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  • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

    continued from above

    For some of you that know me and/or are from NASA Texas specifically, there is a big topic stemming from events after this race weekend that are obviously missing from this write-up, which I have written but decided to keep out of this build thread. It involves the track management at TWS, but I'm saving that for another time and another place - this thread doesn't need any more drama. I'm hoping some people come to their senses and these issues can be resolved privately.

    What's Next?

    We're still trying to sell the 2013 GT, and have removed the AST 4200RR coilover remote reservoir shocks and the 18x10" wheels. And before you ask, THE SHOCKS ARE ALREADY SOLD. Removing these two "big ticket" parts makes it a more affordable Mustang, but it still has the upgraded 14" front Brembo brakes, the custom front brake ducting, the Whiteline adjustable Panhard Bar, and Whiteline rear relocation brackets. We've re-installed the OEM shocks and top mounts but added Ford Racing 5300-K lowering springs, and installed the OEM 19x9" wheels and Pirelli tires from our red 2011 GT, since the stock 18x8" wheels won't fit over the bigger front brakes. The price dropped from $35K to $29.5K, and the ad is linked below.



    FFS, somebody please buy this car. If we can move this one I might be able to keep the red 2011 GT, which we would continue to use to develop more S197 parts. There's still a long list of parts we'd like to tackle, which having a car on hand would help with. I really need your help here, so please spread the word. Beautiful car, low miles, some covert track upgrades, great price. Thanks.

    Other events that are upcoming (some already completed) include:
    • Camaro vs Mustang Battle Autocross - this was the event we put on October 5th, and my write-up is coming soon.
    • Goodguys All American Sunday Autocross - October 6th at TMS, also working on this write-up
    • SCCA @ TMS Road Course Autocross - Oct 13th. Amy and I are signed up and will be racing the TT3 Mustang in this annual "road course" autocross event. Lots of fun, and we'll be giving rides on every run
    • NASA @ ECR - Nov 2-3. I am already signed up and Amy will drive as well. This is our home track and I am hoping to clinch our final track record of the year here, but it won't be easy! TT3 clas sis hugely popular and it is anyone's guess who will win that class on this weekend. We have a ton of new TT and new to HPDE drivers we've prodded into entering this event, so it should be a blast.




    Stay tuned and we'll have more racing action coverage of the TT3 Mustang soon, more S197 parts development, and other interesting bits chronicled in this thread.

    Thanks for reading,
    Last edited by Fair!; 10-10-2013, 05:29 PM.
    Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
    2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
    EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

    Comment


    • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

      Project Update for October 22, 2013: We've been to 3 more events in the red TT3 Mustang since the last update, and in this post we will cover 2 of those. I have written a lot more than that but I'm too far behind to finish the rest today, so let's go with what we have. I will have another post in this thread later this week.

      Camaro vs Mustang Battle - Autocross - Oct 5th, 2013



      So a local tuning/engine shop we recommend heavily is called True Street Motorsports. They decided to put on a big "Camaro vs Mustang" event at Texas Motorplex and enlisted Vorshlag to run the autocross portion of the event. There was drag racing, there was a car show, and there was an autocross, with 638 entrants signed up beforehand we were ready for a huge event, expecting at least 150 cars at the autocross.



      We worked with some folks in the Texas Region SCCA to bring out their trailer, cones, and timing equipment. I had Vorshlag team members plus friends that volunteered to help us set-up and run the event. We had been to the Motorplex weeks before and inspected all of their parking lots, measured them for courses, marked obstacles, and were ready for a killer event!



      Amy and I got there at 7 am, as the sun came up, and I was the first vehicle in the gate for the day with Brad driving the SCCA trailer in right behind me. With the help of the Vorshlag crew, we moved a bunch of barrels and "Caution taped" off the confines of the lot we were using. Brad and Gary from the SCCA set-up the trailer and timers while Amy and I laid out a course. I pre-drove the course in the 2013 GT and Brad made some suggestions, which we went with. Lots of helpers marked the cones and I chalked the outsides of the course.



      On the day of the event there was nearly a 100% chance of precipitation in the forecast. With mostly drag racers signed up for this event, attendance really suffered due to the rain. Less than 100 people showed up by 10 am, and we had a total of 20 run the autocross event. Oh well, the sponsors all had already paid for the site and such, so we pressed on. It was overcast when we set-up but we managed to get a good course built for the small-ish lot we had available (350 x 375 feet). I still had hopes that more folks would continue to arrive, because autocross events run rain or shine. But the main draw for the event was the drag racing, and those guys don't run in the rain, obviously. We were hoping for a portion of the drag racers to come try autocross for the first time for only $10 more. And for the most part, the folks who did run the autocross were drag racers, except for a handful of Vorshlag customers that came just for this autocross.


      "I'd like some Brake Dive with a side of wheelspin, please..."

      This was the first autocross course I have set-up in ... maybe 15 years? But its like riding a bike - you never forget. Amy and I had set-up probably 80 autocross courses when we were part of the TAMSCC club in college (and after), down in College Station. The course we came up with ended up being pretty fun, and was all 2nd gear in all of the cars that ran (no 1st gear portions, thankyouverymuch!) with about a 26 second bogey time.



      All of the Camaros were 5th generation models and all but one of the Mustangs were S197s (with one SN95 thrown in), and the Mustangs out numbered the Camaros by more than 3 to 1. We had some dry runs from 9:30 until about 11:30, then the looming cold front blew in and the course had to be shut down due to excessive winds for a few minutes. It went from humid and 85°F to a very breezy 55°F in a matter of about 15 seconds. The skies darkened and the winds blew over most of the barrels lining the edge of the course area, and blew over a dozen cones. I went scrambling out on course in one of our bikes to chase down runaway barrels before they made it over to some parked cars. We got that cleaned up, the winds calmed down, and we got back to drivers taking runs shortly after.



      Officially we gave each car 4 timed runs but due to the low turnout we allowed unlimited fun runs after their 4th, yet still ranked drivers on their first 4 runs. Most of the entrants took between 10-15 runs, with several over 25 and one Boss302 driver (Brian S, shown above) who took 37 runs! The surface was somewhat abrasive and grippy. Even in the misting precipitation that was present for about an hour, the run times didn't slow down all that much. Nobody was running for a short bit so I took our red Mustang out for 5 runs on a set of R6 tires in the wet, then Ryan swapped on the 18x10s and 295 Nitto street tires and I took another 4 runs on those, setting fast times on both set-ups, but I didn't take part in the competition. Kind of silly to enter an event we were setting up and sponsoring. I took riders on every fun run in this car, including in the video below.



      Note to self - put the windshield wipers back on! We had them off for Miller but forgot to reinstall them for this event. Ryan managed to dry the windshield before every fun run we took. Our Mustang ran flawlessly and handled exceptionally well, rotating perfectly in these damp conditions. I was testing the old set of NT-05s (that we ran at Optima in June 2012 and on several track events and autocrosses on the 2013 GT since then) which we had to use for the Goodguys autocross the next day (Sunday). I dunno... felt OK, but again, it was wet.



      Mark Council had his black 2012 GT at Vorshlag getting worked on the previous day (Friday), where we installed a new Cobra Suzuka GT seat, with a slider, harness bar and 6-point harness, using our new custom S197 seat bracket (I'll show that below). He also picked up his new 18x11" Forgestar wheels, which we had built using our custom offsets. We mounted a set of fat 315/35/18 Kumho V710 race tires to these wheels and he ended up setting the fastest time of the day with a 23.944 second lap, leading "Team Mustang" by a solid 9 tenths. The top time in a Camaro was a 26.337, Matt Coate driving in a 2011 Camaro SS on street tires. The results for the Mustang vs Camaro event are below.




      After a short 30 minute break for lunch at noon we started back up at 12:30 and had a steady stream of cars on course. By 1 pm we'd had the last few stragglers arrive, get teched by Vorshlag's Ryan, take their 4 official runs plus several fun runs, and had their picture taken on course by Vorshlag's Brandon. So after a 20 minute heads up we wrapped things up at 2 pm, then took another hour picking up the course, taking down the timers/display, and loading the SCCA trailer. Big thanks to the SCCA folks for joining us in this event, that we thought would bring in some new autocrossers. And even with only 20 entrants we had some good "newbie retention", with several of these first timers showing up at the next SCCA autocross (which I will cover below).


      In-car video spliced with some external video of the TT3 Mustang running this course in the wet

      Sure, it was a short course (23-26 second times) but it was very easy to see, it was fun and flowed well, we had no DNFs and very few cones were hit - even though we used a LOT of cones for the size of the lot and length of course. We did have a few folks that walked the course early on, but due to the nature of the event (drag racers would come over in waves after they made some 1/4 mile passes, so most did NOT walk the course) we needed an easy to see course. We also had to make the course route around 2 big light poles, a number of dips and bumps on the surface, and a building in the corner of the lot, but it was still super safe and everyone seemed to have a ball. When you get people taking 10-30+ fun runs I think you can say they liked it.



      One thing that was different about this event, other than the massive number of fun runs, was that competitors did not have to work, which is normally a part of most autocross events. The entrants become volunteers, mostly used to shag cones during run heats they are not racing. But we had it covered, with the two folks from SCCA and the four of us from Vorshlag. We had Amy as the starter, one and sometimes two corner workers (and used a bicycle to get cones too far away), a guy teching cars all day, an announcer, timing operator, and a floater. We had a few friends help with set-up and tear down, but for the most part these 6 people did the bulk of the set-up and run the event. It was a lot of hard work, of course, but I'm glad we didn't have to resort to getting competitors to work corners and all of that. Trying to wrangle corner worker is like trying to herd cats - nobody likes to do it, and these folks had other things going on that day (drag racing + car show stuff). I suspect the next autocross some of these first timers go to after this will be like, "Wait, I have to WORK, too?"

      We didn't get a chance to take part in the other activities going on at this "Battle" event, as we were working the autocross all day, but the drag racing portion ran for a couple of hours off and on. We would look up and see/hear the cars blasting down the 1/4 mile strip off and on that day, with big breaks during the two small bouts of misting rain. I believe I saw 3 cars in the car show area when we went by at lunch, too. I think this entire event might have a rain date for a total re-do, but I'm not sure when it is yet (mid November, maybe?). We've got enough events going on during the rest of this year where we won't likely be able to sponsor the autocross again, but maybe next year. It would help everyone involved if they had paid pre-registrations (fewer folks will skip the event that way, relative 500+ Facebook invite "yes" acknowledgements that bailed) and boost attendance, and maybe hold it at a facility that has a better autocross lot (Crandall!). If so, maybe we can be a part of this Camaro vs Mustang event again? We'll see how it looks if they do another one in 2014.

      continued below
      Last edited by Fair!; 10-22-2013, 04:01 PM.
      Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
      2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
      EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

      Comment


      • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

        Goodguys All American Sunday Autocross - October 6th at TMS

        The very next day that same weekend we had another autocross we wanted to attend. This was the 21st Lone Star Nationals put on by Goodguys, October 4-6, at Texas Motor Speedway. These weekends are really tailored to the hot rod/street rod/car show crowd, with all sorts of car shows, a swap meet, and much more. But in the past few years there has been a big push to include some sort of competition events for the hopped up muscle cars called "G-machines". Most of the places they hold Goodguys weekends don't have the capacity to do road courses, and the speeds and safety issues are higher in that form of competition, so they have adopted a form of autocrossing at most of their events.

        Now I use that word loosely, as the Goodguys autocrosses are unlike any other I have ever seen in the 25+ years I have been competing in these events. Goodguys events are usually run on much smaller parking lots and the courses are notoriously TIGHT. They are closer to a gymkhana than anything else, but its all good. This time I at least knew what to expect, unlike at 2012's Hot Rod Power Tour "Optima Challenge" event, when I was shocked to do the entire autocross event there in 1st gear in our Mustang. But I won that event, and this particular Goodguys weekend was the 8th and final Optima Challenge Qualifier for 2013 - and it was right in our back yard - so we had to go.



        Not complaining about the course design, just want anyone that goes to these events to know what to expect - tight, ultra low speed events with a LOT of cones, and a different level of competitiveness than the typical SCCA type of autocross. Number of runs might vary, cone rules can vary from run to run, etc. It isn't really about the competition, per se, but more about showing that these muscle cars and hot rods aren't trailer queens - they are driven, and driven hard. Which is VERY cool and I applaud the event organizers for making these autocross events part of their weekends.

        The other good part of a Goodguys autocross - the participants don't have to work course. Just like at the event we put on the day before. Racers notoriously HATE working and running to shag cones on course, by the way. Many folks would much rather pay more to NOT have to be an event volunteer at their competition events. I've participated in hundreds of autocross events over the years but I can count the events where racers DIDN'T have to work at the event on one hand, and I remember each one vividly. Kind of speaks for itself that those stick out in my mind, doesn't it? Competitors don't have to work at HPDE, Time Trial and W2W events, either. Just sayin...


        Left: The LS1 powered Genesis Coupe Blanton Payne ran on Sunday. Right: The Mini that Blanton drove Fri-Sat, and he and 2 other drivers also drove on Sunday

        Anyway, so Ryan swapped the 200 treadwear 295mm tires and wheels onto our Mustang at the end of the Mustang vs Camaro event, reloaded the trailer, and we drove out to Texas Motor Speedway early on Sunday. We couldn't pre-register, so we had to go to the "race hotel" nearby and register between 7 am and noon. We got there at 7 (after dodging some wacky road construction detours) and we tried to sign up with 2 drivers, to better our chances. The Goodguys weekends don't allow anything newer than 1972 model cars to compete in the autocross events held all 3 days of their event weekends... except on Sunday, in an event specifically for 1973-newer American cars or American powered cars. Entry fee is $40, and we were prepared to pay $80 to get both drivers entered, but they said "that isn't needed, just take turns driving". Huh? Really? We both want to race... "No, you're fine, just enter once". OK.


        Couple of Ride Tech Pro class cars, including the Factory Five replica 32 Ford monster and a beastly truck bodied racer

        But they wouldn't let us in with our truck and enclosed trailer, crap. ALL of our autocross and track gear is loaded in there, and we had a giant cooler full of drinks, tools, chairs, sunscreen, rain gear, etc. We found the remote parking lot we were supposed to park the truck and trailer in, located outside of the track. Then we unloaded the car and tried to stash as much of our gear in the trunk and back seat of the Mustang, then drove in to the autocross lot way in the back of the infield paddock area.



