SlowJim
forum member
Hey everyone. Been a member here for awhile now but never got around to making a build thread. First a little bit about myself...
I've always been a car guy, and wanted to get into road course racing since my middle school shop class teacher let me be his pit crew on a SCCA VW GTI he ran. I spent many summers at Mid Ohio since it is less than an hour from my house. When I finished college I bought a Nissan 350z and started doing HPDE's. The bug bit me hard and after about 8 or 9 track weekends in the span of three years I was racking up some serious credit card debt. So I took some time away to pay bills and start a family, and ended up selling that car. After 20,000 hard miles, probably over 500 of which on a track, never once had a major issue. 350z's make great track cars.
Fast forward a bit and I picked up a Miata to go along with my beater hatchback. I got into autocross even though it's not as fun and I suck at it, and quickly realized I wanted MOAR POWER and something with a backseat so I could get rid of my beater and just have one car.
So I picked up my base '11 GT about a year ago and it is absolutely perfect for me. I even DD it through 8" of snow all winter (on snow tires of course) and it works fine. Now that my wife is done with school there's room in the budget for one HPDE weekend a year. Budget is reflected in a lot of my mods, especially tires. I have tried to do a lot of the work myself to save money but there has definitely been some trial and error. Here it was last summer a few weeks after I bought it. Took a $5 Megabus out to Indianapolis and drove it back with a set of 19" rims and tires in the trunk and back seat:
The car came with a Steeda intake, Magnaflow Competition cat-back (which was WAY too loud for me), and a BBR tune (which had terrible manners for daily driving). The first thing I did was replace it with a tune by Hypermotive, which turned out to be sort of a pirated version of an AED tune. When I found this out I got a refund and switched to a Steeda tune, which makes less power and torque but has fantastic driveability. I then found a Magnaflow Street axle-back locally which mated up perfectly with my OTA pipes and quieted things down a TON.
Initially I was trying to hold off on suspension mods until I took it to its first autocross. I run with a local Miata club and we do autox at a go-kart track, which is great fun but can be VERY tight in a Mustang.
After I realized how terrible the suspension is in stock form I started looking for some inexpensive shocks and springs. I ended up finding a great deal on a Bilstein B12 Pro-kit which is their HD dampers with Eibach Pro-kit springs. Also picked up a J&M panhard bar. In the interest of cost savings I did not get camber plates or replace the front strut mounts.
After getting everything aligned my front camber was around 1 degree IIRC so I immediately regretted not getting camber plates, especially since I paid a shop to do the work and don't have the skills or tools to take everything apart again and install the plates myself. I did another autocross and while the car felt a bit better, my times didn't really improve.
Next mods were...
-Whiteline bars F&R
-BMR LCAs (this was a fun install, the driver's side bolt seized up inside the stock bushing)
-Whiteline relo bracket
-Ford Racing diff cover, relocated vent, changed tranny and diff fluids to Amsoil
-Hawk HP+ pads
-Changed one of my panhard bar bushings to rod end
-Maximum Motorsports Camber plates
-18x10 AMR wheels with Goodyear F1 Supercar 285/40 (220tw tire)
I did get some rubbing at full lock with the AMR's so I added some 5mm H&R hubcentric spacers.
With this setup and the below alignment settings it is very well balanced and I am extremely satisfied both from a daily driving and track day perspective.
Caster L 6.88 R 6.57
Camber L -2.12 R -2.35
Toe L .07 R .07
Sway bars set to full stiff front, 2nd hole rear
The tires surprisingly held up very well at my track weekend @ Mid Ohio and never got greasy. Even the Hawk HP+ pads and Wilwood fluid didn't fade much, probably because the tires don't have a lot of grip. I was getting passed left and right by much slower cars. I was pretty rusty after not being on a road course for 5 years. Also in HPDE3 it seemed like most everyone was on R-comps or slicks.
Unfortunately I am a retard and didn't look at the torque settings for the camber plates. I made an adjustment and used an impact gun on all 8 strut tower bolts, promptly ruining them. So as it sits today I have them tightened down as best as I can but am not confident at all using them in an autocross. So, new parts are on the way from Maximum Motorsports.
And I figured if I am going to have to pay my local shop to redo the front suspension anyways, I may as well do some upgrades since it won't cost me any additional labor. I went ahead and ordered the GT500 struts that Vorshlag uses and will be interested to see if they are any shorter than the HD's for the standard Mustang GT.
The most recent mod was an offroad X-pipe. I have mixed feelings about this and may end up going back to stock. On a daily driver the smell gets annoying and it's so loud my wife and kid pretty much refuse to ride in it. Most of the time I love the sound but it's not worth it. After switching to the X-pipe I installed a Lund tune.
Some notes on the different tunes I have tried:
-Hypermotive (apparently based on AED tune) - Made 387/357 SAE on a Dynojet, however it bucks and surges a little when cold.
-Steeda - 376/346 on the same dyno, same day. Can definitely feel the loss of torque but it drives like stock.
-Lund - Have not dynoed yet but it feels like a middle ground between the above two. Bucks and surges pretty bad when cold but I haven't done a datalog yet to have them adjust the tune. Also have not dynoed yet.
Big thanks to Sky Render and Vorshlag, I have spent many hours reading your blogs and articles and have learned a ton from your experience. Also everyone on this forum for providing insight and advice.
