Vorshlag S550 & S650 Mustang Development + 2018 GT, 2024 Darkhorse & #Trigger

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Project TRIGGER Update for January 17, 2024: I started writing this post in January, after wrapping up the first post covering the first 4 track events in our S650 Mustang Darkhorse. We've been testing with both cars extensively through late 2023, and the craziest thing is - in November the Darkhorse ran quicker at the same track that Trigger ran there in August, at a Time Trial event I won in the 2015! Luckily Trigger has dropped FOUR seconds there after we fixed a bunch of issues... both cars are fast, and Trigger is now STUPID FAST. It is the fastest car on a road course I've ever driven or owned, by far.



On my last update on the Trigger project back in September we only got through the 454" LS7 install and FIRST track test (June 29th, 2023), which was pretty much an unmitigated disaster. We have made MASSIVE improvements since that first track test in late June - and we have run TWELVE additional track events (one autocross) in the car, and it got faster each time. This round of updates only covers the Trigger project work through August, 2023.



The improvements to this car were hard fought, and this Forum Entry shows a lot of what we had to do to overcome some bad advice, poor product quality control, wacky software issues, and more. Some of the work shown above is from after August, when we had some major breakthroughs in September and early October. THAT is when the performance got ridiculous, and I will cover that next time.



Trigger has since dominated every Time Attack we have run it at since October, knocking down class wins and overall "FTDs" (Fastest Time of Day) on 200TW street tires. The change in this car's performance from June (below left) to December (below right) was nothing short of miraculous, but we had help from a number of key players. Again, this update only covers the work through the end of August 2023, but we're not going to stop sharing this tech!



After the end of the 2023 TT season took the car to a new shop who added a Haltech EFI, tapped into the S197 ABS unit, and managed to add Motorsports Traction Control. I'm excited to see how this car performs in 2024, but for now strap in for a massive five part forum update to catch up with the MAJOR strides that Trigger has seen in 2023!

POST TRACK TEST UPDATES + MACH I FRONT SPINDLE UPGRADE

This part picks up one day after my June 29th test, on Friday June 30th. The day after this first track test I unloaded Trigger, but after only a few laps I knew something wasn't right. At this point we were not sure of what was holding up the car, but I had already entered Trigger for an HPDE event on July 5th, along with Koenig's Silver 2002 C5 Corvette (after a big round of updates) and McCall's 2004 CTS-V - that cars first laps ever after major rework at the shop in 2020-21 (see below).



I needed to get more laps and try a few more things to nail down what the engine "rev limiter" trigger really was. I also wanted to ditch the FIVE year old RE71R tires for some better preserved FOUR year old Hoosier R7s. I also needed to be at this event with my two customers' cars going (for their first laps after major work at Vorshlag) + a bunch of college racing buddies coming for a Texas A&M Sport Car Club reunion. We were taking Trigger at all costs!



So the Mustang came into the shop that Friday and went up on the lift for a thorough inspection after its first ever laps. Since the car had been at the tuner for nearly a month we had accumulated a number of parts that we had planned to upgrade on various systems as well.



The only fluid leak we could find was VERY minor, and frustratingly it was something we had replaced a month earlier. The axle seal was nicked when the axles were swapped out for fresh GT350 units, just more bad luck. Oh well, that was fixed and 6 months later now we have not seen a drop or other issues with anything relating to the axles, CV boots, or these seals.



Next up was an upgrade to the 2022 Mustang Mach I spindles. There is updated steering geometry buried within these spindles, adapted from the late 2020 GT350R and 2020-22 GT500 (the 2024 Darkhorse has similar spindles). These uprights use a very different front wheel bearing which is held in with 4 bolts vs the single nut torqued to 250 ft-lbs like the other S550 spindles. We installed 4" long MSI brand "GT4" wheel studs at the same time, as part of a planned 18x12" Apex wheel and tire upgrade coming later.



When Brad was installing the new spindles I took the time to mark the movement that we always dial in between the spindle and strut. The MCS damper has a significant slot in the upper hole which can be utilized to add 2-3 deg of negative camber - but it comes at the loss of inboard wheel room. If you can balance this correctly this slotted hole adjustment + camber plates can make for two reliable camber adjustments.

This slot trick just takes a LOT of time to dial in right, but it always has to be done. I've got a video I need to finish when we did this adjustment on the 2024 Darkhorse as MCS RR3 coilovers went on that - check it on YouTube soon.



With the spindles swapped we didn't have time for a full blown "Laser" alignment so Brad got the camber dialed in to -4.3 up front again and set the toe to zero.



We had an inkling that the issue I saw in my handful of laps from June 29th was low oil pressure triggering a tuning "safety" that was putting the car on a rev limiter (below 30 psi above 3000 rpm). All of the existing oil was sucked out of the tank (it is impossible to drain from the bottom without removing it) and the rest drained from the LS7 pan. Why change it now? At this point the brand new engine had made a LOT of dyno pulls, gone through various start up tests and test drives, and a handful of laps on track. A sample of the Motul5W50 was saved and that plus another sample was later sent to Lake Speed Jr for analysis.



Brad took the oil filter apart and we inspected the pleats, as did our engine builder Erik Koenig. We saw nothing alarming. This time we added 12 liters of oil to the dry sump tank, plus whatever was still in the oil cooler and lines. We were hoping that the low oil pressure issue was maybe not enough oil filled in the tank? The Peterson folks make an oil level dipstick and we followed their procedure for checking level, but there's no concrete answer as to what level that should be. We're going by the age old advice for dry sump tanks: "Fill the tank gradually until it starts to puke oil on track - that's the right limit!"



Brad removed the headers to add some DEI heat shield above the collectors, which my feet appreciated. This stuff is great - adhesive on one side, filled with a fiberglass insulation in the middle, and a dimpled aluminum outer later that acts as a reflective shield.



Another much needed upgrade in this Texas summer heat was this dfusermotorsports.com driver cooling system. Unlike to the ice water driver cooling systems we have utilized in the past, this one makes its own cold water from a closed system using a miniature air conditioner. Brad made a very fancy bracket assembly to bolt this into the back seat area. Later on we ducted fresh air from the side window, per company owner Bill Agha's suggestions.



This unit was just free standing in the rear, pumping out heat back into the cabin, but cold water into my cool suit vest. This unit had a remote display and controller, which was mounted within reach of the driver in a spot we had saved just for this purpose. I can turn it on/off, adjust water temp, and see water temp readouts and any trouble codes on that LCD screen.



I briefly talked about the rear tie-down changes at the end of the last post. Why? Because I had stupidly used these oval holes in the rear frame rail to strap the car down once (above left) and it ripped one side pretty good. Strapping through the wheels is CRINGE, using the optional Ford Performance tie down points in front of the rear wheels is a huge hassle (above right) and at the end of the day - I'm lazy.



We looked at the rear of the subframe and found a spot that looked sturdy. Jason drew up a design and Austin CNC plasma cut them. These unique rear strap anchor points tie-down hooks bolt to the rear subframe right under the rear swaybar brackets (which actually fixes some closeness of the swaybar to the rear coilover springs). These wouldn't really work on a car with stock muffler locations, but it works on Trigger! SUPER easy to reach under and latch to, well, at least until we have a rear diffuser.



With the car now making "not embarrassing" power levels the HPR and Vorshlag decals went on the hood. The folks at TrackDecals sent us some 2023 season Apex Lap Attack decals with the "454" displacement number as the cars new entry number. These replaced the recycled "54" number boards I had on the doors.



It was time to install the Sony HDR 1080P camera on a RAM mount on the center dash panel, as well as the AiM SOLO mount - just like we had on the 2018 GT. We had an AiM GPS sensor on there already but of course it was not connected to the Holley dash. These 1" RAM ball mount bases and arms mounts hold the devices well, and this panel is easy to remove and replace on any S550.



The last upgrade done in this hectic 2 week period was the installation of these MOMO 18x11" wheels and 315/30R18 Hoosier R7s. These were leftover from 2019, when we last used them on the 2018 GT. The hope is that these tires would scrub-in and have some life left (they were stored in climate controlled shop those 4 years). These were not our long term wheel upgrade, just something that had more life than the 5 year old Bridgestones. I loaded the car up to try more laps at ECR...

DRIVERS EDGE HPDE AT ECR 2.7 CW + TAMSCC REUNION, JULY 8, 2023

This was an event that was thrown into my orbit a few weeks earlier, and it was a reunion for a lot of college racing buddies. I had two customers with cars we had worked on debuting their new setups here, too. It was sort of a rushed day, with another buddy's birthday party at 5pm that we had to leave a bit early to make. I like the folks at Drivers Edge but had not run with them in years.



Since I wasn't "known" within this group, I got stuck in what I felt was the "wrong group". This group was the TAMSCC group for that day, and there were a lot of old dudes going VERY slowly. Our first session was parade laps without helmets, FFS. The second session was just painfully slow with a lot of passes.



In the 3rd run group I got moved to their faster "Pink" run group, and the traffic was less painful. The video above isn't filled with fast, impressive laps. It shows two very frustrating, problem filled laps. At this point we had figured out it was oil pressure related - the "stutter" after left hand turns was worse then ever before. Both laps above were 2:06 on the 2.7 mile CW course before I threw in the towel. These laps were SLOW and I was beyond frustrated with the issue.



I was able to look at the oil pressure readout on the craptastic Holley digital dash several times this day and see it dip into the low 30 psi range after left handers, which would cause the tuning safety protocol to pull power and essentially put it on a rev limiter. Between every session I was adding more oil and more oil to the 3 gallon dry sump tank, texting the engine builder continuously. Ending the day I had added + 4 liters from our fill at the shop, to 16 liters plus whatever was in the coolers and lines! At least in this hot July heat I had my cool suit working, so I didn't "lose my cool".



We got some good pics of the various Vorshlag cars, and for as badly as Trigger was doing, Koenig's C5 was taking the laps like a champ - with two drivers! They put TANKS of fuel through that Corvette and the brakes, cooling, and new clutch all worked perfectly. McCall's CTS-V (below) had one or two small "triggers" on track, also likely oil pressure related - tuned by the same tuner with the same safety protocol in the software.




The lateral g (1.5) for these two 2:06 laps were better than our test laps on the RE71R tires, as were the braking (1.25) or forward (.55) g numbers, but still not what I had hoped for. As you will see we found more grip later in the season with some changes to the brakes (Ford Racing ABS computer) and fresher set of A052 Yokohama 200TW tires.

THE SMOKING GUN - LOW OIL PRESSURE / TUNING TRIGGER

So the point of going to this event was to gather more data, but the Holley is simply TERRIBLE for syncing data to video - I've never been able to make it work, as there is no GPS data or time sync. See, the Holley EFI loses clock time every time you power off the battery disconnect, so I simply cannot sync data to any video.

I cannot emphasize this enough - DO NOT use Holley EFI if you are road racing and want to analyze your data. Holley EFI can ONLY communicate with Holley digital dashes, and their GPS sync ability can be compromised, which turns your data into one big jumbled, useless mess.



With the help of our tuner he was able to SHOW that the safety protocol he added was indeed triggering the "engine limiter" due to low oil pressure, which I felt after virtually every left hand turn. Since we had the Katech Red LS7 style 2 stage pump, and a 3 gallon external oil tank, we were looking elsewhere for the cause. How many thousands of C6 Z06 drivers have driven on track and had this issue, and I'm not aware of it? We weren't exactly making HUGE grip on the crusty old RE71R tires and it was seeing sub-30 psi above 3000 rpm - maybe C6Z owners just don't know?



This low oil pressure issue would continue to cause us major grief for the next FIVE track outings, which included two SCCA Time Trials, an SCCA autocross, and two dedicated track tests. The various changes, fixes, and upgrades we tried ended up being a complete waste of time, but I wanted to test these potential "Fixes" before we went straight to an external dry sump system. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE - DON'T SHORT CUT A REAL DRY SUMP SYSTEM!

