Re: Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 - auto-x/track build
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So that means no worthwhile points for the TTC entry, but two solid "100 point days" for our TT3 entry, if we end up having the Mustang all season (it's still for sale). Four fresh Hoosier A7s (in the right sizes this time, yay) were won here, so we'll have fresh tires on the Mustang at TWS in April. The original set of 245mm R7s still only have about 8 laps on them in 2 race weekends and look great, so we'll run those on the C4 again at the next event (only won 2 new tires at MSR-H in this car).
So the smoking issue and metal in the oil pan can only mean one thing: the the 24 year old LT1 motor needs to be rebuilt. That's two events in a row smoking and/or leaking oil in the C4, and I don't want to get a reputation for that nonsense. I want the motor rebuilt, back in the car, re-dyno tuned, and a track test day completed before #DangerZone goes back to a NASA event.
The Mustang must have been weighed 4 or 5 times all weekend, but it was never close to being underweight. We gained some weight somewhere, as it was always about 70-90 pounds over the 3802 pound minimum all weekend, but I kept taking ballast out until we were closer. The C4 only made two laps, in two sessions, so it never had a chance to get called to scales. It was well over the 3203 pound minimum, as I kept topping off the fuel tank and the added mass of the front cage section was also present.
Left: Saturday TT Results. Right: Sunday TT Results
Official Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...MSR%20Cresson/
Last up, some in-car video from the Mustang, shown below. This was with a suction-cup mount on the windshield, instead of the roll-bar mounted I/O Port mount usually located behind the driver. I moved that to the C4 and should really just buy another one to keep in the Mustang. It makes for a better view and shows the driver issues (flailing around like I usually am).
In-car video of the TT3 winning lap in the Mustang
The lap timer fell off it's windshield mount, so I was driving "blind" without predictive lap times. I hate that, and never want to drive on track without the predictive timing from the AiM SOLO. That 1:19.1 lap was a solid 1.8 seconds off my 2014 pace here (1:17.310, still the TT3 lap record) in the same car, but that could just be the difference between a sticker set of Hoosiers vs a very old and worn set. It was still enough for the win in TT3 and 4th fastest for the day in TT. We had 6 cars in class on Saturday and 5 cars in TT3 on Sunday. Amy was quick Saturday but was off the pace Sunday, when the front tires fell off. Glad she let me take 2 sessions in the car, because we needed it. Still won by nearly 2 seconds but it would have been a tenth or two short with her late Sunday times.
On the photos - we took pics with our Nikon and my potatocam phone, but thanks to MohFlo photography for the shots they got (bought the digital files) and also to Jason Toth for the images he shot. Their stuff was way better than anything Amy or I took (maybe the one above was OK, which was from my potatocam). And the next time I want to bring to cars to race and DON'T bring any Vorshlag crew to help, somebody kick me in the head? That weekend was a lot of scrambling around, and I'm too old for this crap.
Prep for Goodguys and Optima
We were looking forward to this event, and I really wanted to test out Mark's 2002 Corvette before Optima at this event. As usual prep on anything I drive runs behind scheduled customer jobs, so the C5 didn't get much attention other than the new 18x11 wheels and some 295/315 Rivals mounted, but that was enough.
Above: Construction of custom splitter version number 3, AKA: the "C Prepared" Splitter
Ryan also made a new front splitter for the Mustang that Amy wanted to test. The new rules for USCA/Optima disallow any rear wings worth building, and we ran out of time to make a rear spoiler (that we'd likely never use again), so I asked the guys to make a "short" splitter to reduce front downforce. I had also looked at possibly running some SCCA autocross events and the only class that the car remotely fits in was C Prepared, with no wing and a short splitter (or SMOD). So we followed the CP ruleset for the "shorty splitter" and it follows a "top-down outline" of the OEM bumper contours. Short and sweet, with no need for the four support struts, this version allows for more street use; it has better ground clearance with the lower overhang.
Left: Custom splitter version number 1, used at Miller in 2013, was 10.25" long. Right: Custom splitter version number 2 was only 6" long
This makes the third splitter we've made for this car, starting with the original 10.25" we ran at Miller in 2013, the 6" splitter we've run all through 2014, and then this 2" splitter for CP/Optima use. It looks weird without the wing, to me, but the new rules just forced us to do this.