I've always been a car guy, and wanted to get into road course racing since my middle school shop class teacher let me be his pit crew on a SCCA VW GTI he ran. I spent many summers at Mid Ohio since it is less than an hour from my house. When I finished college I bought a Nissan 350z and started doing HPDE's. The bug bit me hard and after about 8 or 9 track weekends in the span of three years I was racking up some serious credit card debt. So I took some time away to pay bills and start a family, and ended up selling that car. After 20,000 hard miles, probably over 500 of which on a track, never once had a major issue. 350z's make great track cars.
Fast forward a bit and I picked up a Miata to go along with my beater hatchback. I got into autocross even though it's not as fun and I suck at it, and quickly realized I wanted MOAR POWER and something with a backseat so I could get rid of my beater and just have one car.
So I picked up my base '11 GT about a year ago and it is absolutely perfect for me. I even DD it through 8" of snow all winter (on snow tires of course) and it works fine. Now that my wife is done with school there's room in the budget for one HPDE weekend a year. Budget is reflected in a lot of my mods, especially tires. I have tried to do a lot of the work myself to save money but there has definitely been some trial and error. Here it was last summer a few weeks after I bought it. Took a $5 Megabus out to Indianapolis and drove it back with a set of 19" rims and tires in the trunk and back seat:
The car came with a Steeda intake, Magnaflow Competition cat-back (which was WAY too loud for me), and a BBR tune (which had terrible manners for daily driving). The first thing I did was replace it with a tune by Hypermotive, which turned out to be sort of a pirated version of an AED tune. When I found this out I got a refund and switched to a Steeda tune, which makes less power and torque but has fantastic driveability. I then found a Magnaflow Street axle-back locally which mated up perfectly with my OTA pipes and quieted things down a TON.
Initially I was trying to hold off on suspension mods until I took it to its first autocross. I run with a local Miata club and we do autox at a go-kart track, which is great fun but can be VERY tight in a Mustang.
After I realized how terrible the suspension is in stock form I started looking for some inexpensive shocks and springs. I ended up finding a great deal on a Bilstein B12 Pro-kit which is their HD dampers with Eibach Pro-kit springs. Also picked up a J&M panhard bar. In the interest of cost savings I did not get camber plates or replace the front strut mounts.
After getting everything aligned my front camber was around 1 degree IIRC so I immediately regretted not getting camber plates, especially since I paid a shop to do the work and don't have the skills or tools to take everything apart again and install the plates myself. I did another autocross and while the car felt a bit better, my times didn't really improve.
Next mods were...
-Whiteline bars F&R
-BMR LCAs (this was a fun install, the driver's side bolt seized up inside the stock bushing)
-Whiteline relo bracket
-Ford Racing diff cover, relocated vent, changed tranny and diff fluids to Amsoil
-Hawk HP+ pads
-Changed one of my panhard bar bushings to rod end
-Maximum Motorsports Camber plates
-18x10 AMR wheels with Goodyear F1 Supercar 285/40 (220tw tire)
I did get some rubbing at full lock with the AMR's so I added some 5mm H&R hubcentric spacers.
With this setup and the below alignment settings it is very well balanced and I am extremely satisfied both from a daily driving and track day perspective.
Caster L 6.88 R 6.57
Camber L -2.12 R -2.35
Toe L .07 R .07
Sway bars set to full stiff front, 2nd hole rear
The tires surprisingly held up very well at my track weekend @ Mid Ohio and never got greasy. Even the Hawk HP+ pads and Wilwood fluid didn't fade much, probably because the tires don't have a lot of grip. I was getting passed left and right by much slower cars. I was pretty rusty after not being on a road course for 5 years. Also in HPDE3 it seemed like most everyone was on R-comps or slicks.
Unfortunately I am a retard and didn't look at the torque settings for the camber plates. I made an adjustment and used an impact gun on all 8 strut tower bolts, promptly ruining them. So as it sits today I have them tightened down as best as I can but am not confident at all using them in an autocross. So, new parts are on the way from Maximum Motorsports.
And I figured if I am going to have to pay my local shop to redo the front suspension anyways, I may as well do some upgrades since it won't cost me any additional labor. I went ahead and ordered the GT500 struts that Vorshlag uses and will be interested to see if they are any shorter than the HD's for the standard Mustang GT.
The most recent mod was an offroad X-pipe. I have mixed feelings about this and may end up going back to stock. On a daily driver the smell gets annoying and it's so loud my wife and kid pretty much refuse to ride in it. Most of the time I love the sound but it's not worth it. After switching to the X-pipe I installed a Lund tune.
Some notes on the different tunes I have tried:
-Hypermotive (apparently based on AED tune) - Made 387/357 SAE on a Dynojet, however it bucks and surges a little when cold.
-Steeda - 376/346 on the same dyno, same day. Can definitely feel the loss of torque but it drives like stock.
-Lund - Have not dynoed yet but it feels like a middle ground between the above two. Bucks and surges pretty bad when cold but I haven't done a datalog yet to have them adjust the tune. Also have not dynoed yet.
Big thanks to Sky Render and Vorshlag, I have spent many hours reading your blogs and articles and have learned a ton from your experience. Also everyone on this forum for providing insight and advice.
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