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BATTERY + HOLLEY WIRING PROBLEMS

As if the oil pressure issue wasn't enough of a headache, we also had major problems with a new Optima battery and the entire Holley EFI and digital dash systems. We worked on all of these issues for months before finally figuring out what needed to change and why.



One of the major Holley issues we found right after this ECR test was how S-L-O-W the data comes off the Holley Dominator. Our tuner had the data rate for sensors jacked up to 100Hz for some sensors, which didn't help, and the logging would easily "max out" the data files every time we started and ran the engine for more than a few seconds. For that ECR weekend where I made a handful of laps in 3 sessions it took TWO AND A HALF HOURS to download the data via the wired port. Never seen anything like this, even since the days of dial-up internet.



Plus, without a time stamp or GPS sync, the data was just all a jumbled, near useless mess. We had no way to sync this data to actual track driving, because all of the data files look essentially the same - a max file sized jumble of numbers. So we went and bought this Holley GPS upgrade, and also a 3.5" Holley dash. I will try to explain why I tried "throwing good money after bad".



The Optima yellow top battery was struggling - as were the 8 other Optima batteries in various shop cars and trucks at the time. We had a Cartek remote battery kill that would shut off ALL potential battery drains when the car was shut off, so this was a bit of a head scratcher. But as you can see in the video below, when voltage would dip under 10.0 volts during cranking of the engine, the Holly dash would reset - or worse.



This became a regular issue at events, every time we went for a test drive, or even loaded the Mustang into the trailer. We kept that damn Optima on a battery tender and it would still just lose voltage, but even with "90% capacity" it would often dip under 10 volts. Then the dash would reboot, and often the tune would disappear...



I'm not joking - I have the receipts, and it did this "lost the tune" issue over 50 times over a 2 month period (and this happened on TWO OTHER cars with Holley EFI). Even after we had topped up the battery, if it had this fault the car would not start, ever. Not until you reloaded/resync'd the tune and re-ran TPS Autoset via a laptop. This meant I could never take this car ANYWHERE without a laptop and a battery jump box. It happened at the alignment shop, it happened at the dyno, and it happened at the track more times than I can count.



Nothing frustrated me more all season than the miserable experience I had with Holley EFI. Not the crappy battery issues, the frustrating oil pressure triggers, or other teething pains we had. THIS WAS IT - Holley EFI. The dash was "stuck" with the factory installed screen layouts and variables, and we could make no updates.



I ordered the Holley 3.5" dash, as that has an SD card slot and touch screen so you can reload the tune / TPS Autoset wizard right there. But no... the Holley Dominator was on V6 of their software, the 7" Holley dash was on V4 and the 3.5" Holley dash was on V5. And NOBODY ON PLANET EARTH could get the damn firmware flash to upgrade either Holley dash to the newer software version to work. We had FIVE different tuners try to fix this, spent hours on the phone with Holley "Support", and even mailed them off for weeks. NOPE, never could fix this.



The 7" and 3.5" dashes were both "stuck" with the factory installed screen layouts and variables, and we could make no updates to either. We kept losing the main 7" display on track for extended lengths of time, too.

Holley EFI has some major hardware, firmware, and support issues at all levels. This issues on this car are not unique, and it has been seen by the highest levels at Holley. Six months later they still don't have a fix but they "are working on it"!

ANDERSON "GT500" FRONT END UPGRADE

We had ONE week between events, as the SCCA Time Trial schedule was marching along, and I was tired of borrowing cars or using Amy's BRZ in Max1 class to try to sock away 4th place points until Trigger was "ready". We had some upgrades planned and we moved on to those and hoped that adding more oil would help the triggering issue...



This 3 piece Anderson setup had been purchased earlier and I was anxious to get them on before tackling front and rear aero additions. We needed this to clear the wheels and tires this car needed for 200TW class competition.



The "Type-ST" nose was modeled after a spy shot of the 2020 GT500 that Anderson found in 2018, so while it LOOKS like the 2020-22 GT500 it shares none of the dimensions. Luckily they built it with wider fenders in mind, but not quite as wide as the actual GT500.



The 2018 Mustang GT nose and front fenders that I just had our painter spray gloss black now came off and on went the dull black fiberglass GT500 style nose and GT350 style fenders from Anderson. These were not lighter than the factory bits, but were chosen because the fenders were .75" wider per side - and we needed the room.



The tubular bumper beam was built to fit inside the turn signal openings for the 2018 GT front nose, but those were about 3/4" lower on the GT500 Anderson cover. Brad had to modify the mounts, move them down 3/4" and fit them to the new nose.

UPGRADE TO 18X12" APEX WHEELS

The new Anderson GT500 nose and 3/4" wider front fenders went on to clear these new 18x12" ET57 Apex forced "VS-5RS" wheels in anthracite grey - with a substantial spacer up front. This allows us to rotate wheels front to back since we are running the same 315/30R18 Yokohama A052 tire at both ends.



This is a significant upgrade from the 19x11 or 18x11" wheels and 305-315mm tires we had run on the 2018 GT, and earlier on Trigger here.



We ordered these wheels back in March, along with a set of tires, the MSI 4" front wheel studs, and the 30mm MMR spacer. It has been killing me to wait 4 more months to actually use these sticky tires and wider wheels, but I wasn't willing to trash the new tires on the dyno and we needed time to fit the front front end.



These forged 18x12" wheels came in at a light 19.7 pounds each, with a 1600 pound load rating. That is a tick on the lighter side, as some wheels we have spec'd were made to 1800 pound ratings - but 1600 load rating is pretty common for race wheels. At least Apex Wheels has a "50% replacement" policy - you bend or crack any wheel they make, they will replace it for 50% current retail pricing.



This 315/30R18 Yokohama Advan A052 tire is to be our main setup for Trigger for all 200TW classes. We have utilized this exact tire size/model in 3 cars now over 3 racing seasons, as well as 3 other sizes on 2 other cars. I can say this now with some confidence, until and if someone makes a faster tire that is wider in 200TW, we will stick with this. If someone makes a tire in a wider 335 or 345mm size AND its faster than the 315mm A052, we will change the bodywork to fit that. For now the A052 in 315mm still reigns supreme.



Back in April 2023 we test fit this wheel and tire package with the OEM 2018 Mustang fenders and GT nose. While we could make the rear fenders clear the 18x12's, these poked by 3/4" up front (see above). Which is what led us to the 3/4" wider Anderson Type ST fenders and nose.



We had hoped this 30mm hubcentric spacer would be enough, but we ended up adding another 3/8" worth of slip on spacers up front to make the wheels clear the strut bodies on the inside.



That makes for an "ugly stack" but the MSI wheel studs don't care. We've since run a dozen track events with this stack up front and had zero issues.



Out back it needed a couple of small spacers to work also, but that's OK. We altered and added to this rear spacer stack later in the season after seeing a tiny bit of rub. Of course we also relocated the rear emergency brake cable brackets, just like we did on the red 2018 GT, to gain more inboard wheel room. Brad also put some P-clamps on the remote reservoir hoses to make sure they never contact the inside shoulder of the tire.

ABS TEST 1 (RE71R TIRES)

During July of 2023 we ran 3 measured ABS tests with one change between each one. This short video below is for the first test, and is self-explanatory - it shows what we were testing, on what tires, and the results.



The braking with this S197 ABS with 100% junkyard sourced parts and REALLY crappy tires (5 year old RE71R!) was 1.14g peak stopping.



Good results, for the money spent, but I knew we can do better. Next up - a tire change, but NO change in the measured stopping power??

ABS TEST 2 (A052 TIRES)

Shortly after installing the fresh 315mm A052 tires we ran the above test one more time...



But look at this - we achieved the EXACT same peak g stop of 1.14g. So the tire excuse was no longer valid, as these were Fresh A052 200TW tires. Maybe we hit a programming limit within the OEM S197 ABS unit???



Time to change the program...

ABS TEST 3 (FORD RACING ECU)

At this point the Ford Racing M-2353-CA ABS computer was out of production (it has since gone back into production!) and we found one from a race team. Brad installed this in place of the junkyard 2011-14 GT computer, with no other changes. We re-ran a few days later on the exact same A052 tires and same test track in Mexico as Test #2.



Now this data was looking better, with a 1.27g peak stop from 70 mph (up from 1.14g). This test on a dirty Mexican street far exceeded the braking forces we EVER achieved on the 2006 C6 Corvette on a clean / hot track with the same 315mm A052 tires or even Hoosier R7s. The C6 had a much improved Mk60 ABS swapped in place of the OEM unit, and was also upgraded C6 Z06 brakes with GLOC R16/R12 or Hawk DTC-70 pads.



And the Mustang braking even got better on track with the Ford ABS brick, too! And with aero, even better (in December 2023 with these same tires and aero it logged 1.7g stops at the MSR 1.7 track!)

OTHER FIXES AFTER ECR TRACK EVENT

The HPDE event uncovered more issues that needed attention, and between the fender/nose change, the new wheels and tires, and ABS tests above the shop tackled all manner of upgrades. Let's cover them.



The 3.5" Holley dash arrived and Brad got to work making a nice bracket that put it within eye sight of the driver, and in a pinch I could use the touch screen in the hot pits (potentially to reload a tune). This was on the wrong firmware version, which nobody could ever update, so this was a paperweight for the entire 5 months it was installed into this car.



Our Petersen vented oil catch can was drained and a thimble full of oil came out. Brad opened it up to see if something was blocked, but nope - everything looked in order. We checked this after ever track event and noticed a little more oil after every track day, but never all that much.



Next up was a corded microphone mount for the Sony HDR video camera that was mounted on the dash near the windshield. After the first two events we noticed some wind noise, and I had used a remote mic on this same camera with major sound improvements in the 2018 Mustang, but it was some janky clamp setup that I had stuck on the E-brake handle. I wanted something more permanent, so Brad built a spacer to mount the 2-bolt 1" RAM ball mount where I felt it would be out of my way but nearer to the perfect spot for an in-car mic - near the shifter.



We used a short 4" RAM mount arm, another 1" RAM ball mount with a 1/4-20 threaded shaft and mounted the mic a wind sock "dead cat" cover there. This worked perfect all season, well until someone (likely me!) leaned on the mount and broke the cheesy plastic mic holder. I've since bought a better mic and holder but will use the same mounting spot.



Last up was a solution to a driving problem I had at the ECR HPDE - if you watch that terrible video you will see that I had trouble heel-toe downshifting, and kept missing the gas pedal or brake. Maybe the gas and brake pedals were too far apart? So Brad made this super nice gas pedal extension - after I ordered one from AMT for the wrong GM gas pedal.



He took a piece of scrap aluminum cut it to size, bent it to match the curved GM pedal we had in the car (CTS-V), attached some grip tape, and bolted it to the pedal. It looked GREAT but ended up making the situation worse - so we took it off after this next event. I kept hitting the gas AND brake at the same time with this pedal extension, and really it just took wearing the right driving shoes and some practice to get it right.



Well that was an extremely hectic week of work on Trigger between ECR events. It was time to get the car outside, clean it up, and the results were not displeasing. Time to load up for the car's first SCCA Time Trial - once again at ECR.

SCCA TT, ECR 2.7 CCW, JULY 15, 2023

After the handful of laps at MSR and the three brief sessions at ECR with Drivers Edge, it was time to throw our hat in the ring with SCCA Time Trials. The season was well underway and I desperately needed some points in Max1 class to hope to salvage a regional championship for the 2023 season.



We towed Amy's BRZ to ECR (78 miles away) with the '22 Maverick, which worked well enough (we've since started towing that car with her '24 Bronco) and I hauled Trigger in the big enclosed trailer. We got our paddock setup in a GREAT spot near the clubhouse. Stephen from Vorshlag joined Amy, me and Jon Miller (white BRZ in Amy's T3 class) for the day.

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I drove the Mustang in all 5 sessions, including a "sighting" session (that didn't count for times) where I took Jerry Cecco for a ride. In short, the day went pretty badly in Trigger. The engine was running great other than the oil pressure trigger.



