I just hope there genuinely is 2.5 seconds of time or more between my piss poor driving (lets face it, a 2 year n00b can't be that good of a driver) and some car set up. I would be thrilled if that was true! I'm surprised Terry hasn't jumped in the conversation as he probably has more experience in the car in STX trim than any of us do. Between him and a few other of the veteran autocrossers lurking around here that opinions are strangely absent.
Sorry, just got back from a 4 day weekend vacation. Lemmie dig into this thread...
In case you don't know me, we did run an S197 in STX for the better part of 1.5 years. We shared all of our data and set-up with the various forums, and while we didn't do "well" in this class we learned a lot. We switched the car briefly to STU, and the car was much easier to drive on the wider wheel and tires allowed there. Then we moved to ESP in the middle of 2012 season, and the car was once again easier to drive and instantly more competitive on the larger wheels and tires allowed there. In the end I determined that our 2011 GT was hopelessly overweight for STX (we got it down to 3442 lbs in STX trim), and have stated publicly that any S197 Mustang is going to be fighting an uphill battle against 2700 pound RX8s and E36 325/328 models there. Also - STX caps maximum tire width for all RWD cars at 265mm, no matter what the car weighs, so you'll be on the same width tires as cars 500 pounds lighter.
Of course an S197 GT can make a LOT more power than any of those cars, but as many will attest,
power is the least important aspect of autocrossing.
With almost no changes form our basic STX set-up, and only about 3 months of ESP development, we took the car to 4th out of 33 in ESP at Nationals and won ESP-L, plus did well in a ProSolo event against the top dogs, briefly leading the class and placing 2nd in the end. Hardly worth bragging about, not a pissing match, just wanted to state that we've run this big chassis in STX, STU and ESP. Although relatively new to the S197 chassis we have raced similar McStrut RWD cars for decades.
...my 09 GT in it's current, very unprepped STX self ... I was 3.879 seconds off of Bryan Heitkotter's winning 1994 BMW 325is ...
...car only has this on it:
Tokico D-Specs (all groans aside please
)
Steeda Sport Springs
Steeda HD Plates (-1.7º camber, 0 toe, +7.5º caster)
Strano 35mm front bar (full stiff)
Strano 25mm rear bar (full stiff)
Fays2 Watts (pivot bolt slammed to the bottom hole, not wise, but I did it =\)
245/45/18 Dunlop Star Specs
There is A LOT left to do but I have NO IDEA how much time is realistically able to be dropped from maxing the car. The huge time cutters are the 265/40/18 RS3's I have planned for next year. Unless I run into a pile of cash that will be on the stock, heavy wheels, but eventually I'd like to run something like the TSW Nurburgrings in 18x9 which weigh 19.7lbs each and don't cost a fortune.
OK, glad that you listed it all out there. Like I've told you elsewhere, I think all of your S197 equipment is fine for a street car and casual autocross car, but not all of the parts are worthy of a top STX car. The swaybars and Fays2 Watts are fine, and I wouldn't swap them out.
There isn't really any magic in swaybars (these are a tuning tool and nothing more) or massive differences in the various Watts Links. If the Fays2 is too noisy on the street for you, of course you know I am a fan of the Whiteline Watts, which weighs the same but uses poly bushings instead of rod ends. We've pushed this unit to the extreme with 315mm R compounds on road courses and autocrossing as well - great results. But those are about the only parts I would keep from your current set-up.
Shocks is a big one, so let's start there. If this is indeed a dual-use street/autocross car then you should really think about proper monotube adjustable coilovers. Of course some here will expend pages of posts trying to push twin tubes over "fancy shocks", but I will disagree every time on this point. Yes, Sam and others have won Solo classes on twin tubes, and people still do at the National level, but more winners are on monotubes and this trend will continue. The larger pistons available in monotube dampers allow this modern shock style to more quickly deal with small impacts, they are more effective at low shaft velocities, and in the end they can ride better at higher spring rates. I can take anyone for a ride in an AST equipped car and show them the results first hand, and have done so hundreds of times (and this has sold hundreds of sets of shocks for me).
I have the entire 2012 allotment of S197 Mustang AST 4150 single adjustable monotube coilovers purchased for Vorshlag. The BMW E36 allotment, too. Should have these at the end of the month. Nobody else will get any because I bought all of them - because I have driven thousands of miles on these shocks, helped AST come up with the valving, and I believe in them. These ride like nothing else at the spring rates needed to keep cornering flat and brake dive under control.
Lowering springs are barely stiffer than stock, if any, and not what you want on a serious autocross car. I'd start with a 450 #/in front spring and a 175 #/in rear spring. We danced around all sorts of spring rates, up and down the scale, and kept coming back to this set-up. We've since stepped up the spring rates on our ESP set-up to 550#/in front and 250 #/in rear, but the STX tires didn't work well with these stiffer rates, for us.
Tires - again, we've tested many of the brands and sizes available to the STX S197 over the past 2 years, at autocrosses, practice events, and a dedicated STX tire test we held on our own (it wasn't a textbook perfect tire test but we still learned a lot). I wouldn't get hung up on which brand is better than another at this point, other than to use the guidelines of "what is winning", and bias that towards the heavier STX/U cars. The issue you need to work on now is get the MOST tire under the car as soon as you can afford to. Maximize wheel width and lower wheel weight as much as you can, too.