So we had the same set of 335mm BFGs we used at OUSCI last November, which we kept mounted on the second set of 18x12" Forgestars. That's what she'd run at Goodguys and Optima. Not that we had any choice, as BFGoodrich was out of virtually ALL sizes of the Rival and the Rival-S was massively delayed. So it was a "run what ya had stashed" weekend. The C5 got a pair of 315s that I had run in early 2014 at Optima @ TMS, and some throw-away 295 Rivals a customer gave us (well worn). Couldn't buy any Rivals to fit the C5 for any amount of money, what do ya do?
March 22 - Goodguys AAS at TMS (200 treadwear) Running both the '02 Corvette (me) and '11 Mustang (Amy) in AAS class on Sunday
The typical Goodguys weekend works like this. There's a schedule of activities for their Friday-Sunday weekends with all sorts of events for vintage cars. Swap meets, car showing, and all of that. The Autocross competition is what we care about, but their main show is Friday-Saturday with the 1973-older cars, which run in 3 or 4 classes now. On Sunday they have the only thing we can usually run called "All American Sunday" autocross. This is the one day they allow newer, but domestic built/domestic powered cars to compete.
The Sunday "AAS" autocross is a good bit less formal than their Fri-Sat event, but the prize package is the same - and includes a free set of BFG tires to the winner. I've entered this three times and scored a 2nd the first time and have won it the last two times, and its a nice bit of cheddar. More importantly I needed the seat time in Mark's C5 and Amy needed the seat time in the Mustang on street tires with no wing.
We had some real competition signed up this time, too. Our order desk manager Jon was going to run his MCS/Forgestar/Rival equipped 2007 Mustang GT (below at left) in the AAS event as well. He's already a top competitor locally in SCCA's CAM-C class, and could take the win at AAS if I wasn't on my game. But bad weather rolled in Friday night and soaked the track. I had a bad feeling and decided to go into work and machine parts until I heard from Jon (you can show up right until about 11 am and still compete - its VERY laid back).
Jon had pre-paid for this event and was there early. He texted me from the track and said that it was still wet, but the organizers refused to do anything about it. When it rained Friday night they had the Vintage competitors drive around the course at 1/2 speed to help dry the line. Not so on Sunday, and by 11 am I knew it was a bust. Jon stuck around until they called the AAS autocross CANCELLED just before 12 noon, and he left that track none too happy about how this was handled. Can't really blame him, but I warned him up front that Goodguys was run "like no other event I've ever seen" in 28 years of doing autocrosses. It's just... how it is?
That cancelled event meant that we would have ZERO testing for the C5 or Mustang on new set-ups before the Optima event the following weekend, though. Crap!
March 28-29 - USCA @ TMS (200 treadwear 5 event Challenge!)
Wow, this post got really long. I'm going to push this Optima race coverage until next time...
Other Mustang Work + Multiple "This Week At Vorshlag" Videos
One of the more troublesome parts that I try to get Mustang racers to avoid are tubular front crossmembers (aka: front subframes) and front lower control arms. This is a critical area for suspension loads and chassis rigidity, but it seems that in the 1990s there were companies playing the "who can be lightest and cheapest" game with tubular crossmembers and it spun out of control, with the end result being that most of these began being made out of overseas sweat shops. Another area that people went chasing weight was tubular lower control arms. I've seen too many cracked or failed aftermarket tubular arms and K-members to count.
As you can see, the Fox Mustang aftermarket tubular crossmember above is all cracked-up and about to explode, heh. Luckily this 1993 Mustang owner brought this track-only car (built by someone else) in to Vorshlag for a track inspection before this Chinese built subframe could come apart completely. We contacted the folks at Maximum Motorsports, who still make their robust designs here in the USA, and got this new subframe straight from them.
Installing and squaring a crossmember to the chassis takes some time to get right (see this video). While we were in there we replaced the solid motor mounts with some poly versions, replaced a cracked steering rack with a rebuilt SN95 unit (the steering shaft coupler is different on Fox vs SN95s, BTW), and even swapped in some BBK long tube headers in place of the old school shorty headers.
