Cone 502 Racing #23 STU 2009 Mustang GT

[ExSRT8Guy]

Great vids! I'm amazed how much that seat moves around

 

[Whiskey11]

Well that sucks. So....did you protest?

Gotta take the opportunity at the win when you get it. I would usually be one to just blow off a slightly illegal car, but in this case not so sure.

At a local event? Nah, not worth it for how little I actually care about winning. If it would have been a national level event I would have though.

 

[oldVOR]

Great vids! I'm amazed how much that seat moves around

If you ever wondered how much the factory seats moved around, these vids are great examples of the 4-5 inches of lateral movement at the headrest.
Great video for the aftermarket seat companies to use for comparison!

 

[Whiskey11]

If you ever wondered how much the factory seats moved around, these vids are great examples of the 4-5 inches of lateral movement at the headrest.
Great video for the aftermarket seat companies to use for comparison!

Definitely. I've seen videos of some aftermarket seats that do the same thing. Corbeau I'm looking at you. It doesn't help when you are a 6'5" 280lb person either and you are generating in excess of 1.2g's in the lateral direction.

 

[ArizonaGT]

Definitely. I've seen videos of some aftermarket seats that do the same thing. Corbeau I'm looking at you. It doesn't help when you are a 6'5" 280lb person either and you are generating in excess of 1.2g's in the lateral direction.

Take a look at the Sparco Evo 2 or Evo 3. They are a bit larger.

 

[Whiskey11]

Take a look at the Sparco Evo 2 or Evo 3. They are a bit larger.

Nah, I'm done spending money on this car for anything but insurance and gas and other basic maintenance items. The reasons will be abundantly clear when I get off my butt and do the second day's recap.

 

[csamsh]

Nice thing about a seat though....you can take it out of the current car and put it in the next car

 

[Whiskey11]

Spring Nats - Part Two:
So the finish of day one put me about a half second behind the 7th place person. Not a great place to be (considering I was hoping to be closer to the middle) but I could still achieve my goal of not being DFL with a solid drive. The day 2 course had a lot of elements that benefited my car through both balance and power but it was up to me to really drive the car and accomplish that. The course was designed by Nebraska Region member and CSP National Champion John Hunter and proved to be a fun and interesting course with some challenging lines and places where a set of cojones went a long way to carrying speed.

Car setup wise, nothing changed between the days. I stabilized the pressures back at 32/30 and that was about it. The shock settings determined at the test'n'tune course and recommended by Eric and Jojo were left in place as it worked extremely well on the previous day's course.

​

The day did start out with rain as seems to be the norm but the course had completely dried by the time I had gotten to run in heat 4. This certainly kept my spirits higher than they otherwise would have been as rain, STU, and RWD don't mix for good times.

Run #1:
I went out on Run #1 and did my best to lay in a good clean run given the cold tires and relatively fresh surface and the new course. I had walked the course 3-4 times so I knew it well in my head and new where the interesting areas were at. This run felt good except for the extremely cold tires caused for some interesting understeer and oversteer conditions that weren't entirely unexpected. The showcase turn had a bit of throttle induced oversteer that I carried pretty far through the turn. It wasn't a lot of oversteer, but enough that countersteer was necessary to keep the car from swapping ends on course. This run came in at 63.371 and would place me in first in STU for the second time during Spring Nationals (the first time being the first run on day #1 ) Of course this promptly was smashed as the faster drivers came in. The fast guys were only 3.5ish seconds a head of me.

​

Run #2:
After spraying the tires I went out and attempted to get faster. I drove the start differently (shifted after the turn rather than before it) and got a little more aggressive in the places where I could be. That did NOT pay off as I ended up coning the run. Unfortunately the run was also a slower scratch time anyway and came in with the 65.725. That is rather unfortunate but one run to go!

​

Run #3:
After hating the run #2 performance I went out and cleaned things up as best I could. I attempted to go faster in places, slower in others and by the time I got to back slalom things had changed for the worse. The rear tires got hot and greasy (even after spraying) and the higher rear rebound lead to getting way too tail happy and this unsettled the car way too much. The run slowed down. I personally don't know how it slowed it down that much but shit happens and it did. This run was a 65.161 which was two seconds slower than my previous two runs. I'm not sure how I went two seconds slower as I wasn't that conservative in the driving and the mistake wasn't that big I didn't think... I dunno. I was sorely disappointed with my driving.

​

The unfortunate part is that my driving put me a hair shy of one second behind the 7th place person after two days. This disappointing drive put me in a pretty sour mood and to be honest I was ready to be done autocrossing for a long... long... time. But after really thinking about it, it didn't make any sense to just give up on this hobby all together. There was a long build up to get this far and the car handles really well but I think the deficiencies in power and grip really conspired to make this car a non-starter for STU. There was nothing about Eric's Coyote that led me to believe it was too much motor as I had previously believed.