Once I got tire pressures set I fought the gas pedal extension, and kept hitting brakes and gas at the same time. I would have removed the pedal extension except for the fact that we were fighting such bigger issues: changes to the tune, battery issues, Holley dash issues, adding ever more oil to the oil tank, and bugs. So many grasshoppers!



All of my best laps were pretty slow, netting a 2:03.1 lap before lunch. Stephen helped setup a remote login for tuner Jon during lunch and he reset the minimum oil pressure trigger from 38 psi to 30 psi.

The battery got a little low during the lengthy amount of time it took him to download logs and reset the tune. I should have charged the battery while we ate lunch but it was to hectic and hot, we needed a break inside some air conditioning - and I forgot. Our jump box we had at the time was a PoS and when it came time to fire up the car after lunch for more TT sessions it was a total train wreck. Once we located some jumper cables, then of course reload the tune and TPS Autoset, we were able to get the car to started - and I had missed TT "red" session #3, but they let me take laps in the "green" session at the front of the slower TT group.




I was afraid to shut it off, so I kept the engine running (hopefully charging the battery? Nope!) in grid for a solid 20 minutes, then went out and ran another 2:03.1 lap with the updated tune. I was driving terribly, fighting so many issues and frustrations. I kept hitting the brake and gas pedal at the same time, and messing up downshifts - this was driving me nuts! During the video I briefly go over all of the issues we fought that day, plus I call out when the Holley dash decides to reboot mid-lap. The oil pressure triggering was less than before, but still doing it on the latter half of the first lap and continuously during subsequent laps.



We had to reload the tune before the 4th session, and by now it was hot as hell 96F degrees and I was miserable. I needed to drop 0.2 sec to move from 3rd to 2nd in class, but couldn't do it - ran a 2:04 lap. After my last session it wouldn't start after Impound, so we pushed it to the trailer. This was one of my least enjoyable Time Trials ever.



Trigger scored a dismal 3rd place in class / 5th fastest overall. Amy did better in her BRZ and scored 2nd place in class and 19th out of 41 Time Trial entrants at this very hot July event.

OPTIMA BATTERY YEETED INTO OCEAN, ABS UPGRADE + OTHER FIXES

We once again had a busy week making changes to the newly built Trigger, with a number of fixes and upgrades happening before another track test was scheduled. First up - we replaced this hoopty battery!



We bought this Optima Yellow Top group 75/25 and made a special mounting tray for this battery because nobody else made a good mount for this "new" to Optima battery. We put this same Optima into several race cars, and all of those caused problems. This damn thing just won't hold a charge for more than about a day, so it has to live on the tender. After dying multiple times at that last ECR event, I was DONE with this brand. Something happened when the parent company was bought out before the pandemic, the plant moved, and every battery we have bought from them since has been problematic.



We have been replacing these expensive gel cell spiral wound AGM Optimas with good old wet cell lead acid batteries from O'Reilys parts stores, which have a 7 year warranty. This has fixed numerous issues in multiple race and street cars we pulled Optimas out of. The issue was that our special "Optima" specific group 75/25 tray has to be modified each time - and Brad tackled that here.

This was mounted into the trunk of Trigger on July 20th, 2023 and has had ZERO issues since. We can ignore the car for weeks, never putting it on a battery tender, and it just fires right up. No more sub-10 volt problems cranking, nothing. It just works.



Next up was the swap from the OEM 2011-14 Mustang ABS computer and replacing it with the M-2353-CA Ford Racing computer. This was done before ABS Test #3 (above) and it made an improvement on our street test and even on the next track test.



This swap is normally pretty painless but with how we have the S197 ABS brick mounted in the S550 here, it is of course a lot more work. Brad got the computer swapped then flushed and bled the brakes in preparation for the next track test at MSR.



Since the Holley dash seemed EXTRA special and super sensitive to drops in voltage (where it would reboot, slowly), it was time to make some improvements here. First, Brad took out the Holley supplied dash harness cable and found a ground short. Did I mention how much I loathe Holley wiring? The injector harness had two mis-wires on this car (which is how we had only 6 cylinders getting fuel in January '23) and now this. Good grief! Brad fixed that and laid out the battery isolator module we had ordered a week earlier - to keep flaky voltage from the battery from killing the power to the dash.




In essence, this large unit was a capacitor bank, that smoothed out short term voltage drops to the dash. This upgrade, the Holley cable fix, and replacement of the Optima battery solved the Holley dash reboot issues, which was progress. We haven't had a sub 10 Volt Holley "YEET the tune" issue since these changes, too. It can and will still happen if we let the battery get to low, but the new battery just hasn't failed us, not once.

We also measured the room to the hood and strut tower brace above the BTR Trinity intake, which along with the 112mm TB, makes the car impossible to drive smoothly.



We also had ordered some new "carpets" and I asked Brad to install that along with the A-pillar plastics. See, I was building this car to run in SCCA Time Trial "Max1" using an alternate ruleset from SCCA Solo CAM-C - which was allowed until a rules change in Dec '23. CAM-C allowed us to run a little more aero, a little less minimum weight, and had some other rules that were a bit more forgiving. So the drop-in carpet and A-pillar plastics made us more legal for CAM.



Last up I asked Brad to remove the beautiful gas pedal cover he made. I've since learned how to heel-toe this car and haven't hit both pedals at the same time since. I've also gotten used to the drop-in fabrics which are easy to remove to clean, and the dang things fit really well. Gotta get some D&E points for this if we ever run Optima, ha!

TRIGGER TRACK TEST #2 + BRZ TRACK TEST #6 - MSR, JULY 22, 2023

This was a rare, cool Saturday morning in Texas in July, and we towed both our 2015 Mustang #Trigger and Amy's 2023 BRZ out for more testing. MSR had a weekend member day, which was unusual, and only one week after the disastrous ECR Time Trial we actually had a pretty dang good test in both cars, setting new Personal Bests in each. I will only cover Trigger here in this thread.



The BRZ made 3 sessions and 5 total stints, with me knocking down a 1:22.5 and Amy a 1:24.5 - both new personal bests. I drove the Mustang and ran a 1:18.8 and a 1:19.1 in 2 of 3 stints, with no real issues - which itself is a win! Erik and Jerry joined us for the day, too.



The major trouble we kept running into here was the TERRIBLE throttle response with the 112mm throttle body. I was regretting the decision to not only use this LARGE throttle body but also the BTR Trinity intake, and ALL the work that entailed. If you watch the video linked below you can see how much time I'm losing trying to apply throttle in lower speed corners - and this is only a 3rd and 4th gear track. Second gear is completely unusable.



The video shows a big 4 wheels off after that 1:18.8 lap, where I pushed the braking zone into that first turn after the Start-Finish line a little too late. This was my one big "4 off" in Trigger for the season, and I managed to take a cone right into the nose.



Took about 15 laps over 3 stints in Trigger, and my two fast laps were hot lap 1 in each of the later stints, which about right for the A052 tires. The first handful of laps were always trouble free with respect to the oil pressure trigger, but laps 3 and beyond still suffered from some low pressure triggers in long left hand turns. Still, much better than it was before, and at this point we're running an obscene 16 liters of oil in the dry sump tank.



I was much happier with the performance of the car, and the overall reliability, after this test day. The oil pressure issues were still there but minimized. The battery issues were gone, and we never had to reload the tune or lost the dash function. Removing the throttle pedal extension worked and I got used to the pedal spacing. The biggest issue was still the VIOLENT throttle response, both tip in and throttle off... it was a handful!

SCCA AUTOCROSS LSP, JULY 23, 2023

Between Track Test #2 above and this autocross (which was the next day) we didn't unload Trigger from the trailer. I towed it out to Lone Star Park for an SCCA autocross, running in CAM-C class.



This was our first autocross in Trigger, and it was more than a bit of a handful. This throttle response issue was out of control, being that you are constantly in and out of throttle in these low speed events. Then magnify that with 2nd gear, which is just BRUTALIZING the rear tires. It didn't help that the course was super bumpy, and the temps were scorching Texas summer hot, too.



The video shows what I cannot find words to adequately describe - this 112mm throttle body was a TERRIBLE idea, and I'm already looking for a way to get into a whole new intake manifold and smaller TB. I ran the same mid 54 sec run in runs 2 (above) and run 3 (a tenth quicker), but was fully 3 seconds behind the CAM-S winner and FTD, ugh.



I felt like I barely won CAM-C, against a normal street car, but placed a dismal 16th in PAX and only 8th quickest time of the day. Not good, we have a lot to do to improve autocross results! (we did not run this car in an autocross again in 2023)

MORE REPAIRS, DRIVER COOLING UPGRADE, MUFFLER COVER AND NOSE REPAIR

The week after the Autocross we got busy with a customer's car and that car's first Track Test. After that was completed we had two weeks until the next SCCA Time Trial. We had some things to repair and a major upgrade to the intake manifold to tackle.



As soon as the car was on the lift for inspection Brad noticed some brake fluid seeping out of a rear brake caliper and it was CAKED with brake duct inside the brand new forged Apex wheel. Time for me to clean that wheel quickly!



I had recently discovered some new Armor All "heavy duty" wheel and tire cleaning foam. I rinsed the barrel and then laid on the foam, and let it do its work. This is one of those color changing foams and when it turned white, I scrubbed the wheel and rinsed the inside and out. I ended up cleaning all 4 wheels, but this one rear was the nastiest with the brake fluid leak.



I dried the wheel in question then flipped it over to inspect the inner spokes - that is where a modern aluminum wheel will show failures before they break in the form of micro-cracks. None here or on the other 3 wheels, and the brake fluid luckily didn't damage the glossy wheel finish, so that was a tragedy averted, ha.



With the wheels cleaned and inspected, this rebuilt rear S550 Mustang GT caliper was installed along with the G-LOC pads, and the old leaky caliper was sent back as the core. Maybe this was the source of some "unsure stops" at the track test, where I sent the car over the curbs after my fastest laps? Yep, we're gonna blame the caliper!



Next up was an upgrade to properly route cool air from outside the cabin into the driver cooling system from dfuser.com, which we mounted back in early July. See the unit was not pumping out water very cold once the cabin reached over 100F deg, and Bill from that company strongly suggested getting cool outside air routed to the unit's intake side, to keep from using already hot cabin air for the cooling. We found these double 3" inlet duct plastics and one of them fit perfectly between our 4-point roll bar and the B-pillar window. Brad pulled the inlet cover off the little air conditioner to see where to point the other ends of the hoses.



With the layout of the cooler now clear Brad mounted the second double 3" duct to the face plate of the cooler, then routed a pair of 3" dia Mishimoto flexible brake duct hoses from the inlet to the cooler.



This was a HUGE improvement in driver cooling system efficiency, which I would go on to use for the next few months of Time Trial events in hot weather. Nothing worse than being in a hot cabin with a 3 layer driving suit on in Texas summers!

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With the evidence clear that the rear caliper failure made me go four off and crater the cone at Track Test #2, it was time to fix the damage to the fiberglass front nose (see above left) - a fairly large crack in the lower splitter piece. We picked up a fiberglass repair kit with some woven glass fiber cloth, resin and hardener.



After sanding the area to give the resin something to "bite" into, Brad added the glass cloth on the inside and outside of this crack. When the resin setup and was sanded, it looked pretty damned good after the first application. "Good enough - paint it!"



With a couple of coats of SEM "Trim Black" paint it was a perfect match and a hidden repair. Nobody ever needs to know...



Last up in repairs this round was a cover for the giant Magnaflow mufflers in the trunk. At this point I held out hope we could fix ALL of the issues, get the car sorted and fast, and make it to the Oct 15th SCCA Time Trial Nationals event at NCM. After asking for some scrutiny, one of the SCCA TT board members told me that the open trunk might get tagged in Max 1.

We laid out plans to make an aluminum metal cover for the mufflers. Brad made this in two pieces, and started with the forward portion shown above - from a cardboard template. He left ample cut outs for all hose pass throughs, of course. We weren't looking for an air tight cover, just a best effort to close up this hole and prevent hot mufflers from getting touched directly by curious ding-dongs when the car was in Impound with the trunk open.



