a one second improvement in time.  This was the largest difference between our runs.  There was some minor line differences, but for the most part it was within the noise.  The one area I was beating Justin was the start, but as soon as the first corner came around it was game over as his more aggressive throttle use took over any small gain I had at the start by the time we had both exited the first major corner.

And this is the power of SoloStorm.  But it gets better too.  I can break down each section of the course and find out just how different we were.  It will display the distance both of us traveled, it will display the average speed, the fastest speed, the time and a slew of other variables for the section.  It will also show bar graphs of throttle usage, speed, and many other things.  I'm usually not one for over analysis of every run, but it is nice to know some of these details to know of areas I'm giving up time to other drivers!

A new to me face showed up at this event that carried enough of a name to perk the ears of some of the competitors.  Brian Meyers has graced the Nebraska region's events in his 2016 Mustang GT/PP.  He is unbelievably quick and a great guy too!  I'm glad he is becoming a fixture at events to set a high benchmark for Justin and I to reach for.

April 23rd, 2016 - NRSCCA Test'n'Tune

As with all NRSCCA Test'n'Tunes at LAP-N, they are surely going to be interesting.  To add to this, the Koni's showed up and were installed the weekend before.  Let me say this, if it wasn't for a few things, the install wouldn't have taken 8 hours... but as it is, Ford has done some things that are frankly insane.  The most annoying aspect is the fact that the front spring perches are super small but the perch guard is massive.... so massive that the rented spring compressors do not fit properly around it and as you compress the spring is digs into the paint on the struts.  The rear shocks require drilling out the upper shock mount to a half inch.  The change in the car's attitude and behavior was massive though.

During the test'n'tune, Justin and I took our time to come to decisions on what changes we were making.  We had 4 hours and were honestly only limited by tire life, fuel life and our desire to do it.  We started with the shocks completely soft and the front bar in the middle position.  Interestingly enough, after some 18 total runs, we decided that a turn up from the softest position in the front and full soft out back was the best feel.

Brian, Justin, and I did a bunch of car swapping.  After driving Brian's car, we both decided that the full stiff rear bar he was running was simply too much rear bar and it hurt our driving even though our times were basically the same.  Justin ran essentially the same time with the front bar in the middle position.  Brian also drove my car and he had some positive things to say about the way the car transitioned and changed directions but really hated the slight mid corner push the car had.  Given that this test'n'tune course was unusually tight for a nationals level course, we didn't feel like changing the bar setting at all.  Brian also had some good tips for my own driving and I appreciate his feedback and I even put it to good use later in the day!

April 24th, 2016 - NRSCCA Solo Points #1

The weather for today was supposed to be rainy.  I woke up and it was spitting here but wasn't raining.  What little moisture did fall was sporadic at best.  I was dragging two new guys with me to the event and spent a lot of time helping them out with their first event.  As Solo Novice Adviser for the Nebraska Region, that was kind of my job! ;)  With the settings set at the same position as the T'n'T the day before, I had a good feeling about the course.  The course was a slightly modified version of the T'n'T course but run in reverse.  I had high hopes for doing well because the course was so similar.  Really the only changes were to add a less straight start to the course... in the process of doing so they made a really tight decreasing distance slalom straight off the start followed by some "quick offsets" that lead into a left hand turn, a few more quick offsets, a 180 followed by, you guessed it, more quick offsets, into a bunch of sweepers until the finish.  Simple course.

Yeaaah.... not so much.  So on the drive to Lincoln the wind was blowing the car around so I put it in comfort steering mode to save the wear and tear on the arms.... my first run was ruined by this decision.  By the way, comfort mode is awful, absolutely awful, for autocross.  It speeds up and slows down the steering assist based on what it feels is appropriate... I got it turned off before the second set of quick offsets.  It completely ruined my run.  The car was pushing something fierce in this direction.  All of the opening radius corners that made the T'n'T course fun and worth driving turned into decreasing radius pains in the butt.  This course definitely favored a much looser car setup than we had.  We were hedging our bets on National style courses and that hurt us.  We played with tire pressures and shock settings once again, finally settling on 1.5 turns from soft up front and a half turn out back.

My best run was my last run... here it is:

I apparently completely forgot how to drive between the T'n'T and this event...  I stopped backsiding cones in the slalom, I stopped backsiding critical cones that would have decreased time by a lot and my position suffered as a result of my head-up-rear driving.  Go figure right?

Justin did better:

One of the biggest differences between Justin and I in these runs (aside from him kicking my rear!) was in the third set of quick offsets, I was on the rev limiter for a solid 3 seconds, Justin had a big lift in the middle of what was a solid WOT run for me.  I think he lost some time there and that cost him first place.  His last run was actually his fastest run by a few hundredths of a second but I was in the car and there was some discussion during the run that is too distracting.  He was definitely going faster than what his final time was but had a big slide in the third set of quick offsets that caused him to basically shut down the car and ruined what was most likely a class winning time.

Brian was kind enough to send me a link to his video on YouTube.  I'll post it here for you guys to compare the runs:

Justin finished second to Brian, I finished fifth, again, with seven in class.  Hopefully the next event in May for the Nebraska Region will have a much better course design that is more like the National level courses we are used to rather than these tight gymkhana style events.  One other aspect that was negatively influencing our performance this weekend was the hot lapping we were doing.  The turn around time for us in a two driver car was between a minute thirty and two minutes.  Basically enough time to swap drivers and numbers and maybe check tire pressure.  When we upped the rear rebound it looked more like a NASCAR pitstop than an autocross event.  This put A LOT of heat into those tires that wouldn't be there at a National level event.

Also, the tires for this car are getting really heavily worn.  The fronts are at the wear bars and lack anything resembling a shoulder.  The rears look better and have a shoulder but honestly are close to being on their way out too.  I have a set of 285/35/19 RE71R's on order that will hopefully be here before Spring Nats.  The fresh tires and better course design will be extremely beneficial to our driving!  I can't wait at all!

Until next time!

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!