After thinking about where the car could go and how much money it would cost to do so, I determined that another path was necessary. So there is now a new direction. The 2009 is going away. There is simply no way the 3V has enough power in ESP trim to take on a coyote with the same mods in an otherwise identical chassis. I think the absence of properly built S197's with Coyotes has exacerbated the thought that the 3V has a chance. IE: THere haven't been enough builds that really maximized the available tire width from the Hoosier lineup to show the true speed of a Coyote S197. The weight difference is so minute in ESP trim that it wouldn't be enough of an advantage. Unless there is something else I'm missing it doesn't make sense.

CAM, well... CAM is a bottomless pit of money and frankly that doesn't appeal to me at all. This meant two things: Buy a 2011-2014 Coyote or buy a new Mustang GT. Well duh, what do you think I chose?

A 2015 Mustang GT, base, 6 speed manual, and performance package was ordered in Ruby Red:

The above isn't actually mine but is a picture representative of what was ordered. It should be here in 4-6 weeks if all goes according to plan. The 2009 is getting traded in. The plan is to play around in F-Street for a while and harass those people. The car is competitive there and will most likely be competitive in ESP when parts become less expensive. That is the new plan!

As always, questions, comments, concerns, gripes, bitches or complaints welcome!

 

[csamsh]

Comment: awesome!

 

[El_Tortuga]

Congrats. I'm betting that you are going to love it

 

[Norm Peterson]

If you ever wondered how much the factory seats moved around, these vids are great examples of the 4-5 inches of lateral movement at the headrest.
Great video for the aftermarket seat companies to use for comparison!

Time to take a closer look at the seats' actual mounting details . . . and there might be a business opportunity in providing removable bracing for the stock seats. Not sure how that might affect autocross classing, though.


Norm

 

[oldVOR]

A 2015 Mustang GT, base, 6 speed manual, and performance package was ordered in Ruby Red

You chose well grasshopper!

 

[Whiskey11]

Yeah I drove a GT PP Premium and that sealed the deal. The one I drove had Recaros and I would have loved to buy them but they sit too tall and the base seats sit a little lower. At 6'5" and 280lbs with all that height in the torso, I sit too tall to sit correctly with a helmet on in the Recaros. Really bummed about that but it is what it is.

Otherwise, yeah, light years better than my 3V even from the factory in terms of the motor. The 5.0 is such a sweetheart of a motor that I had to restrain myself on the test drive as I would rev it out in a gear and then look down and realize I'm going a lot faster than I thought I was.

Handling wise, I'm not looking forward to losing the transitional response of my current car and the absence of body roll but it is a minor tradeoff to get a car that I think will make sense for a lot longer than my 3V does. It'll be fun to play around with and I'm debating just how far down the rabbit hole I want to go in car prep before it stops making sense. For instance, I found out this week that Ground Control is due to release their S550 Coilovers and camber plates soon. Being a customer of theirs and mildly persuasive (hey it worked for BMR! ) I may just see if they would be willing to discount a set of their new coilovers for some publicity. BMR is already on board (obviously! And thanks Kelly!) and I know Jay at Hypermotive is on board as he has been for over a year now (Thanks Jay!). Even a mild prep S550 for ST or SP would be a lot of fun and could be competitive (for sure in SP, still a long shot in ST but meh ) and never mind CAM. Until some low cost options come out for the GT PP wheels you are limited to some pretty expensive options and the cost difference between a set of Forgestars in 19x9/19x9.5 and 19x11 or 18x11 is negligible and the lead times equally long. At that point, why not bring the car up to snuff and enjoy it right?

For now, I'll do some of the basic F-Street mods (slotting struts, camber bolts, tires, brake pads and catback) before going too far down the rabbit hole unless Ground Control is willing to work some magic!

What that DOES mean is that there is an entire S197 Suspension setup coming up for sale. Already have the wheels/tires and CAI sold but every bit of the suspension will be for sale since none of it can carry over. Let me know if any of you guys are interested in the stuff on the car. You should be able to find a complete list of the suspension mods on page one of this thread.

 

[white86hatch]

Can't wait to see how you do in F street. I figured you'd eventually reach a point where you gave up on the STU idea.

 

[Whiskey11]

Can't wait to see how you do in F street. I figured you'd eventually reach a point where you gave up on the STU idea.

Not fully giving up on STU as I really have enjoyed my time in the class. Just taking a break from the frustration of running there for a short while. I may yet return there and dabble in the category again. Time will tell.

 

[kcbrown]

Aaaaaand.... now you know why I don't bother to compete. It would be an exercise in frustration. It would take all the fun out of what is otherwise incredible fun: driving the car at or near its limits, experiencing the sensations that come with it, and making the car do all sorts of crazy things that you just can't safely make it do on the street.


