Whiskey11
SCCA Autoscrosser #23 STU
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2012
- Posts
- 1,644
- Reaction score
- 2
Greetings S197 forum! Yesterday was our last Solo Points Event at the Lincoln Air Park - Nationals site and we got to run the West Course from the 2012 Solo Nationals which was an absolute blast to run. I haven't shaken that hard from an autocross event since my first two events at LAP-N almost two years ago. Anyway, it gave me the rare opportunity to compare my 09 GT in it's current, very unprepped STX self, to every National level driver in STX on the West course and make a few very large assumptions about how feasible this car will be going forward.
My fastest time yesterday was a 65.197 (5.197 is 1337 speak for S.197 so that is obviously a good sign! ) Which was good for 2nd from DFL. I can't say I'm surprised that it was that far. I was 3.879 seconds off of Bryan Heitkotter's winning 1994 BMW 325is and had I "maintained" that pace to the east course (HUGE assumption considering how busy that course looked and probably was) that would have put me in 40th overall in STX of 51. Not too shabby considering the 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.
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.
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.
Maybe a more prudent idea would be to buy some coilovers. I would LOVE to splurge on a set of AST 4150's with the Vorshlag plates, digressive pistons and 400 front springs and 200 rear springs as this car is a DD I don't want to get TOO aggressive on the spring rates. I don't foresee this happening next year at all with the tires, wheels and diff taking priority in my limited budget. Another option here is the Ground Control set using the Koni's. This is obviously a little more limiting and wont quire have the same effect as the AST's but it is a lot better than the Steeda Sports I'm running now with the D-Specs.
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. That is probably an over estimate but better to err on the side of more than less. Losing the heated and power seats is going to be huge. STX allows seats, with hardware to weigh 25lbs. The Corbeau (yeah I know) FX1 Pro weigh 25lbs WITH brackets and because I'm not a small guy I will need the wide seats which I imagine weigh a little more for some cushion room. I'm seeing the leather power driver seat without heat is weighing 57lbs so I used that as the base line for my weight reduction spreadsheet and is probably an underestimate of the weight of the stock seats. Needless to say there is about 65lbs of weight just in the seats that can be shed.
The other big weight reduction is going to be at the wheels/tires. The TSW Nurburgrings with 265/40/18 RS3's weigh a scant 48.5lbs. The stock wheels with 245/45/18 star specs weigh in close to 56-57lbs. That is 30 lbs, and all unsprung weight and rotating weight to boot!
The Exhaust is another area of concern. I have no idea how much the Roush Extreme Catback exhaust weighs (yeah yeah, Catbacks don't do shit, blah blah blah, I like the sound so BITE ME! ) but considering it is basically two resonators in the cat back and two straight through pipes where the mufflers were, I'm guessing it's a good bit lighter than stock. I'm estimating about 30lbs lighter (this is about the difference in removing the mufflers all together).
The last place to easily lose some weight is the Battery. The stock battery is 32lbs, most aftermarket batteries are between 14 and 16lbs. I hope to find one that I can run year round or I will need to invest in a battery tender for the stock battery during the summer and switch batteries when I switch back to stock for the winter.
I'm not sure of any other major areas to lose weight and with those items removed and the trunk junk removed and the added weight of the Watts over the PHB, the car would weigh in at about 3385lbs if the 3550lbs is accurate curbweight. Maybe a little less. The idiot behind the wheel could use to cut some of his 280lb curbweight too and that weight added to the weight above still puts the car over 3650lbs. I should really put my butt on a treadmill!
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.
SO my question to you guys is how much time do you think that will all remove on a National level course like the West course was? A huge X factor is the driver. I'm only 2 years into autocrossing so very much still virgin and a lot of this is all the driver. Assuming the driver remains constant (I'm hoping to improve) what do you think the rest of that would all achieve in reducing time? I doubt highly that there is 3.879 seconds in the car and driver. Maybe. I'm currently processing the videos from the event but sadly the fastest run's video doesn't do a good job of showing the line through the course and my second camera died that normally shows that angle. I think 2.5 seconds sounds possible with those changes. That would put the car in trophies at Nationals but I'm being told by others, 1.5 is more reasonable. Granted those guys are all Mustang nay-sayers!
Thanks for reading! I hope to have the videos uploaded before tomorrow.