The rear section is this raised 3 sided box, made from a single sheet of aluminum from another cardboard template. This has flanges at the front and sides to attach to the rest of the trunk, with rivnuts and bolts connecting this piece in place.



The finished cover looks really good and we never had to remove this during the 2023 season after this was added in late July. But it could quickly be removed if we needed room for service. Probably should have installed this sooner but we have been knocking down problems at break neck pace.




We had OEM fender liners in place but they were not attached to an undertray, because... well we hadn't gotten around to installing that yet. See, on this radical of a new build we were always looking for leaks and other things that an undertray or splitter would hide. Luckily we never had any leaks, but the floppy fender liners had rubbed up against the front tires, unsupported at the bottom. Running without the undertray we had on hand was a mistake, and adds a LOT of drag. It also makes our brake cooling deflectors much less effective. We just... had so much to do between every outing!



The Anderson Type ST fenders came with these fiberglass "extensions" that filled the gap the 3/4" wider fenders needed, and now was the time to install those + add some aluminum supports for the fender liners, as we were still not ready to install an undertray or splitter just yet. At least with this bracing the OEM + Anderson fender liners wouldn't be flopping around and catching the tires.

UPGRADE TO MSD ATOMIC INTAKE + 103MM TB

Now this was planned for a number of weeks, but I was very hesitant to implement this because... well I hated to give up ALL of that hard work and potential power of the modified Trinity intake and 112mm throttle body. But damn, y'all this car was impossible to drive smoothly and quickly. We thought long and hard about any number of "short runner" yet taller intakes, like the FAST LSX HR, Holley High Ram, or any number of Hi-Rams with modified uppers. All of those would require cutting a LARGE hole in the carbon fiber hood, creating a visual impairment. We still might do this, but not if it means cutting the hood and looking over a giant mail box!



At this point we had to punt and go back to a "known good" intake and throttle body - the LS7 MSD and 103mm Nick Williams DBW throttle body. We knew it would give up SOME power, but we also had seen too many HPR built 454-468" LS7 engines with this intake make 630+ whp.



I had to identify what exact ID 1050 injectors we had in the car to be able to order the correct MSD fuel rails, as the rails we had on the Trinity were unique to that BTR intake. After identifying the right fuel rail kit that was ordered as well as the MSD Atomic LS7 plastic intake.



We had a 4.5" straight connector on the 112mm throttle body so I tracked down a 4.25" to 4.5" silicone adapter from HPS, to go to the new smaller 103mm TB and join the existing 4.5" cold air. With all of the parts ordered, Brad pulled the Trinity for the last time...



We have purchased a number of these MSD Atomics, and while I hate the way they look and it sucks to have to fix so many of their crappy manufacturing defects, I cannot ignore the simplicity and power these make. This is THE most powerful plastic intake on the market for LS7 heads, bar none. It wins every test when they are put up against any plastic OEM style "long runner" intake, and damn near all of the shorter runner intakes, too.



I ordered the correct fuel rails for this intake and our injectors, but the NW 103mm TB was out of stock at the only supplier, SDPC. Well we had a brand new one on the LS2 C6 - which was about to go for sale - and we stole that one for a few weeks until the supply came back online. That cathedral port LS2 had the best intake for THAT cylinder head style - the FAST 102 LSXR - which wins all of the intake test for cathedral port LS engines. Don't ask me why but it edges out the MSD Atomic for that port, but not the LS7 style port we have on Trigger's 454" engine.



I got the plain "black" unit and Brad got to work cleaning up all of the jagged plastics. NOTE: do not expect to install this in a day, oh no. You might spend several hours removing casting flash, sanding down imperfections, and even adding epoxy to get the base to seal correctly to the upper cover. We highly recommend that you SMOKE TEST this intake before you put it on your engine. We have learned this the hard way - these can leak air from a dozen different places.



So that was mocked up, and the fuel line changes were done, but we still had some work to do. I just... hate the way these intakes look, and the long 8.5" intake runners would definitely shift the peak power down from 7000 likely to 6400-6600, like these always do. Sure, it might gain some "area under the curve" (ie: mid range power), but damn - I almost don't WANT any more mid range power (in the autocross it would rev up to about 4500 rpm in 2nd gear and just blow the tires away easily).

Look how much wasted space above the top of the intake we have just to the strut brace? GRR... I know we can do better than this, but let's move along here and get this one running and re-tuned and dyno'd.

MORE TROUBLE WITH STEAM VENTING + "FITTING" THE MSD

We had the intake, fuel rails, and fuel plumbing wrapped up with the new MSD on August 1st, but it took fully a WEEK later to get all of the right pieces for the 4 corner steam vent system. The intake was not bolted down to the heads as we were waiting on the steam vent kit.



We fought putting together a real 4 port steam vent install on the LS2 in the C6 and this was no easier. The last MSD we did on a car was backwards and in a different chassis, so this kit made for this exact intake should work, right? Ha! Brad put it together per the instructions, as seen above right.



The "tower" that sits at the front of the driver's side head near cylinder 1 is really hard to configure right to clear the MSD, so Brad drilled and tapped the TOP of this cylinder. Then a 90 deg fitting went into that and the old hole was plugged. This allowed the two braided -3 AN lines to route back along the top of the Katech valve covers and under our fuel rails to get to the back two steam ports on the backs of each head. It was just packaging challenges, nothing new.



Next up was a considerable amount of work that needed to be done to make the intake actually fit this Brodix BR7-BS head. The original intake port gasket O-rings that came with the intake were ALL pinched from the get-go, so those were also replaced. The gaskets these come with are just trash.



Brad spent a couple of hours sanding down this lower edge on both sides to work with this cylinder head. Don't know why this needed to be done, but its just a common issue with the MSD. Lots of taping, sanding, vacuuming, cleaning, and test fitting.



Once the intake fit properly the bolts were finally installed and carefully torqued per MSD's instruction sequence. You can see the close-up of the final, modified steam vent tower above right. The old routing would not clear that corner on the intake - between that, the fuel rail and the valve cover, it gets tight.



The final exit for the steam vent tower goes to the same line on top of the radiator hose, as shown above right. Then it was time to top off the coolant system and let it run for a bit to warm up and open the thermostat.



This short video shows the engine running with the old tune on the new intake. It would need a complete re-tune with the new throttle body and intake.



The cooling system was pressure filled with this cap adapter and compressed air system. The existing 4.5" ID cold air system lined up easily with the new reducing coupler at the smaller throttle body - at least that went smoothly. That got us ready for the dyno time, but we had only two days until the next SCCA Time Trial and I needed a WIN. I was really down on points with borrowed cars.

DYNO TEST #4 - AUG 8, 2023

We only had about 4 days until the next SCCA Time Trial and all of the install and modifications to the MSD took longer than we had hoped. We had no time to schedule our normal tuner Jon, but luckily a former Vorshlag team member was now doing tuning work and was familiar with the Holley Dominator EFI. He met us at the Vorshlag shop on August 8th (or August 2nd, we have some record discrepancies) and we hauled the car to X-Factor Racing down the road in Princeton to use their DynoJet 224 chassis dyno.



It was staggeringly hot that day, with recorded temps between 97-104F deg in the dyno area. We worked through the heat and the cooling system on Trigger barely registered 195F after a dozen pulls. We ran into some issues with the inductive lead on the roller, but we made several 620 whp pulls in a row and quit adding timing and fuel when things dropped off.



Donnie tuned the car on the dyno then worked with me on driveability issues with a little back roads of Mexico street testing. The idle was still a bit lumpy but the throttle tip in and drop out no longer jerked the car around, so I was hopeful it would be easier to drive on track. I made this little video above after we got back to the shop.



We got this weight check August 10th, after the dyno tuning and the last of the task list and right before loading it into the trailer for the SCCA Time Trial Aug 12th at MSR Cresson.



Loaded up in the trailer, with the BRZ going on the open trailer behind the Maverick once again. This would the hottest race of 2023! Luckily both cars had functional driver cooling systems installed.

SCCA TT, MSR 1.7 CCW, AUG 12, 2023

This was our second SCCA Time Trial in Trigger, and I hoped it would go better than the 1st time - where I scored a dismal 3rd. If we had any prayer of winning Max1 for the season I HAD to score wins here and at every other event for the year. We towed two trucks again and were setup and ready with plenty of time before the TT meeting. Long day - we didn't leave until 4:30 pm when the truck's temp gauge showed 112F deg, phone showed 106F.



This was by far the hottest Time Trial I had ever done, and I did all 4 sessions - because I'm a masochist! After the first session (free for all, no times to grid by) I was gridded P2 for Session 2, behind Stan Whitney's 2020 GT500. We had both run a 1:19s, he had a 1:19.6 and I had a 1:19.8. We both ran 1:19.0's in session 2, with me just a hair quicker. Session 3 I ran that 1:18.9 and he had a 1:19.1. 4th session he went to grid - to dare me to go out, too! - and I ran a 1:19.1 to Stan's 1:20 - heat soak finally getting to the supercharged GT500. This was a crazy close battle all day!



Session 1 was 83F, Session 2 was 85F, then Session 3 was 95F, and Session 4 was 103F! My driver cooling system was low on fluid so it stopped working - I didn't realize that until later - we now have a "top off" procedure before every event. Also, instead of disconnecting my cool shirt vest every time I get in and out of the car, I leave it connected and put it on while seated (so it doesn't lose water at the quick connects each time). The throttle response was much better with the smaller 103mm TB but it was still VERY easy to lose rear grip in 3rd gear simply from acceleration. You can see a BIG tail slide drifty boi move at the end of this video...



That was my session 3 with one good hot lap and one junky, slidey lap. A very prepped GT3 RS 911 (somehow in Max3??) snuck ahead of me in Session 3 - he ran a 1:18.7 to take FTD. I don't ever want that to happen again!



Trigger was running well, still doing the low oil pressure trigger thing, and it would only do it in Lap 2+ a lot, with only some triggering in the last triple left hander on Lap 1. So it's still there, but manageable. I had to really push hard on lap 1. First 2 sessions I didn't get good temps in the tires and/or had traffic to deal with, so my best laps were on hot lap 2 - when these A052 tires were boiling and the oil pressure trigger was the worst.



In Session 3 I was fastest overall so P1 on grid, which meant I could set the pace on the out lap, and got some temp in the tires and hit it hard on hot lap 1, which was my best. This way I avoided the oil pressure issues of lap 2 and beyond. Track temp was 126F as measured when I came back in from that session. Not ideal.

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[Fair!]

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At this point I had put 16 liters of oil in the 3 gallon dry sump oil tank, adding another liter today. Still could not fathom how it could run out of oil in a corner with this much oil in the tank. Coolant temps were fine all day (195F) but at this point we still cannot see oil temps on the craptastic Holley dash - only if we connect to the ECU via a lap top to "look at the data" afterwards, which is still a jumbled mess. Handling and brakes worked great.





In Sessions 3 and 4 I made my first hot lap, got a good time, took a cool down, and came into the Hot Pits. And sat there in the car looking at live timing on Race Hero, watching my main competitor Stan's lap times in real time. After a few minutes of seeing everyone's times dropping off due to tire heat, I'd fire up the engine and drive back into paddock. This way if I needed to go out and maybe hunt for a tenth of a second, I was ready and right there. Good strategy.



At the end of the day the SCCA TT group had a trophy ceremony - the first in this Region's history for a Time Trial. The "gold medal" for first was cheesy but still appreciated. Gave people an excuse to stick around and drink a frosty beverage before rolling out.




Amy drove her '23 BRZ to 3rd place in T3, only .03 out of 2nd and 0.4 sec out of the lead. Vorshlag tester Jon Miller won T3 in his BRZ, and I took the win in M1 class, which was a first for this car. We all went to Braum's for ice cream afterwards - winners get sprinkles!