        It was being held in a smallish, fenced in parking lot I didn't even know existed at TMS, and I've raced inside there many times. We parked and went to walk the course. It was as I expected - SUPER TIGHT, with concrete barriers less than 10 feet from the edge of the course in several places. Knife fight in a phone booth. The lot and layout would give SCCA Safety Chiefs spasms and fits, but its normal for a Goodguys autocross. You are expected to drive in control, and if you don't, you are responsible for the damage. We had some rain overnight and it was seeping up between cracks in the asphalt, but I expected it to dry. As soon as we walked it Amy said "No way, YOU are driving all of the runs."

        We were unsure how the event would run, so I asked some folks there that I knew. Turns out we knew a bunch of people who were either competing in the "All American Challenge" or that were just making runs in the cars that competed on Friday and Saturday. Yes, they let anyone that was paid up for the autocross from any of the 3 days make runs, which meant the Sunday competitors would be getting fewer runs. I was told the competition would be from about 9:30 or 10 am until 12:30, then they'd stop the competition but continue to take fun runs until about 2 pm. If Amy were to drive with our single entry, we'd have to split our runs, as the cars are run through in order, and make one run, then you park and wait your next turn. It seemed like the competition part was almost secondary, and I was really just hoping for an Optima invite - which doesn't necessarily go to the fastest cars at any Optima Qualifier, as we noticed last year.



        Amy and I took a couple of walk-thrus and tried to memorize the somewhat complicated course, much of which was run twice in a given run, with 2 different "changes in course" portions that you had to remember to do in the right order. The video below might explain the course better. In this, my 2nd of 3 total runs, you can see how many times I shift from 2nd back to 1st (3 times per run), and how little traction I had with the year old Nitto NT-05 tires. I had planned on bringing the Mustang on a fresh set of 315/30/18 BFG Rivals, but my racing budget just didn't allow for it, and I kind of figured that winning wouldn't really matter much.



        My first run was tough, as the width of the splitter barely fit through some sections of the course, and I kicked a cone with the splitter on one of the 1st gear turn-arounds. My second run (video above) still felt pretty rough to me, and was riddled with mistakes, but it was at least clean. The car felt so wide and there was ZERO traction leaving the line, plus the front end was pushing HORRIBLY in the higher speed (35 mph in 2nd gear) super tight right-hander that I had to navigate twice per run. Had to crawl around the course, super conservative, to keep from mowing down the tight bits.

        Somehow that 2nd run put me in the lead, with a 71.82 sec time. That made the on rush of people stopping by step up even more, with tons of questions about the racey bits they could see. I kept reiterating that this was a street car, with A/C, interior, emissions, and tags. There were several of the muscle car "Pros" running that had mega prepped engines and even one re-bodied NASCAR chassis, but the Mustang looked more like a race car, even though it really wasn't all that fast on this crazy tight course.


        No helmet? No problem. Concrete barriers? Fences a little close? Don't hit 'em.

        My 3rd run came around and I had another passenger (took riders on runs 1 and 3), and somehow I managed to go into THIRD gear on one run, meaning to grab 1st. That run was cleaner and faster, up until that point, and I lost a lot of time re-shifting the car once I figured out the problem. It was a hair slower than my 2nd, with the mega-screw-up in there. And sure enough, someone who had been driving all 3 days snuck in a quicker run on the 3rd and final run group, driving his wife's Camaro ZL-1 automatic convertible. Beat me by .01 seconds, oh well.



        Turns out there was a FREE SET OF BFG TIRES on the line for the winner, which I didn't learn about until after my 3rd run. What?! Knowing this up front I would have taken the day a WHOLE lot more seriously - with no passengers, more walk-thrus, and maybe even ponied up for real tires. These old Nittos were shot, and I knew it before I got there. Stupid, stupid, stupid...



        I should have known about the potential tire winnings, because as it turns out that was all I had the hope of winning - as I had zero chance of getting the Optima Invite. I talked to the Optima rep who was there picking the one car (he picked this Ford Maverick for the final 2013 qualifier before the 10 picks he will get from the floor at SEMA), and he said "the Mustang just looks too much like a race car". The wing and front aero along with the stripes and graphics were just too much. So the chances of going to the Optima Shootout after SEMA for this car were squashed, but he did tell me what they are looking for. I'll try to build our E46 LS1 Alpha car more explicitly for this type of event in 2014, now that I know what to do and what NOT to do to a car.

        After our 3rd runs the line for the drivers wanting to get on course got really long, as more and more drivers from Friday and Saturday kept pouring in all day to take fun runs. And the Pro drivers kept hopping back in line, over and over, so this meant the competition for the All American Sunday event would end with 3 runs. We could have stuck around for fun runs, but I was so pissed at myself for throwing away a free set of tires by blowing a shift, Amy grabbed me and made me walk around the car show areas to blow off steam. And we found out later that if Amy would have paid for that second entry (like we tried to do) that we could have hopped back into rotation twice as many times as I drove. It was... kind of a free for all, but that's how they do their events, so I'm not going to knock it. Just wish I had done a bit more research and prep (pulling the splitter off would have cut 8" of width from the front of the car!) before signing up.


        Mike Dusold's very well built twin turbo LS1 '67 Camaro was brutally fast on 315mm Rivals

        We walked the swap meet area very briefly, and not seeing anything we could want moved to the car show area. There were some beautiful cars there, and several kick ass 60s/70s muscle cars that I can relate to, but mostly things I cannot comprehend or understand. Air bags and 30" wheels and acres of chrome. By now it was getting towards 1:30 pm and we were starving, so we went back to the autocross area and packed up all of our junk and headed for the tunnel leaving the track. Before we left I talked to some friends, congratulated Mike Dusold for winning the day before in his twin turbo LS1 '67 Camaro and snagging the invite to the Scottsdale Goodguys Nationals, and away we went. We were already exhausted from the event the day before and really wanted to get home and rest before heading to work early Monday morning.


        Left: The Mustang drew a fairly large crowd all day. Right: SCCA autocrosser Norm snapped a pic of me and Amy

        All in all, the Goodguys weekends are pretty cool, and there is some amazing machinery there, but their Sunday autocross deal is not really targeted to people like me. The autocross format is too different than what I'm used to; the safety requirements (no helmets, course barriers) and course layout were so far removed from a "normal" SCCA autocross that it became a distraction. But they had a good announcer talking up the competitors, a big crowd watching and cheering all day, and it was still fun.

        Results: https://good-guys.com/lsn-ac-13 (note: all other class results were from different days)
        Photo gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...ys-TMS-100613/

        After missing out on winning a set of tires by .01 seconds, due to some stupid driving mistakes and showing up on absolute crap tires (when will I ever learn?!), plus the "no chance" for an Optima invite, I was in a foul mood. But even a bad day racing beats a good day at work, right? At this event I did find out that Amy really likes the looks and lines of the old muscle cars and she wants us to build a g-machine from an old Mustang fastback "some day". I'm definitely down with that. I grew up building muscle cars when I was a wee lad back in high school, so these cars are already part of my past. One thing I might suggest for anyone thinking about entering and/or building a car for these Goodguys events - don't skimp on tires (build around a 315mm BFG Rival), gear the car for 10-35 mph events, and add some extra steering lock for navigating SUPER tight turns. Keep the car narrow and keep the car light.


        Some of the cars from the show car area included some of the Pro class autocross crowd

        After we left we were both so tired we just wanted to go home and sleep. Which we did for most of the afternoon. Luckily TMS is less than an hour from our house so we were home by 3 pm. Just wanted to mention that the track itself was very nice, with clean bathrooms, good food, and friendly staff directing us at the gate and inside.

        More Soon

        I've got several more posts written but I need to stop here to post. I should have another post on Friday, with coverage of an SCCA autocross held on the TMS Infield Road Course and hopefully a link to the auction for the Mustang. One more big event on the schedule for the TT3 Mustang, NASA @ ECR, Nov 2-3. Then both Mustangs will be likely sold.

        More soon,
        Last edited by Fair!; 04-02-2014, 03:49 PM.
        Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
        2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
        EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

        Comment


        • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

          Project Update for Oct 30th, 2013: It is that day I have dreaded... the eBay auctions are live for both our TT3 prepped 2011 Mustang GT and our 2013 GT. Don't want to sell either car, especially the 2011, but the business craves cash. We're trying to get into a bigger building next year and I've got too much capital tied up in cars. The 2011 GT is obviously set-up for TT3 use, in likely its fastest iteration yet for the past 3+ years, but it is also street legal. The 2013 GT was taken back as close to stock as I care to get it, with more details shown in the eBay auctions for both cars.

          I have spent close to 30 hours over the past week writing, laying out, editing and coding the auction pages for these two cars. I've read through these pages so many times my eyes are bugging out, so please don't point out any more of my spelling or grammar errors, heh. The guys at the shop did a great job cleaning up the cars, taking the pictures, and helping me edit these pages.



          The eBay auction for the Vorshlag TT3 Mustang is now underway. This is one of the fastest street legal S197 Mustangs on track in the country. Please click the image above so get to the auction. You can come see this car in action one last time this weekend at Eagles Canyon Raceway, Friday-Sunday, where Amy and I will be racing with NASA and looking for track record #8 for the year. Auction duration is 7 days and ends on Nov 6th. The bidding action has been very steady today on this one...



          If our TT3 prepped 2011 GT is too racey for you, Vorshlag is also selling our super clean and mostly stock 2013 GT in another eBay auction. This black on black 6-spd car has under 6K miles, is lowered on 5300-P springs, has a few Whiteline parts, and comes with the 14" Brembo front brakes and 19x9" OEM wheels. Take a look at the eBay auction which also began Oct 30th and also ends Nov 6th. Good number of bids on this car as well.

          That's all I have for today. And before you ask (again) we are moving these two Mustangs out to make room for the upcoming "S550" 2015 Mustang GT, which we hope to have early next Spring. We are NOT abandoning the S197 chassis and might pick up another next year to use for continued development. We still have a LOT of items we will be creating for this chassis and we still work on 5-10 different S197s per week in our shop. I will be adding to this build thread for years to come, don't worry. I still have the TMS Road Course autocross to cover plus a bunch of new parts we have added to our website or are about to release. There will be more posts next week.

          One quick request: if you liked reading about this 2011 and 2013 GTs, please go to the Vorshlag Facebook page (here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vorshlag/460717830112), like the page (almost at a "milestone" number), then find the two posts I made for these S197 eBay auctions and "like" those as well. If you could share either or both that really helps spread the word.

          Thanks,
          Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
          2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
          EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

          Comment


          • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

            Project Update for November 25, 2013: Wow, really got swamped for the past few weeks and haven't made an update to this thread, and a lot has gone on in the background. We were short 3 people during the week of SEMA, hired a new Ops Manager, and got swamped in service jobs and orders in the past week. So please excuse the tardy updates. Let's see... I will talk about our last autocross in the red 2011 GT, which was the annual "TMS Road Course" autocross event. I will then touch on the eBay auctions on both S197 test mules and what's next.

            SCCA @ TMS Road Course Autocross - Oct 13th

            Before this autocross event in October we had about 3 weeks of busy time at the shop. The Mustang did so well at TWS all we did was change the oil (which we do after every other event) and do a typical "pre-race inspection". The guys ended up leaving the brakes, wheels, tires and other systems untouched.

            For whatever reason the racing schedule was pretty light in October this year. There was no NASA event this month (but two in September, with Miller Nats and TWS), so Amy and I signed up for this SCCA Solo event on the 13th in the TT3 Mustang. This was no run of the mill autocross but instead the annual "road course autocross" event this region runs inside the super speedway at Texas Motor Speedway, on the infield road course (see image below).


            Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth, Texas, has a NASCAR/IndyCar super speedway plus an itty bitty infield road course.

            If you've been reading this build thread for a while you might remember that I ran this road course in our Mustang in September of 2012 with Global Time Attack. The course we ran with GTA was the same basic 1.56 mile layout (the red course in that link) as this autocross followed, but it was done at MUCH faster speeds with GTA, because they didn't add elements to this flat road course to slow us down. That GTA event was a lot of fun, and we met a lot of cool racers and saw some amazing cars. We were all sorely disappointed that GTA couldn't come back to TMS in 2013. A few local shops are working with us to try to get Jason Dienhart and his GTA circus to come back through Texas next year, and we even have proposed a "GTA" type class to run in NASA Texas TT, as a provisional/regional class. More on that in a later post.


            Running this road course.... as a road course, in Sept 2012 with GTA

            So with GTA I ran a 39.87 second lap (with my transponder off) and an official 39.975 lap to win Unlimited RWD class, but this autocross set-up would not be a complete lap of the 1.56 mile road course. It would instead have a separate Start and Finish gates that chopped off about a 1/4 mile of track, to allow for a braking area after the finish lights. And at GTA I was topping out 4th gear going into turn 1 (about 120 mph) and using only 3rd and 4th gears. To keep it from being a 25 second long autocross course with speeds much higher than SCCA allows, there were a few (hundred) cones added. But we knew what to expect, as Amy and I have run this event with the Texas Region SCCA many times over the past 7 or 8 years.


            Amy pulls up to the start line, which just before the "crossover" and the start/finish line we used in GTA

            This "TMS road course autocross" event is always lots of fun for area autocrossers, and they have to cap the entries at about 165. This event gives autocross racers a place to run outside of the normal parking lot confines, and on a real live road course at that. Autocrossing on a road course might seem alien to some, but I started out in an autocross club (TAMSCC) that regularly held high speed autocrosses on road courses (TWS "Aggiecross", Riverside Annex Firecracker 1.4, Riverside 4-10 split "Police Course", etc). Then running with Spokes down in Houston (Heritage Center!) or SCCA in Houston (at the Blimp Base, now known as GrandSport Speedway) I was exposed to even more road course autocrosses. So I was event chairman for these "road course" events multiple times and made hundreds of runs on autocrosses where we regularly used 4th gear, so it only seems natural to me to autocross on the biggest, fastest sites and road courses you can find. This is why I cringe so hard when I run needlessly tight autocross events, like what Goodguys holds (1st gear only). That stuff is what is alien to me.