I think the 265/40/18 Hankook RS-3 is an obvious choice and it was fast on our STX S197 and didn't have overheating issues. We ran the 265/35/18 and it was fine, just too short for our application. The extra height of the 265/40/18 worked out best for our 2011 GT even with the tallest available 3.31 gears, because we were making too much power (430 whp/409 wtq) for the relatively skinny STX tire limitation, and anything to soften the torque to the wheels helped us. We had a ghetto traction control throttle map that helped, too. I have that set of 18x9" WedSports and a set of 265/40/18 RS-3 tires mounted and balanced and ready to sell for an STX S197, if anyone is interested. It was the lightest 18x9" we tested, and the tires have one event on them.
With your 2009 GT you are not "handicapped" with the excess of power that we fought with in STX. I think the 4.6 3V cars should do better in STX than we did, with potentially less weight and obviously less power fighting the rear tires. I wouldn't do ANYthing to add more power, but EVERYthing you can to lose weight.
Weight is the number one handicap of the S197 in STX. (and you can't run STU anymore, as there is no longer an upgrade path/choice in any Street Touring class) Your car will never be close to the weights of the other STX contenders: the E36, the RX8 and the WRX will all be hundreds of pounds lighter.
Real adjustable camber plates help, if yours are not adjustable. I will agree with Sam and others that have stated that camber bolts are an imperfect solution. They don't give you the finite adjustment you need for testing, and they can and do slip in use. They also change your SAI and remove wheel room inboard to the strut. I'd start with -3° camber and test up and down from there. Pyrometer data is somewhat useful, but an imperfect tool. Real time IR arrays with data looked at in a corner is more useful, but still a bit difficult to set-up. The clocks don't lie, and we always tweak front camber settings and check times at our private test events and zero'd in with that. You cannot test in a 4 run autocross - dedicated practice events are crucial. I credit our entire GRM $2010 Challenge win and FTD at that autocross to our dedicated autocross test the week before that event, where we found
seconds simply in set-up changes.
The other big one is the rear diff. My stock T-Lok was rebuilt with the stock style clutch packs about a month ago and had one event on it (on asphalt) going into yesterday's event so it should be pretty tight still. I'd love to go to the WaveTrac unit or DPI Platinum.
That's one thing I am still fighting with - the stock T-loc. We rebuilt it with the same Carbon clutch pack diff that many F Stock drivers use (which is legal in the '06-07 Shelbys), but it didn't last long with the power and tires we have abused it with. I'm also on the fence about the various new options like the WaveTrac, but I think a Torson T2-R is kind of a no-brainer, and at ~$678 it is more cost effective than the still unproven $1000 WaveTrac.
I would like to find a little more negative camber in the suspension. Stock the alignment was dead on side to side and fully maxed out at the Steeda HD plates one side was -2.0º and the other -1.6º so somewhere tolerance stack moved the camber off on one side and I would LOVE to have -2.0º on both corners or more. I'm not sure how to achieve that aside from camber bolts or a different set of camber plates. It may be prudent to just switch camber plates to a proper camber plate.
Yea, you are not even in the ballpark yet with those numbers, in my opinion. The tall ride height will limit total camber travel, of course, so coilovers with a 2.0 to 1.5" lowering will only add more. But yes, proper adjustable camber plates... very high on the list.
Eventually I would like to start focusing on weight. I have plans of finding out what the curbweight of MY car is as a baseline then start pulling weight. As optioned, with 3.55's, full leather interior, interior lighting package, GT comfort package (heated and power seats on both sides) is probably the heaviest way to get an 09 short of the glass roof option or a convertible. I'm glad I have neither! I'm estimating right now 3550lbs with the 5 speed manual and a 1/4 tank of gas and no trunk junk.
Yes, weight is crucial. After you had real shocks/springs/plates on the car, and proper wheels and tires (max width on both!), I would spend the remaining dollars on weight loss items. There is lots of weight to be found in the headers/custom exhaust, an AGM style race battery, seats, brakes, and more.
The last area of time gain is Power. I'm thinking between CAI, UDP's, Longtubes, high flow cats and a tune that I should be around 325 RWHP and 335 RWTRQ. That is probably a lot more than it will actually be but I can dream right? I really don't think this will kill that much time and may cause more problems than it solves. I don't know to be honest.
That is a good goal. Long tubes, custom exhaust, cold air and a custom dyno tune. The exhaust changes are more for weight but they will add torque and power everywhere.
This chart shows our ESP prepped 2011 GT, a bone stock 2013 GT and a stock 2013 BRZ. Ignore the total numbers (the air was crap that day - 100% humidity, and this wasn't even the best pull on the 2011 that day), as these are two 5.0 Coyote set-ups... instead look at the low RPM torque differences between the stock and the car with headers/exhaust/CAI. Big improvements everywhere, even with their biggest 1-7/8" primaries from ARH.
Of course driving can always be improved, and other than tires this alone is likely your biggest area to improve. I say that to everyone, and include myself - the nut behind the wheel can make the most difference. Find a more experienced co-driver and beg them to race with you for a season. Get a data logger (AIM Solo = $400) and log all of your runs. Overlay their data to yours and - assuming they are faster - figure out the difference in line, throttle application, braking points, and learn from that.
Good luck!