LAST OF OUR POINTLESS OIL SYSTEM FIXES WITH LS7 BASED DRY SUMP

After this mid august SCCA Time Trial we had a TWO MONTH break before the next SCCA event in mid October. This gave us time to test one more round of Band Aids to the LS7 dry sump system. This was the last hurrah before I threw in the towel and bought an external dry sump system.



Again, after ever track event we check the oil catch can, and Brad found a little fluid in there this time but not much. Where the heck does that 16 liters of Motul go? Well it sits in the tank, and some in the engine and some in the cooler... but not enough in the bottom of the pan on long left handers!



This Accusump addition has fixed low oil pressure situations in wet sump LS engines for us before, and this 3 quart system is huge. It is the same unit we had in Trigger for a while with the LS6 engine, but that engine was not long for this earth. So it needed to be completely discharged of pressure, disassembled, and thoroughly cleaned.



Luckily Brad kept the brackets he made for this monster sized Accusump and it went right back in with a 37 psi sensor - so it will dump if oil pressure gets under 37 psi. Seems a tick high, but we will see if it works...



The last thing that was theorized as a potential oil flow restriction was the main -12 AN hose that went from the external Petersen 3 gallon dry sump oil settling tank to the "suction" side of the LS7 oil pan. So about $230 worth of lines, fittings, and hose ends were ordered to up-size this to a -16 AN hose as well as re-routing it for a shorter run.



This plumbing trick usually reduces oil pressure loss across long hose runs - even with a -12 size at the pan, the larger -16 hose will reduce pressure drop / improve suction from the LS7 oil pump pressure pump. As we would find out at the next track test NONE OF THIS HELPED OUR SITUATION.



This is when we sent the two Holley dash units off to the 5th tuner to try to have him update the firmware so they would communicate properly with the ECU and we could finally modify the screens and get the GPS sensor to work, which would be a huge improvement for this Holley system. After 3 weeks of trying he gave up and shipped them back. We also sent two oil samples from the HPR 454" engine to Lake Speed Jr's company for analysis (all good).

LAP TIME COMPARISON

For a quick reference of "where we're at" we always like to list lap times with video links for the car in the forum post plus a few others to compare to at our Motorsport Ranch Cresson 1.7 mile, CCW test track. I have 800+ laps over ~24 years at this track, and drove all of these laps listed below at this track / configuration, with either AMB transponder or AiM Solo lap times. The cars in this list include our NASA TT3 prepped 2018 GT, 2024 Darkhorse, and of course the star of this entry, our 2015 Mustang #Trigger - all 3 tests on the MSR 1.7 CCW from this post are in bold. Just know that we have gone significantly faster than this as I write this, but I'm only listing what we have covered so far.

MSR-C 1.7 mile CCW:

• 1:31.619 - 2024 "Brembo" Mustang GT, 255mm 300TW tires, bone stock, Track Test #1
• 1:20.348 - 2018 Mustang GT, NASA TT3 prep, 305mm RE71R, MCS RR2, 474 whp (fastest this car every ran on 200TW)
• 1:20.677 - 2024 Darkhorse baseline stock, 180TW Trofeo RS tires, Track Test #1
• 1:18.417 - 2024 Darkhorse, -3.5 deg camber with SPL arms + Vorshlag plates, 180TW Trofeo RS tires, Track Test #3
• 1:28.064 - 2015 Mustang #Trigger, first test laps 6/29/23, 627 whp, 5 year old 305mm Bridgestone 200TW (junk!), Track Test #1
• 1:18.878 - 2015 Mustang #Trigger, testing 7/22/23, 200TW tires 315mm A052, 627 whp BTR Trinity + 112mm TB, Track Test #2
• 1:18.933 - 2015 Mustang #Trigger, 620 whp, no aero, MSD Atomic, 200TW tires 315mm A052, SCCA TT 8/12/23

WHAT'S NEXT?

Of course I didn't get as far as I would have liked, but at 5 parts and 20K words, it's time to wind it down for today. Here's just a brief glimpse of what we will cover on this project next time.



We tackled some major mods in late August, including a big front and rear aero package. And guess what? It made the oil pressure situation MUCH worse! After that we added this A.R.E. 4 stage dry sump system, and DUH that was the answer! Then we focused on making the now ultra reliable package even faster, upgrade from the Holley to a Haltech EFI, and more. We will delve into all of these upgrades, and cover more track tests and Time Trial wins, next time.

Thanks for reading!

Terry @ Vorshlag

[Fair!]

Project TRIGGER Update for August 20, 2024: It's been 8 months since the last update to the TRIGGER portion of this thread, which is our shop's S550 Mustang LS swap test mule and time trial competition vehicle. This car did a lot more events through 2023 and we made a lot of BIG changes during the 2023 season.



On my last update back in January we left off on work and events completed in August 2023. We were still fighting low oil pressure situation that triggered below 30 psi when the engine was above 3000 rpm. I was pretty flustered, and while the time period we covered last time started out fairly positive it ended fairly negative. Well good news - this time we start off with a hot mess of a car, then we make some key changes, and by the end of this time period we taste the sweet smell of victory!



The improvements this time started off a backwards order - we first added front and rear aero treatments, tested with that and the LS7 dry sump + oil line size increases, THEN we finally tackled the 800 pound Gorilla by adding a proper external dry sump system. So let's jump into to this round of updates and see the performance increases each time out. We also replaced the Holley EFI and added a proper AiM digital dash, and now we even have proper data logged videos.

PHASE 2: LET'S ADD AERO?

This was one of our best ideas for this project, as adding downforce almost always drops laps time. But the timing makes no sense, and as you will see below this barely nudged lap times down, because the oil pressure issues got SO much worse. The plywood front splitter on Trigger was a departure for us, as most of our former front splitter elements were made from aluminum.



We built splitters out of aluminum for a decade, but after a particularly costly (to me, as I ate a ton of the fab hours) multi-layer aluminum splitter on this S197 Mustang above, we decided to look at other splitter material options.



I am proud of the aluminum splitters we have built on numerous cars in the past, but the cost of 3/16" aluminum sheet went NUTS during the pandemic and didn't come back down - plywood is 1/10th as much!



We had just built a plywood splitter for this customer's CTS-V (above) during 2022, and it ended up lighter, less costly, and less time consuming to build than our previous aluminum versions. We did this with a $45 piece of 1/2" thick plywood as a test - but have since moved splitters to denser / better plywood.

This one worked so well on track in 2023 that we decided to go with a plywood splitter for Trigger. And while that might not make sense to everyone, we all have budgets. I also knew we'd probably need to make 2 or more splitters for this car for the different classes we wanted to run it in. Anyway, let's start out with the front splitter and then we will cover the massive rear wing.

FRONT SPLITTER CONSTRUCTION

I am showing a lot of detail in this section as this will likely become the basis for a "how to" splitter article elsewhere in this forum. We had used plywood in the past but I felt that the aluminum units had a weight penalty. On this project, which has already exceeded my minimum weight plans considerably, we needed to keep weight down. So after conferring with Jason here in Engineering and some outside aero specialists like Mike at Professional Awesome and Johnny at 9 Lives Racing, we decided to go with 1/2" MDO plywood.



Jason knew about this specialty plywood supplier that had a huge indoor warehouse in Ft. Worth called Ft Worth Plywood Company (well, the name is descriptive!) I went by there with my F350 not really know exactly which of the half dozen options we saw on their website was the right choice. I asked up front and they sent me to their most experienced shop foreman and he knew what a splitter was, so that was a plus. We walked around and looked at several options but he suggested this fully primed 1/2" thick MDO plywood, which was about $114 per 4x8' sheet. We had a number of splitters we were planning to do so I paid and left with these 3 sheets.



Back at the shop Brad started by stringing the car along the front axle centerline (the furthest back we can go with the splitter), the front fender opening, and another string down the center of the car. We then measured the "outer track width" up front then measured what the enclosed trailer would fit.



The rules in question (above left, click to see higher rez) changed at the end of the 2023 season, but we built to the "new" rules because we used the (at the time legal) alternative classing rules for CAM-C from SCCA Solo for the forward 6" extension. But there was no allowance to make the splitter wider than the car (it simply isn't mentioned) so we kept the width the same as the maximum track width we had. We only had about a 4" width gap from the tires to the fenders in the trailer to work with without having to remove the splitter to load the car (which matters to me), so it wasn't a big loss there.



Now that we had the envelop to work in, Brad could start on a new template from 1/8" press board. This stuff is cheap (less than $20 for a 4x8' sheet) and rigid enough to work with for transferring the final shape to the plywood. If we messed up here it was $20 worth of material, not $114 worth of MDO. We started with one of our existing S197 templates to get the rough shape of the wheel openings (track S197 and S550 widths are very similar) and he cut out the front tire openings so we could get a good look at the front.



The SCCA Time Trial Max 1 rules (2024) and CAM-C rules (from 2023) limits the rear edge to the front axle centerline (common rule) and the front edge to 6" beyond the bodywork. Now we have legal aftermarket bodywork on this car, and this Anderson GT500 nose has a little splitter lip that is included and attaches to the nose, and its all fiberglass I could have argued that this WAS the front bodywork, but the peanut gallery was squealing while we were showing our work. So I took the hit and Brad modified his magic 6" stick to have a notch in it at the rear, so it could follow the "bumper cover" and not the add-on splitter lip piece.



We used many of the tricks we utilized in the past to get this template perfected. More time spent on the template means less mistakes or time wasted on the final part. Brad and I worked with Jason until we were happy with the final shape, and I ran it by the rules makers to get approval.



The SCCA TT folks got a BIG letter from me about this and some other "alternative ruleset" issues. They weren't happy about the CAM aero rules we were using for 2023 but they allowed it, as it was in the rule book. For 2024 they changed the Max aero rules in TT to match the CAM rules, then divorced the rule sets. It was a fair concession.



One of the SCCA TT Max rules I had an issue with respect to the allowed splitter tunnels - the surface area they had in the old rules didn't even meet the OEM installed tunnels in undertrays for a 2016 GT350 - which had 2x the surface area Max allowed! I sent many pictures with measurements to back up my case, and it was one of the things that pushed them to update the aero rules. So for 2023 I ran the (allowed at the time) alternate CAM-C aero rules, which had NO limit on splitter tunnels - and ran two of these giant Professional Awesome units.


The image above is a second splitter with a 12" front extension that we made for NASA TT1 class use in early 2024

Sorry that section got a bit wordy but I wanted to explain what DRIVES our design of a front splitter - the RULES. We always want to maximize the size of a front splitter: forward, rearward, and laterally. And also run the biggest tunnels we can fit in there. Why? Because you can NEVER MAKE TOO MUCH FRONT DOWNFORCE.



We still wanted to be able to get this splitter off quickly, if we needed to work on the car at the track. We looked at multiple options for a rear mount quick release setup (all of which get very complicated when you actually go to build and use them - lots of experience with these) but settled on this slip in bracket for the rear edge.



I didn't like how little of the rear splitter surface area the bracket could hold, and the previous mount was too low. We scrubbed that and made a much bigger panel that held the splitter over about 6" forward of the trailing edge (vs 1" before). This required a few semi-circles to be cut into the splitter to tuck up into a flat recess of the front crossmember.



A week later we came back and added more holes to mount this to the subframe, with some guide fences for the sides. The extra holes make the bracket / panel more rigid, and the side fences make it easier to slide the splitter into this pocket.



With the rear mount completed using the press board template, Brad traced that onto the MDO plywood and we got to work on making the front mounts and setting the height. We had actually settled on a 3.5" front ground clearance, which happened to line up with the bottom of this GT500 nose - so we needed no air dam this time. We tested this height with our Race Ramps and it cleared, barely (below).



We tripled checked and the splitter was level with the chassis, but we planned to run some rake on the ride heights to make the front edge dip down for a more aggressive splitter angle. Again, we were trying to work with this front nose, which we thought we'd keep for a good long time (we only kept it on for about 4 months).