            Giant, open, fast autocrosses run on road course sized layouts are what I grew up on. My ESP '87 Mustang back in 1992

            Sure, this TMS event has a little extra speed (high 70s/low 80s for the faster cars), but it is still nowhere near what the unrestricted course would let them see (I only used 1st-2nd-3rd gears on this course in autocross form). And it is still relatively safe, as autocrosses go. I wish more SCCA autocross regions tried this type of road course event once a year or so, to help bridge the MASSIVE gap that there seems to be between autocrossers and club racers. We constantly hear that the SCCA is hemorrhaging members and much of that is from their dwindling numbers of club racers, as there seems to be very little new blood coming into their ranks. The PDX series (SCCA version of HPDE + Time Trial) is one such bridge between these two competitive groups within SCCA, but it seems that the rules makers have made it extremely difficult (read: expensive) to do PDX events, requiring the same safety gear ($$$) as club racing in many classes. I've begged our SCCA region's officers to come join us at a NASA race weekend to see how that club has made the switch from HPDE to TT to Club Racing so seamless and painless... but that's a different discussion for a different time.


            Amy (at left) ran in W class in the Mustang, battling her best friend Melinda in her BSP C4 Corvette (at right)

            Anyway, this TMS road course autocross is always on our calendar, and considering our plans for 2014 and the upcoming auction of this TT3 Mustang, we had planned to make this our last autocross in the red car. Looking back over the past 3 and a half years of racing in this Mustang, from where we started out (with our initial plans just to autocross this car in STX, where it floundered) to where it ended up (built for and around NASA TT rules, where it flourished), having our last autocross in it at a road course seems strangely appropriate.

            All day long Amy and I both gave ride-alongs on our autocross runs. Amy ran in the Women's class (so she could support the class which she kind of helped set-up a couple of years ago) and I again ran in the "X" pro class. I don't consider myself a "Pro" but rather I just run in this PAX factored "catch all" class when the heat schedule balances out. The PAX factor for StreetMod class (where this TT3 car happens to end up) is terrible and I had no illusions of winning this class, especially with as tight as this course is usually run, but I had hope that Amy could do well.


            This was the first SCCA event we ran with the new splitter and flares. The Mustang had a huge crowd around it all day, with a line for ride-alongs

            Event Photo Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...tober-13-2013/
            Event Class Results: http://www.texasscca.org/2013_solo_r...13_8_final.htm
            Event PAX Results: http://www.texasscca.org/2013_solo_r...tr13_8_pax.htm

            This event had some sketchy overcast weather with some spitting, misty rain off and on all day. It made for a slick surface, and in my in-car video where it looks like the front end is pushing out and the rear is loose, well, it was because it was always just a little bit wet. The tires we ran on that day were the old A6 Hoosiers that we well and truly used up at TWS with NASA TT (we can kill a set of new A6 tires at a NASA TT weekend in about 20-30 laps), and not what I'd even remotely call fresh. But for an event we were just running for fun, this was a perfect use for that last little bit of rubber.

            As you know we have been concentrating on NASA finishes in 2013, so we've not taken SCCA autocross competition/tires/classing seriously at all, and as a result I've been a lot happier, heh. Honestly, for what we need to do with our test mules here at Vorshlag, running our cars around NASA's somewhat open TT ruleset allows us the freedom to build and test parts that more people will want to use, so we will likely stick to this plan in the future (that means: don't look for our 2015 Mustang to be running in ESP class). We also ran our normal Carbotech XP20 track duty pads, which do NOT work cold, so the first runs on cold brakes are pretty much throw-aways. Last excuse for the day: since I was running in "X" class, only my first 3 runs are counted (they DSQ all of the runs after the 3rd, just for this class), so my fastest run (4th) didn't count for the class or in the PAX results.


            Left: Slaloms for Safety! Right: Coming into the finish

            That is a shame, since I dropped some time on my 4th run, which would have PAXed about around 6th overall. Instead I was PAXed in 9th, kind of goofing around, on old junk tires and using the painful StreetMod PAX factor (.867). With ESP's .849 PAX factor (this car is a LOT closer to ESP than SMod) my clean 4th run would have been 3rd fastest PAX time out of 162 entries, but whatever... that's just bench racing. Yes, I have difficulty switching off that competition gene at SCCA events... I'm hoping over time I will care even less.

            In my humble opinion, the course designers use too many cones when they do their road course autocross event at TMS, and they make some of the "slow down" elements EXTREMELY tight. I guess to make it "safe", but the black helicopters make me think it is to keep higher powered/track worthy cars from PAXing well, ha! There were some of the same "Miata straights" that I had to come to a stop in (where a narrow car can take almost flat out), and there were plenty of slaloms and typical "chicanes for safety" course design elements, which inadvertently ends up allowing cars to have spins that can seldom (but predictably) lead into concrete walls. Which happened again, like clockwork. I'm not just saying this to be a complainer, but to offer up some alternatives. "Speed doesn't kill". What causes incidents are big changes in direction in higher speed sections near immobile elements. Whenever I see slaloms or huge offsets into a finish or near a fence or wall, a red flag goes off in my brain. And when they try to slow down cars with big offsets on a straight away near a concrete wall, I can predict with nearly 100% accuracy that somebody is gonna smack it.


            This element was entered at nearly 80 mph, after a super tight offset, into this super tight box. Which wrecks the flow of this road course

            Sure, it is easy to "Monday Morning Quarterback" this difficult and unusual event they hold each year, but I am actually going to try help do something about it. A few of us are working on a possible new/different road course to procure for 2014 or 2015, for this annual autocross. Why? Because I've set up about a dozen of these super high speed autocross events in the past, have set up over 80 autocross courses in total, and have run on virtually every road course in Texas for dozens to hundreds of laps on each. With some other like minded autocross/time trial racers I think we can ferret out something that is safe for an autocross yet still keeps the flow and flavor of a road course. More on that as things develop.

            continued below
            Last edited by Fair!; 11-26-2013, 12:47 PM.
            Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
            2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
            EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

            Comment


            • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

              continued from above



              I ran in the 1st heat, Amy ran in the 3rd heat, and we both worked in the timing trailer in 2nd heat. I was announcer, trying to give the spectators a good show, and Amy worked the timing computer. When I got the car to grid I aired up the tires - I finally brought an air tank to an autocross event and used it, so my first run I actually had enough tire pressure for once. We had walked this 1.4 mile course once and I knew it would drive tight, but this was a new level of tight. Almost every year that they have run this course there has been a small "incident" or two, so the next year they just make the elements tighter and nastier, to the point where it was this year where I could barely fit through some gates. I clipped a cone on run 1 and set-up to make a clean "Safety" pass for run 2, which is shown below with in-car video.


              click image above for in-car video of Terry's 2nd 46.286 second run

              There are some mistakes in that run, as always, but it was mostly decent and had no cones. Again, it was a bit damp and slippery all day, and with nearly bald A6s, driving the car was a constant dance on the head of a pin. I had a first-time-spectator riding along, who had an absolute blast. The last section before the finish is super tight and I had to downshift to 2nd gear to get the car to rotate enough to make the finish. It led to some significant wheelspin, but it was controllable. My 3rd run was much of the same, and was quicker up to the finish area, but the self-induced wheelspin was a bit much and I let it get a bit too sideways... so I took a little off-course excursion to avoid hitting the finish lights or any cones. Again, violent changes in direction right at a finish is a sure fire way to have some car collect the timing lights, which happens more than people think. I knew the car was heading for the lights so when it was sideways and beyond the point of staying off the cones/lights, I cranked in more steering to keep it out of harm's way, avoiding even a cone smack but touching the dirt with two tires. Oh well.


              A little induced oversteer was used to navigate the super tight finish section. Twin stripes of rubber can be seen behind the car

              After I got the inner hoonigan out of my system I took a more controlled 4th run, which doesn't count in X class. This time I didn't do any stupid "downshift at the finish" and jut let the motor bog in 3rd gear, and of course it was clean and 3 tenths faster than my 2nd run, even with a tick more moisture coming down. While I got pummeled in the PAX factored X class (6th of 13) my 2nd run time as still 9th in PAX overall, like I said above. I had fun but felt the extreme tightness of the elements on this course was unnecessary. I do hope local autocrossers who go to this event that have never done an HPDE or track event don't equate this course to how track events really feel. And I don't complain just to complain - I honestly think this type of autocross event could be held at a better road course venue and not need anywhere near as many cones to stay safe.



              I got to ride along with Melinda in the BSP C4 Corvette above. Wow, that thing was FAST. This is a dedicated BSP autocross car that won BSP at Nationals in back in like 2005 or so? It uses 315/335mm Hoosier A6s and has an LT4 swap. Total grip machine with more than enough power. We're building a C4 Corvette track car for a customer at the shop right now, and these models are a real bargain at the moment - if you don't mind working on 25+ year old cars. Sadly, this circa-1984 Corvette suspension is light years ahead of the McStrut/stick axle Mustangs. Even though I barely edged out Jason McCall (Melinda's husband and a good friend of mine) in X class (due to his cone trouble), his raw times were a good bit faster. I've owned and raced C4 Corvettes in the past and these C4s make terrible street cars, in case you were wondering.



              Amy ran in the 3rd of 4 heats, and she was pretty dang close on my heels with a 46.337 sec 3rd run (only a tenth back from my official fastest run), also taking passengers each time. Well, if you ignore my clean 4th run of a 45.968 (no good for X class), which was a little quicker. Still, she managed to wring a lot out of the car with very little autocross seat time in the past couple of months. She won the "W" class, and either of us would have won StreetMod by 2 seconds or ESP by 4 seconds. She ran "W" simply to support the regional class she helped create a couple of years ago. I normally have to beg her to run in a "Ladies class".

              After removing the AST remote reservoir double adjustable shocks from the 2013 GT we made some new fliers and brought it to the TMS event to show off to potential buyers, before the auction started. Hundreds of people drove by this car but we were never there to answer any questions. I think 2 fliers were taken, yay...



              As much as I have complained about the pinched and erratic course design used on this road course, which I'm sure the Safety Stewards are dictating much of at this point, this event was still a LOT of fun. The Texas Region folks ran everything like clockwork and even with 162 entrants and 4 runs each the entire event was wrapped up by 4:30 pm.

              Since Amy and had worked early and both had our runs over after the 3rd heat, we loaded up the Red Mustang, stowed our gear in the trailer and were on the road out by 3:30 pm. It was a fun day and normally I would have stuck around to watch 4th heat, but the weather was just so "blah", and we were tired from working the past 3 weeks in our normal "7 days a week" schedule at the shop, so we headed out during the 4th heat. We ate some good lunch with the McCall's at a California Pizza Kitchen on the way home, then crashed out for the rest of the day.

              From Auctions To Classified Ads

              So it has been a couple of weeks since both of the eBay auctions ended on our black 2013 GT and the red TT3 prepped 2011 GT. Neither car made reserve but I think it was mostly timing. November is a terrible month traditionally in the aftermarket, and it is known by "Slowvember". I should have known better trying to auction cars this month, heh. Anyway, we've relaunched both auctions to regular classified ads, linked below. I've actually "sold" the black 2013 GT four times over, but due to flaky buyers the deals have all fallen through. Don't get me started...




              Anyone that is looking for either type of car, please call us at the shop (972-422-7170). I'm not desperate to sell them at some fire sale price, and please refrain from asking for us to part them out - we're not to that point yet, and hopefully won't get there. I would like to move both of these by the end of the year, of course.

              What's Next?

              I am going to stop there, as there's still a lot to cover on the TT3 car (and I have a lot more written) but I've waited too long since my last post. In my next thread update we will cover the NASA race weekend at Eagles Canyon Raceway Nov 2-3rd, which went well but was also a bit frustrating in a few ways (which I will explain in detail) for the TT3 car. Double win, new personal best, new track record, and 4 tires won... but the class was fierce (biggest TT class both days) and 2nd place was closer than ever!



              I also got to finally drive an S197 Mustang on track with MCS TT1 singles, which were amazing. This customer daily drives her car and tracks it 2+ times a month, and this damper set-up was amazing. I drove her car previously on the stock shocks with camber plates and this was a night and day difference. I got to take about 6 laps at speed at ECR with the owner riding along, and there is video with data and timing on it we are going to try to share. We've also made some progress and updated our ST2 BMW E36 LS1 built thread (and added it to the NASA forums), which is going to be our "tweener" race car after this TT3 2011 Mustang and before the 2015 Mustang arrives.



              We are going to run the TT3 Mustang on track one more time, to test a fix to the throttle body circuit (which I will explain in my next post - the guys are swapping out throttle bodies today). So if you are in or near Dallas/Ft. Worth and want a ride in a 1:55 car at ECR - and especially if you are interested in buying this car - come out to the ECR Toy Run December 7th (see details here). This is also the least expensive track day of the year, and all proceeds benefit two good causes, so come out, bring something with 4 wheels, and join in the fun!

              Thanks for reading,
              Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
              2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
              EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

              Comment


              • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

                Project Update for December 2nd, 2013: After the October TMS road course autocross the next event on our race schedule wasn't for three whole weeks. The gaps between race weekends are getting longer as the season winds down. Of course I had something going on every weekend day between these events, but at least not any races. We were wrapping up the last of the work on the 2011 GT, both for this season ending NASA weekend at ECR as well as before the car would (hopefully) be sold an upcoming eBay auction (it wasn't). We were slammed at the shop during this 3 week break but we made time to finish the pre-race prep a few days before the Nov 2-3 race weekend, where we pick up below.



                While the shop was working on getting the car ready, Brandon made the new TT race map for ECR, shown above. We took the satellite image and found that the old 2008 track map we had been using for years was not drawn to scale. Our new ECR track map (above right) is not perfect but a lot closer to reality than the old map. We marked the "bunch up" and "go" green zones and marked the corner numbers the same as always, then made 40+ copies for the Time Trial racers to use in our meetings.

                Pre-ECR Race Prep

                This was the last NASA competition event we had planned for this car, so we worked hard to wrap up any unfinished projects and upgrades before we went to ECR. This included tweaks to the flares, brakes, and rear diff catch can system.



