GT500 track/street build

[TORQR]

Took the car for a drive after rear sway bar (Strano) and front roll center kit (Steeda) was installed. It probably sounds weird, but I would swear the front "feels" like its 4" higher. Does that make sense or am I hallucinating again.

 

[csamsh]

Probably new parts placebo

 

[Norm Peterson]

Try to determine if what you're actually noticing is the outside front corner not dropping as far in roll as it used to.


Norm

 

[TORQR]

Norm, I drove the car today and it does not lean as much with the roll center raised. Pretty noticeable actually. This must be the sensation I am experiencing which is a good thing. This was only on the street, but still very apparent.

 

[TORQR]

I went to a track day at Inde Motorsports Park last weekend (Saturday only) and signed up for both time trial (Hotlaps) and the open passing group. I was running R888's that have a lot of heat cycles now, Whiteline front bar set on the 2nd softest setting, Strano rear bar set on the softest setting and MCS shocks set on one click up from my "street" setting for both rebound and compression. Cold tire pressures were 26 R and 28 F, heating up to about 32 R and 34 F.

I noticed that corner entry and corner exit was pushy as well as some mid-corner understeer. This was a "safe" setting, but a little hard on the front tires and probably not real fast. I decided to increase the rear compression one click to help with corner exit understeer and increased one click rear rebound to help with corner entry understeer. Boy what a noticeable difference! The rear was much easier to pull around on corner entry using trail braking, and a little more gas on corner exit brought it around as well. Once I was used to the looser feel, the car was funner to drive and went pretty much where I pointed it. I struggled some with the tires as they got hot and lost grip, but overall I was really happy with the setup. As the tires got hot, I did more "drifting" (cause I could) since fast laps were in the past. I did spin out once in a sweeper that falls away while trying to pull away from a friend's Z06. Might have been a bit exuberant on that one, heh. Otherwise, its the best this big, heavy beast has felt to date!!

Next time out, I plan to install the Strano front bar to allow softer adjustments. I think by softening the front bar, I should be able to reduce mid-corner sweeper understeer some more.

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

I've seen the "bilge pumps" (aka: inline air blower fans) used on a number of Shelby built Mustangs. They are... interesting. We have a customer with a Shelby Super Snake coming in this week that uses these. Problem is if you forget to turn them on they BLOCK the air, and then you cook the brakes.

Wanted to follow up on the Shelby Super Snake we worked on and that I referenced above. This was the final dual brake cooling hose layout. It has custom backing plates we built with two sets of 3" hoses. One set is fed by the bilge pumps he had added previously - which I suggested were a bad idea. Why? Because they have already burned out the fuse or wiring on multiple occasions, stopped working, then they blocked air and he quickly overheated the brakes.

The second set of hoses were fed air from custom inlets we added in the lower grill (unseen and unused area) and plumbed to the new backing plates we built. The fenders are vented as well, and help extract hot air from the brakes.

I thought it looked like the Flying Spaghetti Monster from below, and it was definitely an odd routing, but strangely enough - it worked. When he did his next track event, once again the bilge pumps stopped working (again, not our installation) but the secondary brake hoses we added worked fine and he never lost the brakes.

The rear has this cooling air bilge pump setup, which is probably overkill. None of the suspension bits shown are ones we recommend, installed, or would normally use. But we did add some tie-down hooks for trailer tie-down use (in red).

I always caution our customers with supercharged Mustangs that track them hard to be VERY vigilant in watching their oil and coolant temperatures. Again, we have done zero work on this car's engine cooling systems, tune, or power mods. After upgrading to an 800 hp setup with the Kenne Belle blower above, it made it through part of one day on track and popped the motor (parts came out). Apparently 300°F oil temps aren't sustainable.

As always, my advice is free. What you choose to do with it is up to you...

 

[CobraRed]

all those special cooling mods and no humongous setrab?

 

[claudermilk]

I always caution our customers with supercharged Mustangs that track them hard to be VERY vigilant in watching their oil and coolant temperatures. Again, we have done zero work on this car's engine cooling systems, tune, or power mods. After upgrading to an 800 hp setup with the Kenne Belle blower above, it made it through part of one day on track and popped the motor (parts came out). Apparently 300°F oil temps aren't sustainable.

As always, my advice is free. What you choose to do with it is up to you...

TONS of money dropped on that car & many parts there even I now know enough not to do for open tracking it. It almost looks like it was set up for drags & is getting forced to run a road course as well.

 

[ddd4114]

Wanted to follow up on the Shelby Super Snake we worked on and that I referenced above. This was the final dual brake cooling hose layout. It has custom backing plates we built with two sets of 3" hoses. One set is fed by the bilge pumps he had added previously - which I suggested were a bad idea. Why? Because they have already burned out the fuse or wiring on multiple occasions, stopped working, then they blocked air and he quickly overheated the brakes.

I'll add that I've also tried running cooling fans inline with my brake ducts, and I wouldn't recommend it. I bought the highest flowing set of fans I could find (http://prosystembrakes.com/catalog/...d=579&osCsid=7768f6ef78ca4941bd0fa90e30cd84eb), and I had to run 12ga wire straight from the battery to power them. They sounded like small jet engines and their power consumption was best measured in horsepower, but I still cooked my brakes and boiled fluid. After learning the hard way, I would also suggest using simple ducting with as few sharp bends as possible.