When it comes to exposed splitter struts, we have used numerous brands and types. We have been moving all of our splitters to these carbon graphite rod versions from Professional Awesome and really like how they perform - they are rigid in tension but can buckle in compression and not sustain damage for a light "off". If they are damaged, it is easy and inexpensive to replace the rod and reuse all the ends. The image above shows the rough layout where we had four of these units planned. Two would go inside the grill and two would land on our custom tubular front bumper beam - this aspect was planned LONG ago.



The two "inner" rods lined up well with these mounting points on the front frame rails, where our bumper beam bolted on. Brad was able to simply bolt the upper mounting flanges to these exposed bolt threads with another nut. Then he passed the carbon rod through the grill (just opening up one "cell") and down to the splitter plane and the "pretty" lower mount.



For the two outboard mounts we needed to make some steel weld bungs that were threaded for the upper strut mount. We used some 1" dia steel we have in stock and whittled these short bungs on the lathe. Then Brad sculpted the back side to match the 1.75" OD tubing from our bumper beam.



We lined those up, tack welded them in place and checked our alignment. Then Austin TIG welded those to the beam in place. Once that cooled Brad ran an M8 tap down into the bare hole that was machined on the lathe. We could have tapped these on the lathe but this was quicker.



Brad then masked off the tubing and painted it gray after the welding was complete, then made a short length of M8 threaded stud (cut the head off a bolt). This was then secured in the upper strut mount with Red Loctite, then threaded that into the bumper beam.



With the upper and lower anchors in place the graphite rod was cut to length and secured between the two compression fittings. The two inner mounts had some Professional Awesome titanium skid blocks added to the lower mounting bolts. These are sacrificial pucks and should wear before the splitter ever takes any damage. Plus, they make sparks!



At this point we had a nice splitter, built to the max limits of SCCA Time Trial Max rules. Many would stop here, but we wanted more downforce than a flat splitter would provide, so it was time to tackle the next step - tunnels. If designed and placed properly these will create more downforce and could redirect some air for other uses - like front brake cooling.

ADDING TUNNELS TO THE SPLITTER

Brad used a router to smooth the leading edge of the splitter, and the top edge as well. In hindsight we could have used a much more aggressive radius on the lower edge. With that complete it was time to lay out the PLACEMENT of the Professional Awesome Large splitter ramps. These are plastic tunnels that are very large and we had to weigh a lot of variables to find the best location and orientation of them both.



We reinstalled the lateral string at the trailing edge of the front fender openings, then looked at the placement of our fender liner openings - which normally would line up with the factory 2018-23 Mustang GT PP2 lower undertray tunnels. We wanted to utilize the airflow from the ProA tunnels to feed our brake cooling, too.



These ProA units are about 5x bigger (projected surface area) compared to the factory PP2 tunnels, so we had to test fit the new units several times to make sure they fit within the space from the front bumper cover to the fender openings (just barely).

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After finding the perfect placement (consulting with engineer Jason, Brad and me) it was time to cut the openings for the tunnels. These need VERY large openings, as you can see below. Now here is where many of you may disagree with my decision but we put them on TOP of the splitter plane. They are normally placed with the plastic mounting flange just BELOW the splitter plane - but I was worried that scraping of the splitter could damage the lower mounting flange of these $300 tunnels.



That proved to not be the case in practice - we have since remade this with the tunnels bottom mounted, where we routed channels into the bottom edge and flush mounted the tunnels. Brad used a belt sander to shape the lower edge of the splitter leading into the tunnels, which somewhat smoothed out the airflow, but this was FAR from perfect. Again, learn from our mistakes - mount the tunnels with the flanges on the BOTTOM of the splitter.



In the images above we have the ProA tunnels mounted to the top side of the splitter, and on the top right image you can see the brake deflectors clearly in the exhaust area of the tunnels. This led to exceptionally good airflow to our brakes, and overheating is not an issue now. We later noted some front end LIFT that this exhaust of air caused, once dumped into the fender wells and fender liners. We tackled that fix with fender vents at a later date.



The last images I will show are the "edge attachments" we added. A small section of angle is added to the outer edges of the splitter which mates up to an aluminum panel at the edge of the finder/air dam. So now we have the 4 splitter struts at the front, these two push-pins at the fender, and the rear plate that holds the splitter along the back.



I was happy with this method of attachment, the tunnel placement, and the overall shape of the splitter. It would evolve further over time, but it worked pretty well the first time out.



As great as this splitter looked, the biggest aero change that is noticeable from a great distance is the rear wing. It is a little crazy.

C-PILLAR MOUNTED DUAL CARBON REAR WING

This is a monster wing, and we we used the SCCA CAM / SCCA TT MAX rules to mount this as high and far back as the rules allow.



I will be the first to admit that the S650 Mustang GT3 car was our inspiration for this "C-pillar" mounted wing, but this is also done on other GT3 Cup race cars. The advantage is it is not only a swan neck design - which puts the mounts on the top side of the wing, which is doing less work than the bottom side - it also cleans up the trunk mounts. This also works well when you can put the wing way up above the roof, which both rules package we run allows for.



We saw the GT3 wing mounting in late 2022 and reached out in early 2023 to 9 Lives Racing, then procured one of their giant, carbon fiber, dual element wings. We ordered this with large carbon end plates, made for a swan neck mount - which are located on the top of the main element.

Now I took a lot of pictures during this time, but it would bore most of you. And then again some of the things we did might help some competitors figure out what took us a lot of hours and attempts to learn, so I'm not sharing some things on purpose.



Let's cover the highlights. After assembling the multi-piece rear wing assembly we mocked it up the maximum 6" behind the car and 10" above the hood, from the SCCA CAM-C ruleset (and later adopted as the SCCA Time Trial Max aero rules). We made mounts from press board, then upright pieces of the same mock-up material on the outside of the car that the wing hung from.



We took the cardboard then pressboard mock-up pieces, scanned those, and Jason turned them into CAD drawings. Multiple iterations of these were done in CAD before we cut the first uprights on the CNC plasma table.



The plasma leaves a bit of a rough edge, which Brad cleaned up with a belt sander and some other tools. Austin (above right) added a brushed finish to the main surfaces with the burnishing tool, too.



Brad cut slots in the C-pillar / rear glass surround, and our aluminum chassis mounts slid down into place and bolted to the chassis along several points. Then the outer wing uprights were mocked up (above right) to these chassis plates, then marked, drilled, and bolted together. This way we didn't have to fish a giant piece of aluminum down into the chassis. If we needed to run an event in a class without aero rules, or if we wanted to change the wing placement with a new set of external uprights, the chassis side pieces could stay in place. This proved to be a smart move.



We made some changes until we were happy with the stiffness of the wing structure, added 272 pounds of ballast to the carbon wing (I wasn't too fond of standing on the wing, but this more than covers my weight), and then it was time to modify the rear Lexan for clearance.



With a slot cut away to allow for the chassis side brackets that sit just above the rear glass, the Lexan was reinstalled and the final wing assembly was complete. People doubted we knew what we were doing, and I even heard from someone at Ford (they had multiple wing upright failures on the GT3 Mustang), but our setup is super strong and has been on the car for almost a year as I write this with zero issues, no wobble, and no deflection on track.

BLOCK ALL OPEN GRILLS NOT BEING USED

Anyone who looked closely at this Anderson Type ST "GT500" styled front end would see some VERY large grill openings that didn't do anything but add places for air to get trapped underhood.




Brad discussed this with Jason and me, and we agreed that now would be a great time to start blocking off these openings. The outer two lower grills were especially large and just asking to be blocked off. Brad started with a cardboard template...



That was transferred to some ABS plastic sheet, which he safety wired in place. Sounds sketchy, but it lasted for 6+ months like this, and we even added more block off plates to some unused portions of the upper and lower center grills at a later time with the same attachment. Less high pressure air getting underhood to cause lift is always good.

VERSION 1 OF AERO: COMPLETE!

After a couple of weeks of work, several tweaks to the uprights, a lot of time spent on the splitter, and the blocked off front grill openings it was time to show the first version of aero on Trigger, September 7, 2023. We were loading up on that Thursday for a track test the next day, which I will detail below.



Now this aero package would change several more times over the next few months but the basics are still there - the 9Lives Racing dual element wing, the Professional Awesome splitter struts and tunnels. We would later change the placement of the wing, moving it down and forward, but I will show that in a later installment on this forum thread.

TRACK TEST 3, SEPTEMBER 8, 2023 (FAIL)

We had high hopes that we had solved the oiling issues with the line size bump and Accusump, but even if it wasn't totally "Fixed" maybe we could still get 1-2 laps in without triggering the low pressure engine retard. The hope was that the added aero would add enough downforce to still drop lap times significantly. I made some key mistakes here...



I trailered the car out to MSR Cresson on a member day without anyone to help or shoot pics, and that was my first tactical error. See, whenever you make MAJOR aero changes to a car you should have someone there to look for and hopefully capture the look of the car with pictures and/or external video. I could feel things behind the wheel, for sure, but I had no spotter to tell me if the car had front end lift (it did), rear suspension squat (it very much did), or anything along those lines.



Above is in-car video on the new fast lap in Trigger, a 1:18.716. This technically was 2 tenths quicker than the previous best / winning time I ran without aero in August (1:18.933) at the last SCCA TT, but the car was such a hot mess. The low oil pressure started triggering happened right away, then when I armed the Accusump it dumped in the first corner and never worked again. The aero made the issue worse.



My best lap was in the first session when it was 81F, where I made 3 lap attempts and didn't get clear track and a good drive until lap 3. I went out twice again in the next session about an hour later but it was already 86F and climbing. Low oil pressure issues all day. I was really hoping that changes to the Accusump - only arming it after the first hot lap and now seeing a light when it was "triggering" - would help. The Accusump would indeed "dump" when it saw less than 37 psi, then it worked for one corner. The problem was the Accusump could not recharge until my cool down lap. So it was a "single shot" fix, and was not going to solve our issues. A dead end.



Who would have thought that adding more lateral grip with the downforce made the issue worse than before?!? (duh) Adding aero was a great upgrade, just done in the wrong order. A buddy showed up and he shot ONE picture of the car, above right, but apparently he had never worked a digital camera before and that's what we got, above. (facepalm)

When I left the track I was hot, tired, and just utterly disgusted. I was frustrated that we had burned the previous 2 weeks building the splitter and wing mounts and not actually addressed the real problem - we needed to move to an external dry sump oiling system. We had 5 weeks until the next big event we were scheduled to run in this car, on this same MSR 1.7 CCW course. I worried that THIS was the end of our 2023 season with the car, and that we didn't have time to resolve this.



When I left the track, the temp gauge on my F350 showed 119F degrees, and on the way back to the shop I had the first blowout on the trailer that I've had in ages (I would get another a month later). Old tires and high temps just combined to make my day "extra fun".

ADDING AN EXTERNAL DRY SUMP OIL PUMP

That heading above sounds so simple - just add an external dry sump pump! But no, don't believe the videos and con men - adding a dry sump oiling system is a LOT of work. This is not a decision that anyone should take lightly. We ran our narrow body C6 LS2 car with a wet sump (with an Improved Racing baffle) successfully for 2 seasons on the EXACT same 315mm A052 tires, and had none of these issues.

The LS7 based "dry sump" system is just generally considered SO BAD that it can indeed be worse than the GM wet sump oiling systems - as we have seen. Yes, I said that - the LS7 "dry sump" is worse than many wet sump systems, especially the earliest C6 Z06 cars with smaller dry sump tanks. We had a huge 3 gallon tank, and it still didn't work.



This conversion to an external dry sump pump and new pan involved many thousands of dollars in parts, lots of phone calls to HPR and ARE, way too much custom machining, and many hours of plumbing and fiddly work. We gobbled up all 5 weeks of time we had until our next event, getting all of this built and dialed in. So now let's cover how we solved the low oil pressure problem, and look closer at why the OEM LS7 dry sump parts just could never work on this setup.

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WHY DID THE LS7 DRY SUMP SUCK?