                Jason worked on the flares, wrapping our black ABS work in red vinyl that matched the factory Race Red paint. Then he cut new stripes fore the sides and with Brandon's help they re-applied the strips to the flare section. This made them look less ugly than they did before, and was something we should have made time to do before going to Miller or TWS in the last few months.

                Ryan re-routed the lines for the oil catch can/vacuum recovery system after seeing the hoses keep flattening out from a high vacuum condition. We've been chasing the correct routing for this system for months, and the way some Ford guys told us to do it wasn't working (they set-up these cars simply as an external breather, but we wanted to pull a slight vacuum on the crankcase). The vacuum source we were using was too strong, though, and sucking the hoses flat. We punted and temporarily just turned this system into a vented catch can system without vacuum (which we fixed after this race weekend; I will show that in my next post).



                As I mentioned at Miller, the front Brembo calipers on this car have seen at least 100 cycles on and off the car. We used to swap rotors and pads between a street/autocross set-up and the track-only stuff. So some of the threaded mounting holes were starting to wear and had to be repaired (helicoil). We had picked up a spare set of new Brembo calipers to have on hand "just in case", and the Thursday before this weekend's events the guys in our shop were bleeding a little fluid through the calipers when one of the threaded hole for the banjo bolt/brake hose finally stripped. It was time to replace the front calipers (we had replaced the rears when we went to the 13.8" GT500 rotors out back), so they put on the new set and stuck the old ones in the "spares" pile to be rebuilt (for the 3rd time) and to have the stripped hole re-tapped and helicoiled.



                Once the new Brembo front calipers were swapped on (along with new brake pad pins and clips + the existing Carbotech pads that we used at Miller & TWS), the rest of the car was "nut and bolted" and inspected closely. One change was made to the routing of the diff vent tube overflow line and that system was buttoned up. The "AGM" style, 14 pound Odyssey PC680 battery was charged up (its starting to get tired after 3 years of street and track use, so we will finally replace it after this next race weekend) and the car went into the trailer with all of our gear. We loaded the car on a well worn set of 315/30/18 Hoosier R6 tires but a fresh sticker set of A6s were mounted and balanced onto the "white" showcar wheels and those were loaded in the trailer, to hopefully be installed Friday night at the end of our planned test day.

                ECR Test Day, Friday Nov 1st, 2013 - Day 1 of 3

                With the trailer loaded I picked up Ryan at the shop at 7 am on Friday morning and we towed the 70 miles out to ECR, in heavy morning commute traffic. The plan was to get there around 8, find a good paddock spot for the weekend, unload the car, unhook the trailer, run some laps and tweak the set-up for a few hours, then swap on the A6 tire set at the end of the day, stuff the car back inside the trailer for the night, and head back to the shop in the truck. If all went well we'd come attack the NASA weekend on Saturday morning in TT3, already set-up and with me "mentally ready" to put in my best laps in an early session. Getting there Friday would also ensure we had a better paddock space for the weekend. I took a few (crappy) pictures with camera phone, and had the Nikon ready for use by Ryan, but there is not much photo coverage of this Friday test day.... because everything went pear shaped.



                We actually got there by 8:30am (morning traffic was murder) but the weather was absolutely beautiful (the area had gotten 3 inches of rain the two days previous, though, so it was very muddy off track!); low 60s with plenty of sun and breeze. We unloaded the Mustang and I noticed that the fuel gauge was almost on "E". Hmm, that was a mistake at the shop. :/ Should have fueled it up before it was loaded. We looked in the trailer and only had one spare fuel jug, which was of course empty, for mistake number two. Oh well, no worries - the track has 4 grades of fuel at their pumps... right?



                Wrong. The pumps were completely out. Great! (they got a fuel delivery late that afternoon). I quickly went out on track briefly at the end of the first track session and made one test lap but the car ran very poorly, bucking and popping like it was misfiring badly. Zero power and very worrying, so I immediately came in and talked with Ryan. We thought that with such a low fuel load maybe it was fuel starving EVERYWHERE? Weird. So let's resolve that by getting fuel before I fret too much.



                Our next task was a hunt for fuel jugs. We went asking around in paddock and borrowed 5 empty fuel jugs from an American Iron racer, then took that plus our single empty jug we had brought and drove 15 miles to the nearest gas station. We filled up with 30 gallons of 93 octane fuel, put 10 of that into the Mustang and kept our 5 gallon jug filled for use later in the day. The AI racer gave us some cash for the 15 gallons we got for him, and we could finally get started for the day. So I went out a second time with more than enough fuel now and made another lap. No better - motor was still running very badly, misfiring, bucking, and popping, at both part throttle and WOT. Immediately came in since I didn't want to hurt anything.


                Investigations began looking for the poor running issue

                At this point I'm freaking out while Ryan was calmly diagnosing things, checking for any visible issues, but couldn't find anything obviously wrong. He would find something small, fix it, and we would go blast down the highway or take another lap, and the car always ran like crap. Re-routted vacuum lines, fixed a chafed wire, pulled the spark plugs, checked a lot of things, and looked at any engine codes each time. Finally traced it down to a recurring code showing "Bank 1 lean", all the time. Kept resetting, going back out on track or on the highway. Bank 1 Lean, Bank 1 Lean, kept popping up. Nothing we tried worked. Ryan spoke with Sean at True Street, who thought that it had to be sensor or something electrical, and told us to look at the O2 sensors first.



                Meanwhile we had a lot of other customers out at ECR that day also, some of whom needed a hand with this or that, or came by to talk with us, so it was a very hectic day. Long story short by 4 pm we were out of ideas and the car was still running poorly. I felt like crap (hadn't slept in over 2 days), had just got some bad news at the shop the night before (our new Ops Manager had turned in his notice!), and the prospect of racing this car in this final NASA Texas weekend looked slim. My 2013 goal of setting every TT3 lap record on the Texas schedule would be squashed. Damn it! I was really pessimistic but Ryan thought it must have a fouled O2 sensor. He made some calls and we found that the closest Oxygen sensor was at a Ford dealer 50 miles away (they only had one!), so we made the call - lets head back to the shop.

                Of course we had ALL of our gear unloaded and the trailer set-up for the upcoming race weekend: chairs, coolers, tables, parts displays, wheels/tires, tools, and we had a perfect paddock spot. Grrr... so we loaded everything back up, loaded the car, rehooked up the trailer, and we left the track by 4 pm. I called Brandon at our shop and had him run to the Ford dealer to get this O2 sensor (about $130, since it is a wide band) then run by my house to also get our stock 2013 Mustang GT. We were going to pull parts off that car and swap sensors over until we found the issue, if we had to - I wasn't missing this last race of the year, not at my home track!


                Even with only a handful of laps the mesh grill was packed with grasshoppers

                So we kept talking ourselves into this issue being a bad O2 (pre-cat), and I knew it wasn't mechanical. The engine has been rock solid reliable for over 3 years and it ran perfectly when we loaded it into the trailer after the last event in October. Had to be electrical in nature...right? So we hauled ass across town, through more murderous 5 o'clock Friday traffic and got back to the shop around 6 pm.

                At this point Ryan was coming down with a cold and I was so tired I couldn't see straight, so Olof and Kyle did most of the wrenching at the shop. Kyle has a better scan tool here that also data logs and it was pointing to a bad Oxygen sensor. Amy brought everyone some food (Ryan and I had skipped breakfast and lunch out at the track, since it was such a thrash). They got both pre-cat O2 sensors pulled and, lo and behold... Bank 1 O2 was blacker than midnight. The Bank 2 sensor looked fine (tan), so we swapped in the ONE new sensor we could buy in town that day and fired it up. The 2013 GT was still there in case we needed to rob another one, but we hoped this lone sensor would do it. Fired right up, cleared the codes, and I took the car around on a drive of our test loop with Ryan riding shotgun again. All of the problems cleared up before we left the parking lot. Woo! No more bucking, hiccups, nothing. Well, I noticed one or two small hiccups at part throttle tip-in, but we chalked that up to fouled spark plugs.



                We got back after our 2 mile street drive, I did a few donuts in the parking lot, and pulled it right into the trailer. Man, that was a huge relief! Ryan was still wrenching on the car inside the trailer, but everything was buttoned up and ready for transport by 8 pm, after a long 13 hour day. We ended up leaving the R6 set on the car for use in the first "Warm Up" session Saturday, since those times wouldn't count (this was a mistake, in hindsight). I finally went home with the truck and trailer to try to get some much needed sleep, where I promptly passed out.

                NASA at ECR, Saturday, Nov 2nd, 2013 - Day 2 of 3



                After a ridiculously early start Amy and I got out to ECR again before dawn, looked around and settled on a less desirable paddock spot at the bottom of the hill, out in the dirt (but hey, that's why you show up on a Friday for the NASA weekend at Eagles). We quickly unloaded the car from the trailer, unhooked the trailer, unloaded our gear for the day, and got ready for the TT warm up session. It was pretty dang cold (42°F!) and I got to grid on this worn set of Hoosier R6 tires. We had a huge class in TT3 (7 cars), with a bunch of new cars and drivers I wasn't familiar with. No idea what to expect for the class today! It was still very cold, and in heavy traffic with plenty of blocking (a recurring theme all weekend) I only managed a 1:58.100 lap, slipping and sliding around. The time was crap but still good enough to start grid 4th on the grid out of 35 TT cars for the next session (which is the first official TT session). Looking back I should have been out there on sticker A6s and qualified in about 2nd place on grid, which would have saved me a lot of traffic grief in the next session. Qualifying is key!



                After the TT Warm-Up we had a small break, when Kyle from our shop had arrived at the track. We did a quick wheel and tire change and mounted the sticker set of Hoosier A6s to the Mustang plus worked on some other customers' cars. It had warmed up into the mid 50s and I went out hopeful that this could be my fastest session of the day, which would also make it my last session to drive. The plan was to let Amy drive in the last 2 TT sessions of Saturday, if I could get my best lap in this session.

                What you don't see in the video below are the painful first 2 hot laps where Corey Wells' TT1 ZR1 Corvette and I are stuck behind another TT1 car, who is known to "take a bit of time to get up to speed" and accidentally holds up the front of the pack. Very, very frustrating. Mike Weather's TT1 Z06 had some issues and waved everyone by on the first hot lap, and in the middle of the 3rd hot lap Corey and I finally pushed our way past the slower TT1 car. By then I had gotten all 4 Hoosiers and brakes truly overheated and almost blew off the session, but I knew it wouldn't be this cool again all day plus I wanted to let Amy drive the last two TT sessions, so I took an unprecedented 3rd hot lap in a row. Always a bad idea on A6s...


                In-car video of 1:55.250 lap, on hot lap 3, TT Session 1

                Well that video lap above was just a big hot mess, but it ended up being my fastest lap of the weekend. I watch that and just laugh - that's the best I could do?! On this lap I ran out of brakes twice - first going into the downhill Turn 9 and almost went off mid-corner. Before that point the AIM Solo predictive timer is showing high 1:54 lap times, so I gathered it up while cursing traffic and pushed on. The predictive timer was still showing a 1:55.1 time, so I kept in it. Then in the very next braking zone I had brake fade again, entering Turn 11. Barely kept it on track. I guess this should be expected, after 3 complete bonsai TT laps in a row - you simply cannot push a TT car 10/10ths every single lap and maintain the tires and brakes. I normally try to get my best lap in on my very first lap of a session, or at worst on the 2nd lap. And the first lap on a set of sticker A6 tires are their best, too. But when you are held up behind a slower driver in front for 2+ laps that just wasn't possible. And with more fast TT drivers right behind me, I didn't dare back off and let them pass, to only get held up when I caught them (which always happens). By the 4th lap I'm usually catching the back of the field and the chances of getting a clear lap approach 0%, so I had to take that lap when I did.



                So this double-brake faded 1:55.250 lap ended up being my best all day, was third fastest of the TT session, and it was enough for the new TT3 track record and class win. In that session the next quickest TT time was a solid 3 seconds back, in the 1:58s. Most racers went faster in the 2nd timed session, after I had handed the keys off to Amy.


                Left: The grid for TT session 2 was a mess. Right: This looks more like it

                continued below
                Last edited by Fair!; 01-21-2014, 04:26 PM.
                Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
                2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
                EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

                Comment


                • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

                  continued from above

                  Amy drove in TT sessions 2 and 3, and put in a 1:57.449 in session 2. She was still working up her nerve in both sessions (plus she put in an HPDE4 session) and looked to pick up time on Sunday. She stayed out of everyone's way while she got up to speed, waving others by on the first lap or moving herself down the grid beforehand - which a good racer should do. I wish every TT driver would be so courteous.



                  By day's end nobody was getting all that close in TT3, so I had Amy take the 4th session as well. My session 1 lap time of 1:55.250, even as compromised as it was, still compared very well with the AI times that day, the quickest of which was about 5 seconds back. In one of the AI races that day there was a crash into Turn 11 when a Mustang racer lost his brakes, which I was the first on the scene to check out (I was standing at pit wall). Then Mike Patterson lost his brakes on his AI Camaro moments later and he went off in Turn 11, about 100 feet away. Crazy! One thing to point out was the TT1 ZR1 of Corey Wells, one of our customers. This nearly stock, street driven 2010 ZR1 ran a 1:50.449 lap on Michelin slicks, winning TT1 and approaching the TT1 record. You should watch this lap on youtube... its is amazing.



                  Another TT record fell that day, in TTB. Our friend/customer/tester KenO beat the old TTB record handily with his E46 M3. He moved some TT points around in his build and made changes to his set-up and it paid off with a 1:57.955 lap on Saturday, beating the old TTB record of 01:58.678, which he had set in 2012. Ken dropped the record further to a 1:57.603 on Sunday. We ended up building a new exhaust system with a 3.5" in/out MagnaFlow muffler for Ken a couple of weeks later, which dropped his car's ear splitting 105 dB sound level to an amazing 85 dB while picking up flow, ground clearance and power. Custom exhaust work is one of the fabrication services we provide to a number of competitors.