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So that means no worthwhile points for the TTC entry, but two solid "100 point days" for our TT3 entry, if we end up having the Mustang all season (it's still for sale). Four fresh Hoosier A7s (in the right sizes this time, yay) were won here, so we'll have fresh tires on the Mustang at TWS in April. The original set of 245mm R7s still only have about 8 laps on them in 2 race weekends and look great, so we'll run those on the C4 again at the next event (only won 2 new tires at MSR-H in this car).
So the smoking issue and metal in the oil pan can only mean one thing: the the 24 year old LT1 motor needs to be rebuilt. That's two events in a row smoking and/or leaking oil in the C4, and I don't want to get a reputation for that nonsense. I want the motor rebuilt, back in the car, re-dyno tuned, and a track test day completed before #DangerZone goes back to a NASA event.
The Mustang must have been weighed 4 or 5 times all weekend, but it was never close to being underweight. We gained some weight somewhere, as it was always about 70-90 pounds over the 3802 pound minimum all weekend, but I kept taking ballast out until we were closer. The C4 only made two laps, in two sessions, so it never had a chance to get called to scales. It was well over the 3203 pound minimum, as I kept topping off the fuel tank and the added mass of the front cage section was also present.
Left: Saturday TT Results. Right: Sunday TT Results
Official Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...MSR%20Cresson/
Last up, some in-car video from the Mustang, shown below. This was with a suction-cup mount on the windshield, instead of the roll-bar mounted I/O Port mount usually located behind the driver. I moved that to the C4 and should really just buy another one to keep in the Mustang. It makes for a better view and shows the driver issues (flailing around like I usually am).
In-car video of the TT3 winning lap in the Mustang
The lap timer fell off it's windshield mount, so I was driving "blind" without predictive lap times. I hate that, and never want to drive on track without the predictive timing from the AiM SOLO. That 1:19.1 lap was a solid 1.8 seconds off my 2014 pace here (1:17.310, still the TT3 lap record) in the same car, but that could just be the difference between a sticker set of Hoosiers vs a very old and worn set. It was still enough for the win in TT3 and 4th fastest for the day in TT. We had 6 cars in class on Saturday and 5 cars in TT3 on Sunday. Amy was quick Saturday but was off the pace Sunday, when the front tires fell off. Glad she let me take 2 sessions in the car, because we needed it. Still won by nearly 2 seconds but it would have been a tenth or two short with her late Sunday times.
On the photos - we took pics with our Nikon and my potatocam phone, but thanks to MohFlo photography for the shots they got (bought the digital files) and also to Jason Toth for the images he shot. Their stuff was way better than anything Amy or I took (maybe the one above was OK, which was from my potatocam). And the next time I want to bring to cars to race and DON'T bring any Vorshlag crew to help, somebody kick me in the head? That weekend was a lot of scrambling around, and I'm too old for this crap.
Prep for Goodguys and Optima
We were looking forward to this event, and I really wanted to test out Mark's 2002 Corvette before Optima at this event. As usual prep on anything I drive runs behind scheduled customer jobs, so the C5 didn't get much attention other than the new 18x11 wheels and some 295/315 Rivals mounted, but that was enough.
Above: Construction of custom splitter version number 3, AKA: the "C Prepared" Splitter
Ryan also made a new front splitter for the Mustang that Amy wanted to test. The new rules for USCA/Optima disallow any rear wings worth building, and we ran out of time to make a rear spoiler (that we'd likely never use again), so I asked the guys to make a "short" splitter to reduce front downforce. I had also looked at possibly running some SCCA autocross events and the only class that the car remotely fits in was C Prepared, with no wing and a short splitter (or SMOD). So we followed the CP ruleset for the "shorty splitter" and it follows a "top-down outline" of the OEM bumper contours. Short and sweet, with no need for the four support struts, this version allows for more street use; it has better ground clearance with the lower overhang.
Left: Custom splitter version number 1, used at Miller in 2013, was 10.25" long. Right: Custom splitter version number 2 was only 6" long
This makes the third splitter we've made for this car, starting with the original 10.25" we ran at Miller in 2013, the 6" splitter we've run all through 2014, and then this 2" splitter for CP/Optima use. It looks weird without the wing, to me, but the new rules just forced us to do this.