The two main components we surmised that were causing the most low oil problems with the OEM LS7 based "dry sump" system were the factory LS7 oil pan (below left) and the 2-stage internal oil pump (below right). This was after looking at reams of data, discussing with our tuner and engine builder, and consulting outside oil system experts.



We had upgraded both items beyond stock - the oil pan had the Improved Racing baffles and windage tray, and the stock LS7 2-stage oil pump was swapped for the higher volume Katech red pump. We had even port matched the pan to pump interface, and of course we had the huge Peterson 3 gallon oil settling tank (the stock LS7 oil tanks are pretty awful). Why was it still so bad?


Our 2006 Corvette's stock LS2 wet sump oiling with Improved Racing baffle ran a 1:19.7 time in competition, and logged oil pressure was fine

But as we noted with data, the oil pressure would dip below 30 psi in long left hand turns on Trigger. After conversing with HPR and others we feel that this was mostly due to the high lateral Gs that these modern 200TW tires can produce. 1.4-1.5g lateral grip is far more than a stock C6 Z06 could ever see without slicks until these new tires came around. Again, our narrow body C6 above with the exact same A052 tires and a wet sump and had no issues - and several of the T2 class track record I set with it in 2022 still stand 2 years later.



The stock LS7 pickup screen is offset a bit to the driver's side, but the engine is slinging oil opposite of that with crank windage. And even with the Improved Racing oil pan baffle, windage tray and crank scraper we still had issues. That high lateral force + the natural windage direction allows the single LS7 pickup screen to be uncovered, and the high flow volume of the pressure stage of the pump would drain the remote oil tank to a point that the engine would lose oil pressure within about 6-10 seconds of left hand cornering. We had run out of Band Aids (bigger hoses + Accusump) and further track use would damage the expensive HPR 454" engine.



The first part of this fix was to move to an ARE Dry Sump pan, and replace stock LS7 unit. Now if we were running in a series that banned external oil pumps this company does make a "better" pan for use with the internal 2-stage LS7 style pumps, but the time for half measures was over. With the added grip of the new aero + Hoosier A7s we had planned for another series, it was time to jump all the way in and add the external oil pump with 4 stages; this pan was setup for 3 suction stages and a single pressure stage.



This particular ARE pan was part of some old / unused inventory that Erik at HPR had on hand. We noted that the 3 suction stages were setup with -10 AN lines / internal screens. We upgraded to their more modern -12 AN screen / fittings, as we planned to run all -12 lines from the 3 scavenge stages to the pump, then -16AN lines for the combined suction line to the tank and back to the pressure side pickup.



ARE dry sump systems supplied us with their normal "Y-body" (Corvette) pump, which has -12 AN inlets for 2 of the 3 suction stages, a -10 line one scavenge and the pressure output, and a -12 on the combined scavenge output. We upgraded all of the -10 outlets on the pump - going to a -16AN on the pressure output and a -12AN on the weirdly small 3rd scavenge stage. The image above right shows what we planned for. Maybe there's less room on a Corvette to plumb all of this, but on our S550 Mustang we had ample room for the bigger -16AN lines, so we made that upgrade.



This image above from HPR shows the the same ARE pan plumbed for an identical ARE 4 stage dry sump pump, with 3 suction stages plumbed from the pan to the pump, then the one output stage to the "inlet" side of the block (where the oil filter would normally feed). This setup had the one -10 suction stage line (the middle stage) and the smaller pressure output fitting at the pump, but a -12 line run to the feed. We upgraded all of these on our setup.

MAKING A NEW ENGINE MOUNT

To fit an external dry sump pump to an LS engine, the factory air conditioner almost always has to be removed - as the passenger side of the block where the compressor rests is the best spot for an external oil pump. Why? Because of how the engine rotates internally slings oil to this side of an oil pan, so the scavenge ports (in this case, 3 of them) need to be on that side, and those need to be plumbed with as short a runs as possible to the pump.



As soon as we tried to mock-up the 4-stage ARE pump we had an issue - it ran into the Vorshlag LS550 swap mount on the passenger side. If we weren't stuck with this Corvette drive setup it would have worked, but this is what we could get FAST. So we hung the engine from a cross-engine brace and removed the right side engine mount.



This was a tricky fix, as there is a big "cup" in the S550 subframe where the factory hydraulic rubber bushing sits, and which we kept on our LS550 swap mounts. That had to come out, so we made a somewhat unusual motor mount design, which uses a poly round bushing that goes in almost all of our other LS swap kits. That nests down inside this cup. The design was drawn up and CNC plasma cut.



Then the tubular motor mount for that sleeve was built, which bolts on the block side with 4 bolts. The mating piece that goes into the cup in the S550 subframe is a separate piece. These two bolt together for a non-solid engine mount.



We kept the drawings and fixtures in case we ever need to add a dry sump to an LS197 or LS550 again with this Y-body pump setup, we can make these again. With the ARE 4 stage pump finally mounted, we could bolt that up with the new engine mount in place and lay out all of the -12 and -16 fittings, so those parts could be ordered.



Unlike most myths, we cannot possibly stock every single type / angle / size fitting and hose end at our little shop. We do have a good number on hand, but mostly order fittings on a purchase order from Fragola for any given job. We were tight on time so we overnighted parts from a wholesaler that is in town, paying 2x as much, but time is money.

SWAP OUT THE LS7 TIMING COVER + BALANCER HUB DRIVE

It was time to pull off the LS7 front timing cover, which has an enlarged front section to house the wider 2 stage pump (a wet sump LS has a single stage pump, which draws oil from the wet sump pan and pressurizes it to the engine).



FIRST set the engine to TDC on cylinder one, as the timing chain has to come off and go back on. Mark the timing sprockets "dot to dot" when you get everything uncovered. The old balancer hub was pulled and removed, then the timing cover, then the Katech pump came out.



This is the back side of the Katech 2-stage internal oil pump for an LS7. A wet sump single stage LS pump looks very similar. That hole shown is where oil pressure feeds into the block - this changes with an external oil pump, which feeds pressure through a hose to a port on the block where the stock oil filter is located. Keep this in mind for steps shown below.



Behind the Katech pump was the longer LS7 style lower timing sprocket - which drives the oil pump on the extended section shown. The external dry sump setup is made to work with the shorter LS2/LS3 front timing cover, and that means changing to the shorter LS2/LS3 lower sprocket for the timing chain. That also means that our "long snout" LS7 style crank has the 3rd keyway removed, as that gets in the way.



After the longer LS7 sprocket is pulled, the shorter lower timing sprocket is warmed up to about 200F in the toaster oven, and then it can slip over over the (cold) crank. That gets a bit of a whack to get it started... while still warm (and slightly oversized).



Then the old sprocket is slipped on backwards, a big washer, then a crank bolt is used to press the new sprocket onto the crank - which has a light press fit.



The timing chain and upper sprocket were reinstalled, as well as the tensioner. All of the bolt torques are shown above. And again, the sprockets were already aligned "dot to dot". Something HPR warned us about was that we had to cover the oil feed hole from the LS7 pump, which is the same as the wet sump LS engines. That hole is marked in image above right.



We didn't see a good part to do this with, so we created a new product and now sell that at HPR and Vorshlag for these "dry sump upgrades". It is bolted on with some RTV on the backside, and stops a big pressure dump behind the timing cover. Now some shops don't know to do this block off, and there were some wide eyes when we posted this on socials at the time, and we sold a number of these block off plates that likely solved some issues - again, thanks to HPR's guidance.



The new balancer provided by ARE came with the cogged belt drive behind the balance, to drive their Y-body pump. A cogged drive on the front side of the balancer would work better for a car like this - we have the room. But we were pressed for time and this Y-body setup was in stock at ARE and all we could get for weeks. ARE also included a spacer for our "long snout" crank - of course we also needed to machine that to actually fit.



Next step is to install the new balancer hub and cog drive we have to measure to make sure the press fit is right. THIS IS ALWAYS WRONG. "Trust, but verify" with any off-the-shelf part, and we have yet to get an ATI balancer that actually fits a factory spec'd crank snout. Time on our lathe and get this .015" mismatch down to a more manageable press fit of only .002 to .003". Otherwise you WILL break the end of the crank and/or strip the threads off.



To get the hub installed onto the crank you need a longer crank bolt. The LS engine family has two lengths - the normal "wet sump" short length and the longer LS7 "long snout" length. To install the balancer hub you need to use the longer LS7 bolt in a short snout crank and for a long snout, well... we made a special custom longer bolt for HPR by welding two bolts together, so we borrowed that for our long snout crank setup. The longer bolt is used to pull the balancer hub down to a certain point, then the proper length ARP bolt goes in to draw it in the last fraction of an inch.



The shorter LS3 front timing cover was installed - use the LS1/6 or LS2/3 timing cover version depending on what cam sensor you have in the front cover. Then the "long bolt" was used to pull the new ATI balancer hub installed. We had a .002" gap from the cog drive to the lower timing cover seal, which was in spec. Once the hub is almost installed, switch to the proper length ARP bolt and torque that. The new balancer is bolted to the hub. We also swapped our timing pointer (your tuner will love you if you add this!) to the shorter version.

SWAP THE OIL PAN

This is a big part of the upgrade - getting multiple scavenge ports to pull as much oil out of the oil pan as quickly and efficiently as possible. Some systems use 4 suction stages - one for each "V" bank of cylinders. Sometimes there's even a suction stage from the camshaft valley, if you have an aftermarket block with that segmented off. So a 6+ stage system isn't unusual. But this is a somewhat budget friendly (ha!) 4 stage system, with 3 suction stages in the new low profile pan.



We dropped the front subframe down a tick (when we had the engine hung from the cross brace) and removed the LS7 oil pan. The ARE dry sump pan has a baffle over the 3 suction stages, and the unit itself is shorter. A new FelPro gasket (for an LS1/2/6) with a little RTV to hold it in place went onto that pan, that and the new pan was slipped in place.



Now some of you might wonder - "hey, can't you lower the engine now?" And yes, in some instances the shorter dry sump style pans do allow for the engine to be dropped 1-2 inches or more. We would need all new engine mounts and some other changes. But in this car the balancer would drop down onto the EPAS steering rack, plus our headers and exhaust would be wrong.

And our giant Tremec T56 Magnum would be too low then. So no, we didn't lower the engine. This is a 3600 pound car and moving the center of mass for the 420 pound engine down 1-2 inches is not worth the tens of thousands on costs and fab work for that tiny, immeasurable gain.

ADDING THE COGGED BELT DRIVE

Like camshaft timing belts, a Gilmer drive or cogged belt is a pretty common way to drive an external dry sump oil pump. These cannot "slip" and handle some real torque going through them. If you set them up right they cannot just fall off, but it sure seems scary that there is no tensioner or cover over this belt.




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With the timing cover sprocket + cover swapped, the redundant internal oil passage covered, new balancer and cog drive installed, and new ARE oil pan bolted to the engine - NOW we could finally bolt on the ARE pump to the block. Putting the cog belt and pulley on the pump should be easy, right? WRONG.



The shaft on the ARE pump is made with a keyway, and comes with a key installed. Yea, pull that out and throw that away. The cog belt pulley that comes with the kit doesn't have a keyway, and is made to be an adjustable press fit. This is an "undocumented feature".



The pulley itself is this multi-piece assembly. The bolts that hold this all together are too long and hit the pump housing. So shorten the bolts 5mm or buy new bolts that are only 30mm long. Some trips to the hardware store and overnight shipments happened for weeks while we chased down all of these strange issues, fitting upgrades, etc. Whoever says putting a remote dry sump pump on is easy is lying to you.



Once we finally got the new pulley system installed with the right hardware and no key for the grooved shaft, we could slip the belt on (yes, you just slide it on by hand - there is no tensioner) and give it a twist. The top right pic shows how much tension you want. If there is more than a 90 deg twist, shim the pump away from the block with washers until you get this tightness. If you get less than 90 deg twist, call ARE for a new belt.