For instance, Whiskey says:

After hating the run #2 performance I went out and cleaned things up as best I could. I attempted to go faster in places, slower in others and by the time I got to back slalom things had changed for the worse. The rear tires got hot and greasy (even after spraying) and the higher rear rebound lead to getting way too tail happy and this unsettled the car way too much. The run slowed down. I personally don't know how it slowed it down that much but shit happens and it did. This run was a 65.161 which was two seconds slower than my previous two runs. I'm not sure how I went two seconds slower as I wasn't that conservative in the driving and the mistake wasn't that big I didn't think... I dunno. I was sorely disappointed with my driving.

Yes, the run slowed down. And if you're competing, that's a problem. But if you're there just to have fun with the car, then having the rear go "live" on you like that is great gobs of fun! I would have wrung every last bit of fun I could have out of that opportunity. There would have been a big grin on my face all the way around whatever sweepers/corners there existed where the rear came out and I had to countersteer to make things work.

Instead, Whiskey's frustrated to the point that he's taking a break from autocross.

That is what competition does to me, at least: changes the conditions under which I'm enjoying it so that my enjoyment depends on winning (or, at least, "doing well") instead of depending on the experience itself.


Whiskey, I bet you're going to have a blast with the new car. I just hope you fit. My torso's long enough that I had to switch my headliner to the one from the glass roof car and extend the cutout to the sides, all so I could fit in the car with a helmet without having to tilt the seat back so much that I would have trouble steering the car properly. I've sat in a 2015 and have maybe 1/4 inch clearance between the top of my head and the roof with the standard seats lowered as far as they'll go. On the 2014 model, the Recaros actually give more headroom clearance than the standard seats do (both at the bottom of their vertical travel), so I'm a bit surprised that such isn't the case with the 2015. Regardless, there's even less headroom available with the 2015 than with the 2014, so it'll be interesting to see how well this works for you.

 

[Whiskey11]

Aaaaaand.... now you know why I don't bother to compete. It would be an exercise in frustration. It would take all the fun out of what is otherwise incredible fun: driving the car at or near its limits, experiencing the sensations that come with it, and making the car do all sorts of crazy things that you just can't safely make it do on the street.


For instance, Whiskey says:



Yes, the run slowed down. And if you're competing, that's a problem. But if you're there just to have fun with the car, then having the rear go "live" on you like that is great gobs of fun! I would have wrung every last bit of fun I could have out of that opportunity. There would have been a big grin on my face all the way around whatever sweepers/corners there existed where the rear came out and I had to countersteer to make things work.

Instead, Whiskey's frustrated to the point that he's taking a break from autocross.

That is what competition does to me, at least: changes the conditions under which I'm enjoying it so that my enjoyment depends on winning (or, at least, "doing well") instead of depending on the experience itself.


Whiskey, I bet you're going to have a blast with the new car. I just hope you fit. My torso's long enough that I had to switch my headliner to the one from the glass roof car and extend the cutout to the sides, all so I could fit in the car with a helmet without having to tilt the seat back so much that I would have trouble steering the car properly. I've sat in a 2015 and have maybe 1/4 inch clearance between the top of my head and the roof with the standard seats lowered as far as they'll go. On the 2014 model, the Recaros actually give more headroom clearance than the standard seats do (both at the bottom of their vertical travel), so I'm a bit surprised that such isn't the case with the 2015. Regardless, there's even less headroom available with the 2015 than with the 2014, so it'll be interesting to see how well this works for you.

I didn't say I wasn't having fun, just that I was frustrated that the car and my driving weren't doing well enough to be competitive when I thought that I should be at least not DFL. It is what it is but after being told by half a dozen people now, power does make a bit of a difference on course. I thought the coyote was going to be too much and the reality is that it is on that edge. Useful at times, painful in others.

At any rate. I drove a GTPP they had on the lot (premium with a bunch of shit in it that I didn't want) and without a helmet I fit in the car with Recaros just fine but my head was inches from the roof. I'm sure I could have rigged the seat angle to make it work but I sat a few inches lower in the base seats to the point where I was comfortable with the seating position and the base cloth seats aren't too bad for support. It saved me some cash in the long run so if I decide to go to STU or ESP, I wont have to worry about pulling the Recaros out and storing them perfectly so they stay nice.

EDIT: Car finally has a VIN and is in the Ford COTUS (customer order tracking) so we are on our way to getting that new car here!

 

[ArizonaGT]

It sucks but the 5.0 really is THAT much better than the 4.6 and if you are getting a 15 with the IRS the change will likely be a quantum leap in overall tractive performance.

I am jealous.

 

[Thinkkker]

The 5.0 in ESP trim can make 150hp over what my car makes at the wheels. The 4.6 is great, if you go forced induction. Which is not legal....

 

[claudermilk]

Yep, that Coyote is a sweet engine. I love mine.

Sitting in some '15s at car shows I have been impressed with how much better the standard seats are than in the past. They are almost as good as the Recaro options.

Good luck with the new adventure with the '15--now you get to do all that suspension tuning all over again (and I'll be keeping an eye on the classifieds to see if I can manage to vulture some parts off the old car).