                  For competitive reasons Ken asked us not to show any more of the exhaust than this. We made a new system from the headers-back



                  Amy put in some good laps in the Mustang, getting faster each session out and getting down to a 1:57.449, nearing her personal best at this track. But she felt like she could find more on Sunday, so we planned on doing the same strategy - letting me go out in the 1st session then she'd take the rest, unless I got into some traffic again and needed to take the 2nd session also, to try for the class win. I also wanted to get that 1:54 lap that the timer said was in the car, and which I felt was in the set-up with some clear track. Unfortunately, the TT1 car that had held me (and others on the grid) up in the earlier sessions Saturday was just fast enough to get ahead of me on grid final session on Saturday. Oh great.


                  Time Trial Results: for Nov 2nd: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...e%20Trials.pdf

                  I should have been happy with the 1:55.250 lap in TT3, as this was a new personal best at this track by over a second, plus beat the old TTS and TT2 lap records (which were set in the same TT2 car in 2012). It says "TTA" below but that car should have said TTS, as I was there running in TTS that weekend and remember it all too well. Second place in class on Saturday was a solid 1.5 seconds back (Jeff Tan) and 3rd was 2.5 seconds back (Amy), so why should I worry? (ha! Wait until Sunday...)

                  The existing NASA Eagles Canyon Track Records before this weekend
                  TTU.....John Page..........Chevy Corvette.....01:55.879.....Oct-10
                  TT1.....Troy Messer........Chevy Corvette.....01:50.105.....Oct-12
                  TT2.....Josh Dunn..........Mitsubishi Evo.....01:55.326.....Oct-12
                  TTA.....Josh Dunn..........Mitsubishi Evo.....01:55.629.....Oct-12
                  TTB.....Ken Orgeron........BMW M3.............01:58.678.....Oct-12
                  TTC.....Eric Foss..........Mazdaspeed 3.......02:03.814.....Oct-12
                  TTD.....Zachary Parker.....BMW M3.............02:05.336.....Oct-12
                  TTE.....Josh Price.........Acura Integra......02:11.133.....Oct-09
                  TTF.....Ken Brewer.........Toyota MR2.........02:15.810.....Oct-10


                  I need to note here that the Mustang was running much better Saturday than it did on Friday, but it still wasn't 100% right. There were some stumbling issues I could feel at part throttle, something that was very noticeable to me but Amy said it felt fine to her. The new Oxygen sensor had seemed to clear up the wild bucking and popping issues, but maybe the fouled sensor was a result of another issue, not the cause of it? Kyle checked the codes on the car throughout the day and kept seeing (and clearing) O2 Bank 1 issues... now showing stuck full Rich. We would end up monitoring this closely all weekend.


                  Left: On the scales, where I got within 9 pounds of my 3770 lb minimum, running with the "low fuel" light on! Right: Adding more ballast (aka: fuel)

                  Two of our customer's had some car troubles that kept us busy, too. One of them broke a rear control arm and the other had a motor issue that led to lots of black smoke. We diagnosed the UCA failure and had the customer ride with us to the shop, where his ride picked him up. We had a new UCA at our shop we would install the next morning. And the 2nd customer's car was loaded into our trailer for a tow to their house, and later to a Ford dealer for diagnosis. So after unhooking our trailer and unloading all of our gear... we had to load everything back up, load up the customer's broken car, and leave our TT3 Mustang sitting in the paddock overnight (along with another friend's car who crashed out at our place that night and rode back and forth to the track with us). Dropping their broken car off and then taking the other customer to our shop for pickup made for a long night, but we finally made it home by 10 pm.

                  NASA at ECR, Saturday, Nov 2nd, 2013 - Day 2 of 3

                  Sunday was a new day and I was determined to find that elusive sub 1:55 lap time if I could get a clear lap. Today we had Olof (technician) and Brandon (photographer) from Vorshlag joining us, and they stayed just as busy as Kyle did on Saturday and Ryan did on Friday. This is the point where the pictures started to get a lot better, as it was Brandon using his talent and gear to shoot them and not me or Amy shooting with our Nikon or camera phones. I slid in a couple of Brandon shots from Sunday in the Saturday post above, too, because they are so much better than ours'.

                  Vorshlag Event Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...CR-Nov-110213/



                  Amy and I got back out to the track at 7:30 am towing the now empty trailer. We set our paddock back up, unloaded our gear for the 3rd time this weekend, and got ready for TT session 1. Olof worked on our customer's Mustang and installed the new and improved Whiteline UCA and mount (KTA141-A). This job was a little tricky doing it parked in the paddock on jack stands, but he got it done. This customer was able to get his HPDE sessions later that day without issue, which made him very happy.


                  Jamie's Forgestar/AST/Vorshlag/Whiteline equipped car getting some trackside repairs and heading back out for more laps

                  The first TT session was at 8 am, so we were a bit rushed checking tire pressures, fuel level, and getting everything ready before heading out on track. Well, with all of the frantic work going on in the paddock and people stopping by to talk I spaced out and forgot to plug in my damned transponder. You see, Amy and I have separate AMB transponders for our separate, individual TT3 entries, and we swap on her battery powered unit and unplug my wired unit when she races. Well her battery powered unit was off the car but we didn't plug mine in, GRR!


                  Left: Out on track in my "timeless" session. Right: Hitting the scales again after another session stuck behind "the blocker"

                  I was oblivious and went out on track, which was still pretty cold at 44°F, sitting in a good grid spot and hoping to get a good lap in... then I was black flagged on the first hot lap. WTF? Apparently Amy had been watching the Race Timer app and noticed that my first hot lap time never triggered, she immediately knew what had happened, asked the NASA folks to black flag me, which they did during my 2nd hot lap - so I came in. She waved me over in the hot pits, explained the issue, opened the hood and hooked up my transponder and sent me back out about 30 seconds later. I knew time in this session might be running a little short so I took a warm up lap at full speed and right as I came around to the start/finish to get a timed lap... the flagger at the stand whipped out the checkers, 13 minutes into the session. NOOOOO! Apparently they shortened all of our TT sessions from 20 minutes down to 15 minutes, but gave us 5 sessions on Sunday instead of the typical 4. Normally this would be welcomed news, as I only want to take 1 or 2 hot laps, but in this case that 5 minute (really, 7 minute) shorter session left me without a single hot lap. My whole session was blown and I never got a timed lap. It was so cold that I only saw an indicated 1:56 lap (on Lap 1) on my AIM Solo anyway, and nobody else set a fast time in this session, so that wasn't likely going to be the time for that golden lap to happen.

                  So that first session was wasted and totally my fault, but this happens sometimes. I have had an item on our build list all year to get a dash-mounted switch for the 2nd transponder, with an indicator light, but we just never got around to it. One of several sessions that were blown this year for the same stupid reason - no transponder. Switching beween two transponders for two drivers is highly unusual and takes an extra effort, but apparently too much for my old, feeble brain to remember, heh. Next year Amy and I are racing as "Team Vorshlag" so we can use the same car and ONE transponder (and pay one entry fee), so hopefully this won't happen again. I will have them set the TT2 car up with a single, wired transponder that is always on when the engine is running, so I cannot forget!

                  Long story short, Amy let me drive again in TT session 2, where I was gridded 5th in line, right behind the TT1 car that I've been having trouble get held up behind all weekend (and pretty much all year), so I was worried I would get blocked again. Even with a big gap on the Warm Up lap, where I held back for an entire straightaway before Turn 11, he also held WAY back and I caught him by the start/finish line line on hot lap 1. Then I followed about 1 car length off his bumper through Turns 1, 2, 3 and 4, to let him know I was there ("Hi!") and obviously getting held up. Right where you normally accelerate between turns 4 and 5 he freagin brake checked me! I came so close to crashing into the back of his car and taking us both out I cannot describe it. It was a very close call, an absolutely insane move, and totally caught me off guard. I braked so hard going down the hill into Turn 5 that there couldn't have been inches between us. There was a lot of speed differential, too, and the incident could have totaled both cars - not a good place to brake check someone.


                  Left: Out on track. Right: Coming in after a brief off track excursion with grass in the grill

                  So that Near Miss really spooked me, and I backed way way off and let the train of three cars held up behind me go by (who were also held up by the slow poke in front) while I let loose a stream of expletives. I took another brisk cool down lap, trying to build up a gap ahead while not holding up more drivers behind, so as not to ruin anyone else's session. On the very next lap I turned up the heat and re-caught one of the TT2 cars I had let by me after the near accident, in the same spot entering Turn 5. I was trying to get a good run up this hill on this Corvette and had a bit of wheelspin through uphill Turn 5. Any wheelspin quickly overheats A6 Hoosiers, so I backed off knowing this lap was blown, which turned into some off-throttle oversteer. I cranked in full opposite lock and got back into the throttle to hopefully transfer some weight to the rear... but it was too late. I had a little tank slapper and when I caught it the car wanted to go a bit wider than the track surface allowed for, heh. Instead of chancing a sideways off I straightened up and barely took all 4 wheels off, track right. It was 4 off, though, which of automatically DSQd any of times from that session, so I immediately came in and waited in the hot pits, trying to cool down. I was spitting mad, and eventually had some words with the TT1 driver that nearly crashed us both when he came in - telling him that his brake check move was utterly insane and that his constant blocking was getting old. His response was a lame "I never saw you..." Sure, since this giant red Mustang swerving and flashing bright lights parked 5 feet aft of your back bumper is so hard to miss. Good grief...


                  Mike Weathers' TT1 Corvette and I were always next to each other on grid all year, but communicated well and never impeded each other

                  Based on the repetitive blocking I encountered this year from this one TT driver I am going to run a completely different TT warm-up/gridding/out lap strategy next year to avoid getting anywhere near drivers like this, and I am going to publicly call out these games in every TT meeting we have.

                  Amy took the keys for TT session 3 while I tried to cool down. She went out and ran a 1:56.934, which was her personal best at ECR by over a second. That was good news, and she came in all smiles and super pumped up! If you don't know this track, a 1:56 lap is really flying, and would be a record in any of the lettered TT classes and was still 3+ seconds faster than American Iron was running. Many of the TT drivers congratulated her on her new best lap time, as only 5 other TT drivers ran quicker than her on Sunday.


                  Jeff Tan's ST3/TT3 prepped, EVO-D tuned EVO put up a hellva fight, taking 2nd in TT3 both days

                  continued below
                  Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
                  2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
                  EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

                  Comment


                  • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

                    continued from above

                    Amy's 1:56 would have been 2nd place but Jeff Tan also had a fast session 3. After slapping on a set of 275mm Hoosier A6s for the first time he dropped to a 1:56.7, and I felt like he might go faster still in the 2 remaining sessions. This is a gutted and race prepped ST3 EVO with an Evolution Dynamics tuned motor that makes a big flat power curve... where they tweak the boost levels to make the same flat 380 whp across the entire rev range. It is a TT trick you can do in a turbo car, and they've used this tuning strategy plus good driving to notch up a number of TT lap records in Texas. Well I was worried Jeff might go out and find more time in TT session 4, which he eventually did in a BIG way

                    After 3 TT sessions were in the books I still didn't have a time yet, so I went out in TT session 4. There were 6 cars in TT3 class on Sunday so 2 more contingency tires on the line for anyone on Hoosiers, plus I was worried that my track record from Saturday was a little soft - since I had two major driving errors on that 1:55.250 lap Saturday. It was up to 65°F, a little warm for that ideal A6 lap time, but it was still possible. This time I gapped the road blocker in front of me by a HUGE amount, holding up the rest of the field on the Warm Up lap, but I wasn't going to catch him into the first turn again, by damn.


                    The bulk of the NASA Texas TT competitors are great about giving point-buys and making room for others during cool down laps

                    Luckily I had a fairly clear first hot lap with Jeff Tan glued to my tail. He was chasing the rabbit (me) and barely kept a handful of car lengths between us. I slowly pulled a little bit on him and when I saw the 1:55.279 time at the start/finish after hot lap one I knew he had to be in the 1:55s as well, but I felt like our gap was increasing ever so slightly. I found out later that Jeff had run a 1:55.872 right behind me, his fastest ever by a large margin. He got really close to my time - which made me nervous! - and this was the closest gap in TT3 that we had all year (other than the one loss at MSR-C). Lap one was good but I wanted more, so I went ahead with Hot Lap 2. This lap was feeling better, where I put even more distance on Tan, and I had an indicated 1:54.6 through most of the lap... but I was slowly catching that same TT1 car again. I can't get away from this guy...

                    I looked up when I was coming up the canyon out of Turn 10 that the TT1 driver had his fist in the air, indicating that he'd be going into the pits. Great! He was waaaay up there, and surely he saw me closing in and would give me room on his cool down lap. But instead of looking in his mirrors, seeing me closing fast on him (I don't think he owns a rearview mirror) he instead lollygagged for the last few hundreds of yards of his lap and I caught right him in the middle of Turn 11. I had to back way off to avoid hitting him, almost coming to stop mid corner, which of course blew my 1:54 lap down to a 1:55.9. I tried to take another lap but by now the A6s were overheated and I was catching the back of the TT field going into Turn 3, so I took a cool down and came into the pits.



                    The weather was getting warmer, and I was exhausted from constantly getting pissed off at the blocker, so Amy went out in TT session 5. She took one of our customers (who had the engine troubles the day before) riding shotgun, letting many of the other TT drivers by her on the first lap, cleanly and safely. She took several laps at a 1:59 pace, just having fun on the ride-along; taking riders in TT DSQ'd her session, of course, but she never impeded anyone. Probably her last day driving this car in competition, so she made the most of it.

                    While Amy came in from that session I went out in in the very next HPDE4 session driving one of our tester's Mustangs, who is running our first set of S197 MCS TT1 singles on her car. This was the very first set of S197 MCS TT1s ever built, where we helped them calculate shock lengths and such. We knew the car rode beautifully on the street (daily driven) but I needed to drive this car to make sure all was well on this bumpy, tricky track.