So we had the same set of 335mm BFGs we used at OUSCI last November, which we kept mounted on the second set of 18x12" Forgestars. That's what she'd run at Goodguys and Optima. Not that we had any choice, as BFGoodrich was out of virtually ALL sizes of the Rival and the Rival-S was massively delayed. So it was a "run what ya had stashed" weekend. The C5 got a pair of 315s that I had run in early 2014 at Optima @ TMS, and some throw-away 295 Rivals a customer gave us (well worn). Couldn't buy any Rivals to fit the C5 for any amount of money, what do ya do?
March 22 - Goodguys AAS at TMS (200 treadwear) Running both the '02 Corvette (me) and '11 Mustang (Amy) in AAS class on Sunday
The typical Goodguys weekend works like this. There's a schedule of activities for their Friday-Sunday weekends with all sorts of events for vintage cars. Swap meets, car showing, and all of that. The Autocross competition is what we care about, but their main show is Friday-Saturday with the 1973-older cars, which run in 3 or 4 classes now. On Sunday they have the only thing we can usually run called "All American Sunday" autocross. This is the one day they allow newer, but domestic built/domestic powered cars to compete.
The Sunday "AAS" autocross is a good bit less formal than their Fri-Sat event, but the prize package is the same - and includes a free set of BFG tires to the winner. I've entered this three times and scored a 2nd the first time and have won it the last two times, and its a nice bit of cheddar. More importantly I needed the seat time in Mark's C5 and Amy needed the seat time in the Mustang on street tires with no wing.
We had some real competition signed up this time, too. Our order desk manager Jon was going to run his MCS/Forgestar/Rival equipped 2007 Mustang GT (below at left) in the AAS event as well. He's already a top competitor locally in SCCA's CAM-C class, and could take the win at AAS if I wasn't on my game. But bad weather rolled in Friday night and soaked the track. I had a bad feeling and decided to go into work and machine parts until I heard from Jon (you can show up right until about 11 am and still compete - its VERY laid back).
Jon had pre-paid for this event and was there early. He texted me from the track and said that it was still wet, but the organizers refused to do anything about it. When it rained Friday night they had the Vintage competitors drive around the course at 1/2 speed to help dry the line. Not so on Sunday, and by 11 am I knew it was a bust. Jon stuck around until they called the AAS autocross CANCELLED just before 12 noon, and he left that track none too happy about how this was handled. Can't really blame him, but I warned him up front that Goodguys was run "like no other event I've ever seen" in 28 years of doing autocrosses. It's just... how it is?
That cancelled event meant that we would have ZERO testing for the C5 or Mustang on new set-ups before the Optima event the following weekend, though. Crap!
March 28-29 - USCA @ TMS (200 treadwear 5 event Challenge!)
Wow, this post got really long. I'm going to push this Optima race coverage until next time...
Other Mustang Work + Multiple "This Week At Vorshlag" Videos
One of the more troublesome parts that I try to get Mustang racers to avoid are tubular front crossmembers (aka: front subframes) and front lower control arms. This is a critical area for suspension loads and chassis rigidity, but it seems that in the 1990s there were companies playing the "who can be lightest and cheapest" game with tubular crossmembers and it spun out of control, with the end result being that most of these began being made out of overseas sweat shops. Another area that people went chasing weight was tubular lower control arms. I've seen too many cracked or failed aftermarket tubular arms and K-members to count.
As you can see, the Fox Mustang aftermarket tubular crossmember above is all cracked-up and about to explode, heh. Luckily this 1993 Mustang owner brought this track-only car (built by someone else) in to Vorshlag for a track inspection before this Chinese built subframe could come apart completely. We contacted the folks at Maximum Motorsports, who still make their robust designs here in the USA, and got this new subframe straight from them.
Installing and squaring a crossmember to the chassis takes some time to get right (see this video). While we were in there we replaced the solid motor mounts with some poly versions, replaced a cracked steering rack with a rebuilt SN95 unit (the steering shaft coupler is different on Fox vs SN95s, BTW), and even swapped in some BBK long tube headers in place of the old school shorty headers.
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