EDIT: Videos! Turn your sound off, my GoPro's sound SUCKS and makes horrible noises and my secondary camera died after run #1 and I haven't pulled the video from it yet.
Run #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKKhyLQSjk
Run #2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNtnDHNx-PM
Run #3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOGdPt5Jqgg
Run #4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=693EXb_M5R0
Run #5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4HLjvuYVkI
My fastest time yesterday was a 65.197 (5.197 is 1337 speak for S.197 so that is obviously a good sign! ) Which was good for 2nd from DFL. I can't say I'm surprised that it was that far. I was 3.879 seconds off of Bryan Heitkotter's winning 1994 BMW 325is and had I "maintained" that pace to the east course (HUGE assumption considering how busy that course looked and probably was) that would have put me in 40th overall in STX of 51. Not too shabby considering the 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.
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.
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.
Maybe a more prudent idea would be to buy some coilovers. I would LOVE to splurge on a set of AST 4150's with the Vorshlag plates, digressive pistons and 400 front springs and 200 rear springs as this car is a DD I don't want to get TOO aggressive on the spring rates. I don't foresee this happening next year at all with the tires, wheels and diff taking priority in my limited budget. Another option here is the Ground Control set using the Koni's. This is obviously a little more limiting and wont quire have the same effect as the AST's but it is a lot better than the Steeda Sports I'm running now with the D-Specs.
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. That is probably an over estimate but better to err on the side of more than less. Losing the heated and power seats is going to be huge. STX allows seats, with hardware to weigh 25lbs. The Corbeau (yeah I know) FX1 Pro weigh 25lbs WITH brackets and because I'm not a small guy I will need the wide seats which I imagine weigh a little more for some cushion room. I'm seeing the leather power driver seat without heat is weighing 57lbs so I used that as the base line for my weight reduction spreadsheet and is probably an underestimate of the weight of the stock seats. Needless to say there is about 65lbs of weight just in the seats that can be shed.
The other big weight reduction is going to be at the wheels/tires. The TSW Nurburgrings with 265/40/18 RS3's weigh a scant 48.5lbs. The stock wheels with 245/45/18 star specs weigh in close to 56-57lbs. That is 30 lbs, and all unsprung weight and rotating weight to boot!
The Exhaust is another area of concern. I have no idea how much the Roush Extreme Catback exhaust weighs (yeah yeah, Catbacks don't do shit, blah blah blah, I like the sound so BITE ME! ) but considering it is basically two resonators in the cat back and two straight through pipes where the mufflers were, I'm guessing it's a good bit lighter than stock. I'm estimating about 30lbs lighter (this is about the difference in removing the mufflers all together).
The last place to easily lose some weight is the Battery. The stock battery is 32lbs, most aftermarket batteries are between 14 and 16lbs. I hope to find one that I can run year round or I will need to invest in a battery tender for the stock battery during the summer and switch batteries when I switch back to stock for the winter.
I'm not sure of any other major areas to lose weight and with those items removed and the trunk junk removed and the added weight of the Watts over the PHB, the car would weigh in at about 3385lbs if the 3550lbs is accurate curbweight. Maybe a little less. The idiot behind the wheel could use to cut some of his 280lb curbweight too and that weight added to the weight above still puts the car over 3650lbs. I should really put my butt on a treadmill!
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.
SO my question to you guys is how much time do you think that will all remove on a National level course like the West course was? A huge X factor is the driver. I'm only 2 years into autocrossing so very much still virgin and a lot of this is all the driver. Assuming the driver remains constant (I'm hoping to improve) what do you think the rest of that would all achieve in reducing time? I doubt highly that there is 3.879 seconds in the car and driver. Maybe. I'm currently processing the videos from the event but sadly the fastest run's video doesn't do a good job of showing the line through the course and my second camera died that normally shows that angle. I think 2.5 seconds sounds possible with those changes. That would put the car in trophies at Nationals but I'm being told by others, 1.5 is more reasonable. Granted those guys are all Mustang nay-sayers!
Thanks for reading! I hope to have the videos uploaded before tomorrow.
EDIT: Videos! Turn your sound off, my GoPro's sound SUCKS and makes horrible noises and my secondary camera died after run #1 and I haven't pulled the video from it yet.
Run #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKKhyLQSjk
Run #2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNtnDHNx-PM
Run #3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOGdPt5Jqgg
Run #4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=693EXb_M5R0
Run #5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4HLjvuYVkI
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