                    Jan's Mustang on MCS TT1 coilovers was a lot of fun to drive

                    This '12 Mustang GT was on the stock 19x9" wheels and some worn out 255mm Nitto Invo tires, Carbotech XP16 pads, Vorshlag plates, MCS TT1s, a CG lock on the stock belt, and that's it. Totally stock engine, tune, airbox, and those skinny street tires that had seen better days. We went out with several instructors in HPDE4 and I pushed it about 8-9 tenths, running as quick as a 2:07.5 lap in traffic on these very low grip tires. Watching that video (which is only posted on my personal Facebook page at the moment) I had to brake 200 feet early into Turn 6, while coasting and waiting for a point by, so the car should run closer to a 2:05 lap. She took some video and data with her phone (Tom's Lap Timer), which we will try to get ahold of and post later. Jan had a blast riding along as I talked her through my lines, braking points, and described the different phases of "tire feedback" on 4 laps, always in some traffic. This car was a joy to drive, easy to put anywhere, and soaked up the ECR bumps effortlessly. Only complaint was the stock seats! Seriously, once you run laps with a dedicated fixed back racing seat, nothing else compares. I was sore later on, after trying to hang on for 4 laps while I slid around on the flat leather seats.


                    Time Trial Results for Nov 3, 2013: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...e%20Trials.pdf

                    Seems like all the of the car breakage calmed down and nothing went wrong on Sunday, thankfully. Times generally dropped significantly from Saturday, except for me, where I ran nearly identical 1:55.2 best laps (either blocked or with serious brake fade) on both days, only a couple of hundredths quicker on Saturday. As I said above, KenO reset the TTB record to 1:57.603 on Sunday. Another E46 M3 customer, TTB racer Jason Covington had his personal best with a 1:58.606 (which would have been near the TTB record last year). Jeff Tan had a personal best, Amy had a personal best, and a total of four TT records were broken (TT3, TTB, TTE, and TTF) this year. It was beautiful weather all weekend, with high of 76°F on Saturday and a high of 68°F on Sunday, with some brisk 40 degree mornings. Olof and Brandon took off by 2:30 pm on Sunday and Amy and I were loaded up and on the road by 4 pm.



                    Big thanks to our guys from Vorshlag for coming out all weekend, as there's always something we need help with on our car or customers who need a hand. We had tons of people come by, look at the Mustang, ask for help, borrowing tools, etc. Within TT we have a good group that gets along well and help each other out, even within the same class; Jeff asked for a look at some tire rubbing issues and I gave him tire pressure advice, too. Great event put on by the folks of NASA Texas once again, with some W2W class carnage Saturday but clean racing on Sunday, and no contact in TT. It was a close call on Sunday with me and the TT1 car, but luckily I managed to keep from slamming into him, with inches to spare. I will definitely watch my gaps next year, and if I am in a similar car that has to get the fast laps in early but behind a "faster" car that takes 3-5 laps to get up to speed, I am going to really hang back in the warm up lap to build a big gap. We're not supposed to do that, but you know what, we're also not supposed to intentionally block or brake check drivers behind us, either. Anything I can do to avoid contact, I will do.


                    Left: Plaid Print Yuri blowing a kiss to the camera. Right: Jason running in TTB in his E46 M3

                    By the end of the day I just felt fortunate that I didn't wreck the Mustang into another car on two separate occasions, and just felt lucky to win the class and 2 Hoosier tires each day. In the end, with all of the new track layouts, mistakes, challenges and hurdles to jump this year we still somehow managed to attain our goal of setting track records at all 8 track configurations on the 2013 NASA Texas schedule, which was a big win for Vorshlag.

                    New NASA TT3 track records set in the Vorshlag Mustang in 2013:
                    • Motorsports Ranch Houston (2.38 CW), 1:41.544, Jan 19, 2013
                    • Motorsports Ranch Cresson (3.1 CCW), 2:22.753, March 17, 2013
                    • Texas World Speedway (2.9 CW), 1:51.530, April 21, 2013
                    • New Orleans Motorsports Park (2.75 CW North Course), 1:50.535, May 5, 2013
                    • Hallet Motor Racing Circuit (CCW), 1:24.365, June 23, 2013
                    • Hallet Motor Racing Circuit (CW), 1:26.786, June 23, 2013
                    • Texas World Speedway (2.9 CCW), 1:50.675, Sept 22, 2013
                    • Eagles Canyon Raceway (2.5 CCW), 1:52.250 Nov 2, 2013




                    All of those records will eventually be broken, and I feel that the Mustang in its current form (it got faster after every round up updates in 2013) could beat all of those lap times if we raced it in TT3 again next year. We took 13 of 14 possible TT3 wins in the NASA Texas series, with that one 2nd place loss at MSR-Cresson where I ran out of sessions, fuel, and talent. This left me with 1390 out of 1400 possible points in TT3 class, which was the highest of any driver in TT in our region, out of the 100+ unique TT drivers we had in Texas this year. With the 6 race drops we get, that made for a perfect 800 point season, with Amy placed 3rd in TT3 at 553 points, having missed several events. Nationals was a bit of a mess (3rd place out of 11) but I learned two valuable lessons: don't make massive aero changes before Nationals and bring new sticker tires for each day of competition at Nationals. Overall it was a great year for us in this car and I am looking forward to another healthy NASA Texas schedule next year, hopefully starting in the ST2 BMW and switching to the 2015 Mustang by April or May? I hope the 2015 Mustang is as solid, reliable and easy to drive as this 2011 GT was.

                    What's Next: Sell Both Mustangs

                    In our next installment I will talk about taking the TT3 Mustang to True Street to try to diagnose the part throttle issues, where they made a discovery about to the actual issue. This led us to replace some electronics at our shop, which seemed to fix the issue once and for all. I still want test this fix on track, but this coming weekend's ECR Toy Run event might get cancelled due to snow or ice. Low of 22, high of 33, high chance of snow... not the best track testing conditions. :/

                    Both this 2011 GT as well as our 2013 GT are still for sale, just awaiting the right buyers. In the spirit of Cyber Monday I am lowering the prices on both cars today, so if you were interested before please check the linked ads to see the new asking prices. I've got to move these two cars before the end of the year, so give me a call. I cannot afford to just give either car away, but things are about to get drastic if they stick around any longer. Please, don't make me de-mod the TT3 Mustang... but if the car is still here in a few weeks it will have to happen.



                    The crew pulled the front of the car apart one last time after the ECR race weekend and finished up some unfinished business, painting everything that was still bare metal and perfecting a few details, which will be covered in my next post. Late next week I'm off to Indy (BRRR!) to attend the 2014 PRI show, joined by 2 other Vorshlag team members, then we will come back and get back to work on several long term custom projects here at the shop. There are some other small changes and new Mustang parts I will show off in the next post, such as the motor mounts we put in after TWS and the throttle body replacement.

                    Cheers,
                    Last edited by Fair!; 12-03-2013, 12:34 PM.
                    Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
                    2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
                    EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

                    Comment


                    • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

                      Project Update for Dec 27, 2013: Been a busy busy month here at Vorshlag since I last posted, after the 2013 race season ended. There have been a lot of updates on a number of other project build threads, such as our shop parts hauler "Truck Norris", our E38 740iL restoration project, the Chumpcar Firebird build, and Matt's 95 M3 LS1 swap. We've also had a few things brewing with our two main in-house S197 projects - including several repairs, updates, and possibly even a major change of course for our 2011 GT - and it is time to share that here. Don't worry, its good news.


                      Many projects have kept us busy in the shop, as well as gobbled up my time updating project threads on several forums

                      2013 PRI Show + 2015 Mustang!

                      The annual December "ECR Toy Run" track day event we had hoped to attend was rescheduled due to a massive ice storm in Dallas. The new date ended up happening when we were at the 2013 PRI Show in Indianapolis. This is a huge racing industry trade show we attend almost every year, and where we had some important business meetings and saw lots of new parts. I was really bummed about missing the Toy Run, and missing some automotive TV show filming that happened out there that day, but I got a great consolation prize: getting to see the 2015 Mustang first hand!




                      This year PRI moved from Orlando to Indy, but even with the terrible downtown parking and horrendous Winter weather it was the biggest PRI show I had ever attended. We learned a lot being there, but not much was shared on social media for the folks outside of the racing industry that aren't allowed to attend. Balls to that, you can feel free to rummage around in my photo gallery and get an eye full of next year's parts.



                      To me, the highlight of this show was seeing the 2015 Mustang in person. I got to crawl under the back of the car and see the IRS up close as well gawk at as the exterior shape and body lines. I spent a bit of time and made an "S550 vs S197 Mustang: An in depth comparison" article, which you can read here. In this, the 2nd part of our preliminary S550 investigations, I compare the S550 and S197 Mustangs styling side-by-side, then go "up skirt" and look at the suspension on this pre-production car to verify the rumors and images we've been shown. If you are interested in that new fangled Mustang, give it a read.

                      Throttle Body Replacement + Front Splitter Updates

                      As I mentioned in my last update, we took the car to True Street and had them put the car on the dyno, load it up, and try to diagnose the part throttle stumble that bit me in the backside at the November ECR event. Turns out that they found something wonky in the throttle body circuit... the pedal would send a signal for a certain percentage of opening yet the throttle body would refuse to open by that amount. Some wiring bugaboo, but we first swapped in another stock throttle body - which has electronics inside, since it is a drive-by-wire setup.



                      Luckily that fixed it. I have driven the car 2 or 3 times since that was replaced and it runs like a top, from 1500 rpm roll-ons to 7000 rpm shifts.We didn't have to repair any wiring harness gremlins, which was a relief. The 3 year old Odyssey PC680 battery finally gave up the ghost, so we swapped in a new $125 replacement. This battery managed to never let us down on the street for years of daily driving, and it was long term storage that killed it (sitting for weeks between races without a battery tender). While the TB was being replaced the entire front end was then blown apart for inspection and updates.



                      This was another area I discussed last time: the front end and splitter refinements. Our custom splitter development has spanned several months (August - November) and we've learned a lot along the way, and noted some areas that could be improved. Extra fasteners added here or there, a better alignment on the captured mounting pins, and some better sealing on the radiator ducting.



                      Some of it was just normal track wear and tear. The black painted finish on the splitter took a lot of bug hits at ECR (grasshoppers are brutal at 125 mph!) so the splitter was removed and completely repainted during the above work. It all went back together better than before, and we kept the "short" splitter on the car (the 6" vs 10" extended length) for now.

                      Goofy Oil Catch Can + Crankcase Vacuum Routing

                      After the weekend of the NASA@TWS race in September, we noted a bit of oil residue under the car. It got worse by NASA@ECR in November, when we noticed a bit more oil leaking under the car and showing up on the floor of the trailer. It wasn't a lot, but was more than a little, you know? Looked like it was coming from the rear main seal of the engine, just dripping out of the transmission bell housing. That's not good. We kept cleaning it off and watching it all weekend, and it got progressively worse.



                      Dammit, why did this happen? I think it was my fault - having something to do with the improper routing we ran on the oil catch can/PCV system. See, we were trying to follow the routing of the Boss 302-S oil breather system, but that doesn't really have a sealed catch can like we run. Instead that car just has a crankcase breather system, with no real vacuum source, and uses a fresh air filter in the top of the catch can. With the crankcase breather routing we ran (since our August test at ECR, see above) we pulled a high amount vacuum from the intake manifold, through the catch can, and then back to the tops of both valve covers. With no fresh air inlet it was too much for the system to hold and it was collapsing the hoses. We chased the horrible honking noises, hoses that kept getting sucked flat, pulled the PCV valve out for a straight thru unit, and overall just ran too much vacuum on the crankcase. This likely pulled the rear main seal out of place during this time.



                      We have since switched this system to more conventional OEM type PCV routing, shown above, which is how the stock Coyote 5.0 positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) system runs. The only difference is that we have added an oil catch can/filter in line with the hose on the passenger side head (the vacuum side). The driver's side valve cover pulls in fresh air from in front of the throttle body (which is atmospheric pressure, and not a vacuum source), to keep fresh air coming into the crankcase, which balanced the vacuum pulled on the passenger side valve cover at the opposite end of the system. Again, just like the factory routing, and all of the "hoses pulled flat" and honking noises have gone away. We had initially switched to a simple breather system during the ECR race weekend, but with 3 race weekends run in the weird "high crankcase vacuum" mode we think that is when the rear main seal was damaged. The old routing kept filling the catch can with oil.

                      You can see the extra hose bib that was added (TIG welded) to the gold foil wrapped aluminum intake tube in the two pictures above, when we switched the hoses to a more traditional PCV style routing. We even added the PCV valve back to the passenger side valve cover (note the blue color of the one-way check valve on the PCV coupler; the black coupler on the driver's side is just a straight thru connector). We will test this new routing at a track test day / possible TV shoot this coming weekend, but I'm confident this will work just like stock, because it is just like the stock routing now but with the catch can in place.

                      Basically we created a problem, listened to people tell us to keep doing it the wrong way, chased our tails, damaged the rear main seal, and then undid the mistake and went back to a logical PCV routing system. Sometimes you have to ignore advice and just do what makes sense, what works.

                      Repair Work to Rear Main + Clutch



                      So by now it was late November, many repairs and fixes had been done to help sell the car and put to bed every little nagging problem, except one: the leaking rear main seal. At this point and we still had every intention of selling the red TT3 Mustang, and I couldn't let anyone buy the car with a known oil leak. So I asked the guys in our shop to yank the transmission out for a look at the rear main seal. This meant we had to drop the after-header exhaust, the starter, the driveshaft, unhook the shifter, and then pull the transmission. Lots of fun. Kyle tackled this rear main seal + clutch replacement work in 6 hours and 23 minutes, according to our MyShopAssist logs (this service tracking system is used on all of our service work starting in mid 2013, even our own cars).



                      This was the first time we had to pull the transmission out of our 2011 GT, as the service to 3rd gear last April was done by the dealer under warranty. The drivetrain in this car has been rock solid and I didn't expect to see any damage to the clutch, pressure plate or flywheel, other than possible oil contamination.



                      Once the transmission was out, the clutch, PP and flywheel, as well as the reluctor for the crank trigger had to come out to access the rear main seal. The seal replacement is actually very easy once all that is out of the way. The new part wasn't expensive at all ($11) and I was hoping that's all we would need to do - burn some hours making access to the seal, then replace this one part. Looking at the clutch disc surface you would think this was a brand new car, as it had almost no noticeable wear. 18,000 miles and lots of autocross starts and thousands of shifts on track, and all of the friction and metal surfaces looked perfect on the clutch, flywheel and pressure plate. Amy and I are always easy on drivetrain parts, but there was some damage... something quite strange.