After all of that running around, machining multiple parts on the lathe, custom tools and bolts, a new product we developed to block off that internal passage, a new motor mount, the new front cover / sprocket, totaling two weeks of chasing this task - we had the pump bolted onto the block, the belt drive corrected, and the oil pan on.

PLUMBING THE DRY SUMP SYSTEM

All we have left is A LOT OF PLUMBING. There are so many ways to do this wrong, and only a few ways to do this right. We could write a book on the numerous mistakes we have seen done with dry sump plumbing. I showed an engine on a stand upside down at the top of this section, and HPR did the plumbing on that engine for their end customer - which removes some chances for mistakes. The plumbing diagram from ARE is painfully incorrect, still to this day.



This part of the dry sump install is very fiddly, but because we could spec and install all of the plumbing and make the hoses without an external vendor supplying things (wrong) from some kit, it had the least amount of jack-assery of this whole upgrade. We had HPR to help guide us on this plumbing work as well.



Plumbing is still a time consuming job, and this ate up about a week of time - mocking up fittings, ordering parts, then building and testing all of the hoses. Then ordering more parts and making the final routing. Why not keep an infinite number of fittings on hand? Well some of these are $40 each and you might need 6 versions of a bend for the same size and style hose. We all have budgets!



We plumbed the 3 suction stages from the pan with -12 AN Fragola hoses to the pump. The main pressure hose from the pump to feed the engine is a big fat -16 AN monster, and the main suction lines to and from the Peterson storage tank are also -16 AN lines. Larger sized hose shave a smaller pressure drop per foot of hose, so the larger diameter hoses should give us the most pressure. I spelled out the routing at the start of this section.



Due to my paranoia about the oil pressure, we stuck with the 5W50 Motul "Sport" oil and put in a new filter for the remote setup, then sent off a sample of the oil to be analyzed. We fired up the engine and checked everything for leaks - none! (we have since switched to 5W40 and might go to 5W30)



The oil pressure looked VERY good, so we called in a gunslinger tuner Donnie to check the Holley EFI system for a quick tune up - he took out the oil pressure "triggers" for the old low pressure safety scheme. That cure might have been worse than the symptoms, and we were confident we'd have enough pressure with the external pump now. We did leave the low oil pressure warning light wired up, and Donnie added a low pressure warning on the Holley dash.



We had spent the better part of 5 weeks removing the parts above and replacing them (except the water pump and radiator hoses) with this external dry sump oil system. There was a lot of cursing, frustration with incorrectly supplied parts and custom machine work, and a lot of overnight orders and stress. This is not an easy job, especially when you are converting from wet or LS7 dry sump to this external dry sump - and we had installed ARE external dry sumps before. It is always a staggering amount of work - so you were warned! (all of those old parts shown above have been sold).



Brad painted both sides of the "small" splitter and reinstalled that, then I took the car for a short test drive to get some fuel. We had the 2024 Darkhorse for a whole week by this point, and I was beginning to wonder if Trigger would get replaced with this high tech S650? The Darkhorse ran a 1:18.4 lap with stock tires and camber in November 2023 - a time which we had not beat in Trigger by August of 2023!



With the added weight of the aero parts and external dry sump system we took a weight of the car before loading up. It was heavier than ever, which made me a little worried, but I had faith that the oil pressure issue would be fixed and we could be onto a major time drop on track!

TRACK TEST # 4 - MSR CRESSON 1.7 CCW - OCT 12, 2023

This was what we were building up to - a short run on our 1.7 mile test track on the Thursday before a scheduled competition on Saturday October 14th. I ran the car out to the track myself early on a Thursday to run ONE session, which would give us part of the day Thursday and a full day (Friday) to fix anything wrong with the car.



I was nervous, as I had signed up for the Apex Lap Attack event for that Saturday - we couldn't really afford to have something major go wrong, otherwise I'd have to scrub that event.



After a semi-quick first lap spent watching gauges around the big left hand corners, I sped up and took 2 hot laps at speed - finally full power without any oiling issues!! It was such a rushed test that I took no video and I don't even remember who took the 3 pictures of the car on track. Looking at them now the massive front end lift and rear squat shows a terrible aero balance, but I was so excited that the car WORKED that I didn't see that until days later.



The aero + lack of oil pressure issues - and the removal of that engine retard from a sub-30 psi trigger - was worth a nice TWO SECOND DROP in only two shake down laps. I was not near the limits of the tires and hadn't started pushing entry speeds into corners to take the advantage of aero. We still had a lot of work to get this car dialed in with respect to suspension / aero / etc, but at least it is "semi-fast" and reliable now. Whew!

The Holley dash was still a hot mess and logging the oil pressure / syncing that with video was still impossible for me. But I watched the dash readout like a hawk while driving, which is partly why the times were a bit slow. Yes, even with the 2 second drop in this car's Personal Best, I was off pace.

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[Fair!]

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APEX LAP ATTACK - MSR 1.7 CCW - OCTOBER 14, 2023

Two months had passed since our first Time Trial win (SCCA TT, where we ran a 1:18.933 best lap) in Trigger, built around that series Max1 rules with 200TW tires and max CAM-C aero limits. We now had access to all 620 whp of the HPR 454 all the time, with the oil pressure issues fixed. Two days before this event we had tested the new 4 stage external A.R.E. dry sump upgrades at this track - now we could finally sustain oil pressure around long left hand turns (something the LS7 based "Dry sump" could NOT do). I didn't even unload the Mustang from the trailer from the test day earlier that week, because it went so well.



This Apex event was on our normal test track - the Motorsport Ranch 1.7 CCW course - where we scored that first TT win in August (barely). I was hopeful that the oiling upgrades and aero tweaks we added in September would improve cornering and braking. We had never placed well at any Apex event in other cars - running in our 2006 C6 or 2023 BRZ I had podium'd in one of the five classes, but never had a win. I hoped this time would be different. The 1:16 lap from Thursday might be competitive, if we can back it up?



They shoved Trigger into their fastest class (LA1) even with street tires, running against lighter cars with the same or more power, the same or more aero, and on Michelin slicks or Hoosiers. I was worried that I'd be lucky to score 2nd or 3rd in class, with these obvious disadvantages. With only two laps in this car EVER that didn't suffer from the low oil pressure trigger, and almost no laps with the new aero, I was treating this more as an extended testing session. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I got to grid early and gridded myself P2 for the first session - after the first session, cars are gridded by best lap times.



The fastest driver at Apex Lap Attack events for a while was a driver in this stripped yellow C7 Z06 race car on slicks, full Motec, built engine, sequential transmission, proper race tires, Bosch ABS, and full aero. I built a big gap on the out lap but caught him pretty quickly going into Big Bend. WHAT IS GOING ON!? During hot Lap 1 the gap closed up and he POINTED ME BY? How... how is this happening?!! I saw him dive into the pits without completing a full lap, so he had some kind of issue.



Passing him slowed up my first lap (1:17.0), but with no traffic I pushed hard on hot Lap 2 (1:15.98 best). I was freaking out and came into the pits, and that was the fastest lap for the first session - and a new PB by a few tenths. That put me P1 on grid for Session 2, where I pushed harder on lap 1 and got to a 1:15.564, another new PB by a half second. That lap was with traffic and a pass, too, so Trigger car was actually WORKING.



I was still under-driving the high speed corners, so the 3rd session I was bound and determined to push more - but had a botched downshift on lap 1 (1:17.0), then pushed on for 2nd hot lap and found a 1:14.693 - yet another new PB! Session 4 was a wash, but that 1:14.6 time was the Fastest Time of the Day by fully 1.1 seconds! YES YES YES YES YES!



It wasn't a perfect day, but the weather was pleasant, and we even had a partial eclipse. The eclipse was weird, but the car worked well - even with pretty terrible aero imbalance and high speed understeer. My minimum speeds in high speed corners were all still too low, but I was still learning the limits of the aero.


In-car video of the new PB for Trigger - https://youtu.be/e7noUqhjUe0

This new Personal Best lap time made for an improvement from the August SCCA TT event by more than FOUR SECONDS. That was simply wild to me and the whole crew, and showed us how much potential the car had and how much difference aero can give you.



Zero issues all day, solid oil pressure even with 1.53 g lateral and 1.58g braking, and even with 200TW street tires we still managed to win. Very happy with the results!



My closest competitor that day - Aamer - sparred with me at this event / course again in 2024 - we both found time and I was on Hoosiers that time, so Trigger dropped even more. I will cover that another time.



This event was the absolute HIGH WATER MARK for me in 2023, and if the car had been this well behaved a few weeks earlier we would have taken it to the SCCA Time Trial Nationals at NCM (I had cancelled my entry with the oil pressure problems and delays in getting the dry sump system finished). I'm planning to make that event in 2024, as the car is quicker and more sorted now.

OIL PRESSURE ADJUSTMENT ON DRY SUMP PUMPS

One of the things we noted once our tuner Jon looked at the mish-mash of jumbled data that is Holley's norm was that the oil pressure was too high on track at speed.



Erik from HPR recommended that we dial out the relief valve on the ARE pump, which is accessible from underneath. Each turn is supposed to drop 20 psi, but we got the dang thing turned all the way out with the minimum threads showing and it was still too high. This led to some valve cover leaks and a little wasted power, but I'll take that over low pressure! We fixed this fully in 2024 - I'll cover that another time.



Much of what we learned on dry sumps is shown in this short 1:22 minute video, linked above.

LAP TIME COMPARISON

As always we like to list lap times with video links for the car in the forum post plus a few others to compare to at our Motorsport Ranch Cresson 1.7 mile, CCW test track. I have 800+ laps over 25 years at this track, and drove all of these laps listed below at this track / configuration, with either AMB transponder or AiM Solo lap times. The cars in this list include our NASA TT3 prepped 2018 GT, 2024 Darkhorse, and of course the star of this entry, our 2015 Mustang #Trigger - all 3 tests on the MSR 1.7 CCW from this post are in bold. Just know that we have gone significantly faster than this as I write this, but I'm only listing what we have covered so far. We get to tackle a lot more events at ECR and MSR later in 2023 and unto 2024.

MSR-C 1.7 mile CCW:

• 1:20.348 - 2018 Mustang GT, NASA TT3 prep, 305mm RE71R, MCS RR2, 474 whp (fastest this car every ran on 200TW)
• 1:20.677 - 2024 Darkhorse baseline stock, 180TW Trofeo RS tires, Track Test #1
• 1:18.878 - 2015 Mustang #Trigger, testing 7/22/23, 200TW tires 315mm A052, 627 whp BTR Trinity + 112mm TB, Track Test #2
• 1:18.933 - 2015 Mustang #Trigger, 620 whp, no aero, MSD Atomic, 200TW tires 315mm A052, SCCA TT win 8/12/23
• 1:18.417 - 2024 Darkhorse, -3.5 deg camber with SPL arms + Vorshlag plates, 180TW Trofeo RS tires, Track Test #3
• 1:16.637 - 2015 Mustang #Trigger, 620 whp, with aero, MSD Atomic, 200TW tires 315mm A052, Track Test #4 11/12/23
• 1:14.693 - 2015 Mustang #Trigger, 620 whp, with aero, MSD Atomic, 200TW tires 315mm A052, Apex Lap Attack win 11/14/23

WHAT'S NEXT?

I worked a long time on this massive 5 part forum entry and still barely got us through October 2023. There was a lot of ground to cover, especially with the aero and dry sump work, but I wanted to get to our "break through" event where everything finally started to work - the October Apex event. I was hooked after this win, so we started to develop a splitter package for Apex and NASA, both of whom allow for more front downforce tricks.



In December we attended a NASA Time Trial and won TT1 class on street tires. Then we purchased and installed wider bodywork to fit 335/345mm Hoosiers. We also lowered our rear wing to reduce rear downforce, and changed springs and some other things to work on the aero and suspension balance. In December of 2023 we removed the Holey EFI and installed the first of two Haltech EFI systems, and our AiM MXG dash again. I will cover all of that and more next time.

Thanks for reading!