                      Above are pictures of the 3 dowel pins in the stock flywheel (in 6 pieces, just as they came out). When Kyle pulled the transmission he noted that all 6 bolts holding the PP to the flywheel were very loose. That's not good. And then when he pulled the PP off the 3 dowel pins fell out, as each had broken in half. WTF? I cannot say what happened here, except to note that this has all been apart before for some warranty work. The loose pressure plate to flywheel bolts must have allowed the pressure plate to wobble out the mounting holes, and that movement then broke the dowel pins. To me this meant the PP was not reusable, and I had questions about the flywheel. Could we have reused it all? Sure, and since we were selling the car so it would be no bother... but I don't play that way.



                      We weighed the OEM flywheel, of course, and at 22.3 pounds it was lighter than I originally thought it might be (but confirmed the numbers I was given by Fidanza). Would it be worthwhile to replace this with a 12-13 pound aluminum flywheel? Hmm.... not a lot of gain here, compared to some V8 cars we've dealt with that have 40-50 pound flywheels. Since I felt uncomfortable replacing just the pressure plate, and we could not find the part number or a source for the 5.0 Coyote's flywheel dowel pins, we went ahead and replaced all of it.

                      While this seems somewhat drastic, remember - this is a 6+ hour repair job, where the labor outweighs the replacement costs of the clutch/PP/flywheel parts. It is rare that you pull a transmission and not replace at least the clutch disc. After doing some research and running out of time (we had the car in pieces, stuck on one of our lifts) we went back with the exact stock replacement parts sourced from Ford. The clutch, pp and flywheel are the same OEM pieces as what came out, just brand new and secured properly this time. All told it was about $500 in parts, and while we could have saved a little money with aftermarket replacement bits I didn't want to risk changing something that worked so well on a car I was about to sell. Most aftermarket clutches would have more pedal effort, and at this power level (420-430 whp) we obviously didn't need it, as we had never felt clutch slippage and noticed almost no wear on the clutch parts.



                      Going back together was fairly easy, and everything lined up perfectly. As you can see we are still running the stock shifter (less notchy than most SSKs) but do have the Steeda rear poly bushing in the body side mount and the Whiteline trans bushing insert as well, and Amy and I both like the positive shift feel and low shift effort. New pressure plate mounting bolts were secured in place on the flywheel with red Loctite this time, which was obviously missing on the old bolts (they were clean and dry).



                      continued below
                      Last edited by Fair!; 12-29-2013, 03:31 PM.
                      Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
                      2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
                      EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

                      Comment


                      • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

                        continued from above

                        Once the transmission & clutch parts were all back together I thought we were done with the rear main seal repairs. Not so much. Turns out a slight leak in the clutch hydraulic system developed that refused to cooperate. Bleeding and bleeding just resulted in a mess on the shop floor from a tiny leak that couldn't be found. So we replaced the stock plastic hydraulic line (shown below) with a commonly used stainless steel hard line (FMS-M-7512-A, $229, that technically is for the 2005-10 Mustang, but it can be tweaked slightly to fit the '11-14 6-spd), as we thought there might be a crack in the plastic line. That wasn't the issue and the pedal's hydraulic feel was still crap, with a tiny yet invisible leak. Don't waste your money on that metal clutch hard line unless : you have the system apart already, don't want the plastic line anymore, and don't mind tweaking the hard line to fit.

                        The leak was later finally chased down to a 90° plastic quick-connect elbow on one end of the hard line that had "sprung its spring". It dripped down the line and was in an inaccessible spot that was very hard to see. This meant we had to buy yet another clutch line to get the new elbow, the OEM plastic piece (which comes with this elbow). That fix turned this little leak repair into into another $300 worth of parts and another few hours of investigations and several clutch bleeding attempts - but that seems to finally be fixed as well. Lesson learned: always be suspect of plastic quick connects! Good grief, what I wouldn't give for a regular threaded fitting sometimes; we could have made a new line that actually fit this chassis better for about $40 in parts.



                        This whole crankcase vacuum / rear main seal snafu snowballed quite a bit, and is honestly a little embarrassing, but I have to chalk it up it was a learning experience. It never left is stranded and didn't "break" per se, and we caught the flywheel bolt damage while we were in fixing the rear main seal issues we caused. I took poor advice on the PCV system routing that I now know to be wrong, but in the end we finally got our system laid out correctly. The guys also found and fixed a broken exhaust mount while the exhaust was off, too (probably due to the off track excursion I had at Turn 6 at TWS), which made the lone rattle on the car disappear.

                        Please, if you have read this far, learn from our mistakes. Always question any advice on aftermarket mods, do your research, and plan for the worst when you get your car apart - don't plan on a 6 hour fix when it could turn into a multi-day parts chasing mess. What I thought would be a 1 day repair with $11 in parts ended up spanning two weeks and involving $800 worth of consumables - none of which made the car any faster, ugh. But now I can say that the car is at least fixed right and we avoided a potentially spectacular clutch system failure.

                        Somebody Buy Our Black 2013 Mustang GT...

                        So I've had potential buyers sniffing around both Mustangs, but the vast majority have been looking at the less costly and more stock-like black 2013 GT shown below. The black GT will sell soon, I can feel it. But the Red 2011 Mustang seems to have no takers. Why is that? Maybe the car looks too radical to be street driven - it isn't, but it has that perception. Yet it isn't radical enough to be a full "race car" for others. And of course the graphics are a bit over the top and the front flares are admittedly ugly. If we sell this car we won't have a replacement track car/race car ready for the next few months because we are too busy at the shop working on customer cars, which means we will miss the first few NASA Texas events for the season.



                        Instead of de-modding and dumbing down the 2011 GT we're now going to concentrate harder on selling the black 2013 Mustang GT instead. Again, that car is pristine, has 6K miles, and has been garaged every day of its life. I've almost had it sold so many times (and once again last night), came within $500 of closing the deal once, so its almost there. Here are the details:

                        Classified ad page: http://www.vorshlag.com/cars-2013gt.php
                        Price: $26.5K obo!
                        Odometer: 5,9XX miles
                        VIN: 1ZVBP8CF2D5247691
                        Engine: Coyote 5.0L DOHC Aluminum V8, 420 hp (dyno'd at 377 whp , 365 wtq)
                        Drivetrain: Getrag MT-82 6-speed manual, Rear Wheel Drive, 8.8" rear axle with Limited Slip and 3.55:1 rear gears
                        Colors: Black exterior, Black Cloth interior
                        Upgrades include:


                        Optional upgrades to the black 2013 GT

                        Of course if you want to customize this Mustang we have lots and lots of parts we can put onto this car, both new and used. We will sweeten the deal and discount the parts and labor on a number of parts, to help sell this car. Here are a couple of things we could add to incentivize the right buyer, with the discounted costs shown:
                        • AST coilovers + springs + camber plates for +$1800. We have a set of used set of 4100s that have the Grand Am DDP pistons, were custom valved, and were used on our red 2011 GT for a year and a half before we went to Motons. These became the prototypes for the 4150. This set-up new would cost $2839 + the custom revalving.
                        • Wider wheels and tires (shown above): The 2013 GT already has the upgraded factory 19x9" wheels and 255 Pirellis that come on the Track Pack/Brembo cars. For +$1000 we would upgrade to the 18x10" D-Force LTW5 wheels and 295/35/18 Nitto NT-05 tires (used). This set-up new would cost ($1236 for 4 wheels + $248/ea for tires) $2240.

                        Again, get it touch with us if you are thinking about buying a 2012-14 Mustang, as we can make this one customized for YOU, many banks will still give new car financing on a car this new, and the 5 year/60K warranty has a majority of its life left.

                        2011 Mustang Development - Not Quite Dead Yet...?

                        My point is, if we could just sell this 2013 GT we would likely keep the red 2011 GT and continue to develop it and race it in the 2014 season. Why not - nobody wants to buy it! I've talked with Amy and she doesn't really want to sell the red Mustang, and for once would rather keep one of our long term project cars. After we buy the 2015 Mustang and had it race ready, in the future, she would love to make the red 2011 GT a street car/daily driver again. I also think that this S197 still has a lot of untapped performance potential in TT3, as we never got around to trying a few things I wanted to test or develop further.


                        We have yet to find the limit of "bigger is better" when it comes to tires on the heavy S197

                        What things? Wider tires than the 315mm Hoosiers we ran in all of 2013 season. Why does this car need more tire? Because it is very heavy, makes a decent amount of power, and in testing it has gotten faster after every single tire width upgrade we've done since 2010. We started on 255mm tires and quickly moved to 265mm, 275mm and finally 295mm wide street tires. And when it came to R-compounds we tried 275, 285, 295, 305, and 315mm widths ranging from Kumho to Hoosier.



                        We tested briefly in 2012 with the 345/35/18 rear Hoosier A6, and it had ferocious forward bite on these nearly 14" wide tires (13.9" section width/13.2" tread. The 315/30/18 is only 11.8" of tread/12.5" of section width, fully 1.4" narrower), but they rubbed the inside body structure and fenders badly under cornering (before the Watts Link). The rubbing caused other handling issues, and a huge smoke screen, so we shelved that size for a while. When we cut and flared the front fenders (to clear the new 18x12" wheels) I had every intention of doing the same to the rear fenders, then upgrading the front to 335mm and the rear to the 345mm tire again. I met with considerable resistance from Amy about "cutting on her car", but I'm wearing her down.


                        The 345mm rear Hoosier was wider than the stock rear fenders could accommodate and made lots of tire smoke from rubbing

                        As we noted many times in our Time Trial events this past year (with 15 separate NASA events in 2013) my fastest laps were almost always my first or second lap, barring traffic problems. On one or two rare occasions I ended up making my best lap on hot lap 3, but that was always due to a driving mistake or traffic on previous laps. The Hoosier A6 is a temperamental tire and works best in ambient temps from 50-60°F, and more often than not the lap times fell off a full second per lap after the first. We were also only getting 20-30 hot laps per set of tires before they are GONE.


                        Tires that only work for 1 or 2 laps, coupled with slower cars in front = TT traffic frustration!

                        My theory is that with another 20mm up front and another 30mm on the rear that our "golden lap zone" of ideal conditions could be expanded from 1 or 2 hot laps to maybe 3-4 hot laps. That is a big improvement for Time Trial that could have allowed for faster lap records at a few events in 2013 where I had serious traffic issues in the first couple of laps (more times than I can count). Not to mention a potential increase in mechanical grip from the additional two or three inches of tire on the ground at each axle. And possibly an increase in total tire life? That +20/+30mm change is not a small increase in tire width.



                        Another area we dabbled with late in the 2013 season was adding downforce, which I think still has more room for improvement on this car. While Vorshlag is first and foremost a suspension shop we have been seeing more and more aero development creep into club level road racing and time attack/time trial competition, and we were finding lap time improvements using aero changes very late into the season. The 10" long front splitter we added right before Miller, that many told us was "too long to be effective", coupled with our front grill block-off and ducted hood made more front downforce than the APR GTC-300 rear wing could match. That meant that at high speeds the car had an aero imbalance, and it was prone to oversteer. I cannot emphasize enough how loose this car was at Miller with that long front splitter, and we ran out of AoA on the rear wing to stabilize the car in high speed corners. Nothing like going 150+ sideways, wee!



                        To "fix" this we lopped 4 inches off the front of the 10" long splitter (well, actually a spare we had), right after returning from Nationals. Magically the car was balanced once again at the 150+ mph corner entry speeds we saw at TWS in late September, and was faster than ever at ECR in November. But it always nagged me... if we only had more rear downforce wouldn't that bigger front splitter be better overall? With some of the latest rear wings on the market having 14" and even 16" long chords and 70"+ widths, there could be a more efficient and more effective wing to test on this car, then we could bring the Big Splitter back (we kept it, just in case).



                        As I mentioned in my previous posts we would have liked to get into S550 chassis development as soon as possible, and run the 2014 season in NASA TT2 class with the new Mustang (a bump up on power and/or down in weight from TT3, going from 9.5:1 to 8:1 pounds per hp) but my hopes of acquiring one of these in the early spring of 2014 and prepping it to race for most of that year seem to be dashed. At best we might see a car in early August. So recently we began our ST2/TT2 build on an E36 BMW LS1 car, then our paying customer shop work picked up so much (we're building a number of race cars and LS1 swaps for people right now) that this project was delayed. Meaning, if we mothball the 2011 GT we won't have a car to race at all for many months, which pains me. That's half the reason I quit the secure engineering jobs I had in the past - to start a business, create products tailor made to racers, and then using our racing as "testing"!


                        We have a lot of work left on our ST2 BMW LS1 project before it is ready to race

                        Long story short, we're going to take our red 2011 Mustang and keep racing and developing with it as long as we need to, until the ST2 car is completed or until the S550 is here and prepped. This might mean an entire extra year competing in the red 2011 GT, known jokingly around the shop as the "pretty pony". And that's one thing I aim to do - make it look less ugly, with a new rear wing, proper metal flares blended into the bodywork, and a more low key graphics theme - say good bye to white strips visible from space!


                        This is the worst looking pair of flares on any car I've ever owned, and that's saying a lot

                        Those prototype plastic front fender flares we made look OK at 100 mph, but up close, they ugly. Sure, these were aerodynamically efficient but we have plans to make proper METAL flares welded to the front and rear fenders to cover the much wider Hoosier tires. Amy is still complaining about cutting the rear fenders on "her car" to clear the bigger meats, but I've got the Mustang at the shop all day, there's a fresh blade on the SawsAll, and possession is nine tenths of the saw.... I mean the "law".

                        continued below
                        Last edited by Fair!; 12-27-2013, 07:39 PM.
                        Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
                        2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
                        EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

                        Comment


                        • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

                          continued from above

                          We've got a few ideas in mind to keep pushing the performance of this 2011 Mustang on track. We know some of our TT3 records are soft, so it might be nice to bump them up a bit. And we're running some all new track configurations this year so we could try to nail down some more. But then again, TT2 is faster, and would be challenging to try to compete there in Texas and at NASA East Nationals. We beat some of the TT2 records last year in TT3, and with less weight or more power (or just more development on the TT3 set-up) we could feasibly reset some of those and nail down some wins. And if we went ahead and bumped the red 2011 to TT2 it would be an easy transition to bring the BMW LS1 ST2 car up to speed, accumulating points in the same class all year. Which way to go then?

                          Where To Race - TT2 or TT3?

                          Before we start this bench racing section I have to post the new NASA Super Touring rules, revised for 2014. This is the basis for the TT classing and rules, and there are some changes that affect TT2 and TT3.

                          New 2014 rules: http://www.nasaproracing.com/rules/Super-Touring.pdf

                          Lots of little changes in the new ST rules, and they look good. I like that the 4 door exemption is being cut in half, as this factor never really hurt most of cars that could come in both 2 or 4 door models.


                          The E36 BMW 2 door and 4 door chassis weigh almost exactly the same, but the 4 door used to have a +0.4 modifier bonus but now is only +0.2



                          The new 2014 revised Competition Weight modifier chart for ST, above, is easier to wade through and penalizes the super light cars more (sub 1800 pounds = -2.0 penalty!). I like this since the sub-1800 pound cars with driver aren't really "cars" per se, not by any modern definition. Just for grins here is the old, more complicated Competition Weight modifier chart from the TT rule set, below.



                          For 2013 the TT3 class was the most popular TT class in the NASA Texas at almost all of the 14 race regional competitions we had last year (and at NASA Nationals). And Vorshlag had a decent set-up there, winning 13 of the 14 regional TT3 races in this car, mostly with the pre-August '13 aero changes and narrower front wheels. We could feasibly develop the car further and do better in TT3 again, but for grins let's see what it would take to make the jump to TT2. At first glance it would seem like the jump would be easy, as it is "only a 1 point weight to power ratio change", going from 9:1 to 8:1. Just lose a few pounds here and there and race it, right? In reality it is much more complicated than that.



                          First let's back up and analyze our current TT3 setup with respect to power, race weight, and ratio modifiers:

                          2013 TT3 race weight was 3770 pounds with driver. I'm about 210 with my gear on and we've been using 3/4 tank of fuel to ballast up that weight (and to avoid fuel starvation - I usually go out in each session with a nearly full or totally full tank). Latest DynoJet chassis dyno pull was a best of 419 whp, after we added the new air snorkel, but it made 430 whp in the past (more on that "missing power" in a second). Here's the 2013 and 2014 TT3 ratio calculations:

                          TT3 Unadjusted Wt/Power Ratio = 9.0
                          Non-OEM aero = +0.4 (*penalty) - note this changed from -0.5 in 2013
                          Running 3700-3799 pounds = -0.5 (*bonus) note: we used a +0.6 bonus for 2013
                          Adjusted Wt/Power ratio = 8.9 (the adjusted limit at this weight was also 8.9 in 2013)

                          3770 pounds / 419 whp = 8.99 currently

                          So if you noticed we were a little over the 8.9 ratio needed at this race weight, almost by 0.1, which is a good bit. This means we could really have run as low as ~3730 pounds at this power level, or run a few hp more on the dyno at 3770, and not get dinged. That is just part of the cushion we like to run, just to stay squeaky clean and legal. As much as others have pushed me to I won't cheat, and I show these ratios and calculations publicly and have our TT classing paperwork at every event for anyone to look at. In 2 years, 20+ TT events, and probably 40 weighings on this car we've missed weight twice, both times by 5 to 7 pounds, and we fixed it shortly after (and ran faster at the proper weight in later sessions).



                          But how can we get this car down to an "8.0 ratio", to be competitive in TT2? We think there is a bit of power to be had in the exhaust, as this setup used to make 430 whp and did for quite some time. The catalysts we are running are a few years old, and one of them is smashed a little and might have a busted catalyst matrix, causing some flow restriction. Removing the cats and making a shorter/lighter race exhaust might uncork that 10-12 whp and get the power back to where it was before (from 419 to 430). But other than that there is no more "easy power" to be had. Everything we could do to add 20-30 more hp would cost thousands of dollars (build a race motor) and virtually every bolt-on mod that might be done would just move the rev range up and likely lose as much or more power below 5500 rpms. So let's stick with 430 whp, for the most simplicity, reliability and lowest costs.

                          3770 pounds / 430 whp = 8.76



                          Hmm, we're still way off the mark at that power level. What about losing a bit of weight? We think that ditching the over-the-axle exhaust section and the pair of relatively heavy Flowmaster mufflers in favor of a lightweight "dumped" system like we built on the custom Boss 302-S exhaust we built (see above) could shed as much as 40 pounds off of the current system (see below). We dropped more than that on the 302-S exhaust. We could also replace the bloody slip-fit joints from the headers to the exhaust (which always leak just a little and we have to tack weld in place) in favor of proper 3" stainless V-band flanges.



                          Then there is the rear seat, which when removed would drop another 35 pounds, with hardware. So with exhaust changes and rear seat removed that is the "easy" 75 pounds to lose. All could be quickly undone and involve almost no cost (well the exhaust would take two mufflers, some mandrel bends and about 7-8 hours to fabricate and weld, but who's counting!).

                          3695 pounds / 430 lbs = 8.59

                          If we do something about the fuel starvation issues, maybe with a new fuel tank sump or surge tank, that could mean we wouldn't have to run nearly a full tank. We run almost full now, which is 16 gallons, and at 6 pounds per gallon for gasoline that's 96 pounds. Running only a 20-25 pound fuel load, with a proper fuel tank pick-up, surge tank or even a small fuel cell, might help us drop up to 70 pounds of fuel weight...

                          3625 pounds / 430 whp = 8.40

                          We're making some progress but we need a lot more. Let's look at some interior bits that could be removed to drop more pounds. That carpet likely has some hefty insulation under it. It needs to come out and be weighed. And the air conditioning compressor, accumulator and condenser core are not only heavy but the condenser core is blocking air to the radiator. Is there another 90-100 pounds in weight savings here, not even touching the under-dash bits? Could be.

                          3525 pounds / 430 whp = 8.18

                          So with a little bench racing we're getting closer to the 8 pounds per hp goal, but don't forget about the TT modifiers. Since we are moving to TT2 there's no more +0.4 penalty for "non-stock aero" (formerly 0.5), yet there's still a bonus for running a race weight heavier than 2999 pounds... scroll up to the Competition Weight adjustment chart for that modifier (now a -0.5 bonus, which used to -0.6).



                          Looks like if we got down to 3500-3600 pounds there is still a -0.3 bonus, which means we could add even more power and still be TT2 legal, yikes. You kind of have to back into this weight penalty/bonus deal by first choosing a race weight, looking at the Competition Weight table of modifiers and then figure out your final ratio that way. It takes a couple of iterations but isn't hard to do. With a guess at 3525 pound minimum weight (where we think we could get without cutting up the car) that is a -0.3 modifier bonus, which is helpful.

                          3520 pounds / 457 hp = (8.0 - 0.3) 7.7 ratio (legal ratio at this race weight for TT2)

                          Yikes, that's a big jump... so we would be going from TT3 with an adjusted 8.9 ratio to TT2 with a 7.7 ratio. Even after dropping another 250 pounds we would still be 27 whp shy of the limit for the class. Another way to look at it is that at 3520 pounds the car would be 207 pounds overweight for 430 whp. Yikes... that's a lot of power to find (read: pay for) or a lot more weight to lose (450 pounds lower than we are now, which is impossible without radical chassis surgery and/or without exotic materials). So maybe a 100% competitive TT2 build is not in the cards for this 2011 GT... and I'm OK with that. What about a "semi-competitive" TT2 car?



                          Say we get that "easy" 200-250 pounds out of the car, add the bigger rear wing, flare the sheet metal properly and run the wider 335/345 tires, then ballast back up to TT3 weights -or- run sans ballast and just jump into TT2 with a +200 pound heavy car? Again, we did pretty well last year in TT3 and even beat TT2 lap records a few times at 3770 pounds. With more tire, more aero and less weight we might still be able to sneak in a few TT2 wins until the dedicated ST2/TT2 car(s) are built? Who knows. It gives us some extra performance and classing flexibility with minimal spending.

                          Again, there is no easy way to add another 30 whp, as the only "easy" bolt-ons left are bigger cams and a different intake manifold design (bigger cross section, shorter runners). Yet we know that these mods will likely lose power below 5000 rpms over what we have now. The popular Boss302 intake is a known "power shifter", adding a few points of peak power up top but killing as much or more power below 5500 rpm, so that's a dead end. The other ways to add power to an engine are to improve the Volumetric Efficiency, add compression or displacement, or add boost - none of which are easy or cheap to do. I like having a bone stock engine from throttle body to exhaust port, as it keeps the factory 5 year / 60K powertrain warranty intact, hehe.



                          So while I will consult some folks smarter than me and see where we can lose more weight (without cutting away big parts of the car) or gain more power (without getting into the motor), we will likely just try to improve the TT3 performance, drop as much weight as we can easily undo, and ballast up closer to the class limit... and remove the ballast and run TT2 as-is, when it makes sense. We will also make a separate ballast package for whenever Amy drives, as we are running as "Team Vorshlag" in 2014, and she and I will split driving duties. At least this way we can run the same transponder and won't screw that up, heh. Just need to make a very visible, quick to install chunk of driver ballast to make up the differences in our weights.

                          MCS / S197 Shock Test Video


                          In-car video from Nov 3rd track test with MCS TT1 coilovers on 2012 Mustang GT at ECR


                          Shannon just uploaded the 720P high def version of the Tom's Lap Timer video that I talked about in my last forum update. In the video above you can now see how the MCS non-remote singles work on this somewhat bumpy track. Driving this car was effortless (exception: hanging on in stock seat was difficult!) at 9/10ths, and we put in several hot laps with some traffic in an HPDE4 session. I didn't make any crazy passes and we got held up on every lap, yet we still managed to put in that 2:07 lap there.



                          The 255mm street tires (Nitto Invo) were worn smooth out, but car owner Jan has since ordered 18x11" Forgestar F14s from us (that just arrived) and we will be installing some fat 295/35/18 BFGoodrich Rivals onto those next week. This Mustang is nearly bone stock, with a 100% stock powertrain, some Carbotech XP16 brake pads, and the MCS shocks and Vorshlag camber plates. Real monotube adjustable dampers absolutely transform these cars on track, yet with the valving turned down this daily driven Mustang rides beautifully (550F/250R rates). I think with the 11" wide wheels and 295 Rivals this car could dip into the 2:03-2:04 zone, which is just FLYING for street tires. In comparison, a truly bone stock 2012 GT runs about a 2:12 lap at ECR, from what we have seen and timed (we tested our 2013 GT on 18x10" wheels and 295mm Nittos for our "baseline" numbers).

                          USCA Event at TMS is On!

                          There was an event we were in danger of missing in the early part of 2014 if we didn't have a street car to race - the Ultimate Street Car Association's TMS event March 21-23, 2014. This is the new series created by Jimi Day/FM3 Marketing to serve as the qualifiers for the big Optima Challenge shootout after SEMA, and we want to be there in this Mustang, which is a real street car. We hope to be on proper 335mm Rivals this time, too. Keeping the 2011 around will allow us to make that event in our own back yard, which is exciting. Road course, autocross, speed stop and some car show portion.


                          Time for some fat street tires and a run at the USCA event in March!

                          NASA @ MSR-Houston Jan 19-20, 2014

                          First NASA event of 2014 is right around the corner, as we race 12 months out of the year here in Texas. The MSR-H event is being run this year in the CCW format, opposite of 2013, so any TT3 winning time will be a track record, and possibly TT2 as well. So Amy and I will enter as "Team Vorshlag" and run whichever class has more cars, and if we can get to 5 in a given class maybe somebody will win some tires. The attendance looks pretty light right now, but that is typical for this January event - which could have really cold or windy weather, rain or fog (the fog last year delayed the start of the event) - but being Houston that could change at any minute and turn into a warm sunny day. Most people wait until the last possible minute to enter this event, which drives the NASA folks nuts!




                          With this renewed focus on the red 2011 Mustang and a split of TT3 & TT2 goals for 2014, we have a lot of prep work to do in the next few weeks to make MSR-Houston, unless we just take the car "as-is". I don't want to do that, of course! We almost never run the same set-up twice in a row - continuous development makes for continuous improvement. The initial changes we have planned (exhaust, flares, tires, weight) are still much less work than is needed to finish the ST2 BMW, which needs 200+ hours of work to be a running, driving car + time for testing and sorting the new set-up. We will continue to work on that ST2 BMW as time permits but for now we'll concentrate on 2011 Mustang development until the 2015 Mustang gets here.



                          We are doing a tire test tomorrow at ECR in the Mustang (320mm Continental slicks vs 315mm Hoosier A6) so I will report back on that soon.

                          MUCH more soon!
                          Last edited by Fair!; 01-08-2014, 12:34 PM.
                          Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
                          2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
                          EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

                          Comment


                          • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

                            Hi Terry, I just wondered what brand those mufflers were, pictured with the boss 302s? Are you planning to sell that exhaust system? I'm really glad you are going to keep the red mustang, you've put so much time and effort into it. At least until the 2015 arrives. All the best to you and the crew for the new year!

                            Comment


                            • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

                              Originally posted by Arnie A. View Post
                              Hi Terry, I just wondered what brand those mufflers were, pictured with the boss 302s? Are you planning to sell that exhaust system? I'm really glad you are going to keep the red mustang, you've put so much time and effort into it. At least until the 2015 arrives. All the best to you and the crew for the new year!
                              They look a lot like Burns Stainless bullets. Those are high end very light and look nice.

                              Comment


                              • Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build

                                Originally posted by Arnie A. View Post
                                Hi Terry, I just wondered what brand those mufflers were, pictured with the boss 302s? Are you planning to sell that exhaust system? I'm really glad you are going to keep the red mustang, you've put so much time and effort into it. At least until the 2015 arrives. All the best to you and the crew for the new year!
                                Arnie - these are MagnaFlow 304 stainless 3" straight-thru mufflers. I will show more about these but here are a few shots of when we made the system for the Boss 302-S.













                                The mufflers should be here early next week and we'll get started, weighing the car before and after...
                                Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
                                2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
                                EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

                                Comment

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