Terry, the low speed clunk you are hearing isnt the watts link, its the driveshaft and backlash in the rear diff. The torque arm setup is a bit of a tuning fork for that noise since the front mount attaches to the center bearing bracket and the rear to the diff. The same noise has been there basically since new and any time you shift gears with the clutch in while rolling you will get that noise in my car it was just fainter with the stock UCA.
The squeaking I am inclined to agree is the watts linkage but not the rod ends but the center bolt configuration, and the aluminum spacer he uses with the setup rubbing off the powder coating or paint or whatever it is. The rod ends are brand new with only a month worth of driving on them. The only other thing the squeaking could be are the springs on the spring perches since it is metal on metal there.
There are a couple places in that video where the watts link "bottoms out" and a bolt hits the frame near the spring perch. It needs adjusting to prevent that. In the frantic rebuild of my car before the Midwest Divisional this is one thing I didnt get to install correctly in terms of spacing. Things have finally cooled off with autocross (you mean three solid weekends and half a week more is frantic?) and a little at work that I should be able to get to that just in time to tear it off again for winter.
Once Filip is satisfied with this mounting solution and funds allow I will probably switch over to his watts link since it will be legal. Then again, there are more pressing things that need attention like those front LCA bushings!!
Speaking of, I want to add that they deflected that much on coldish 245/45/18 Star Specs so who knows how far they deflect with the 265/40/18 RS3 let alone the wider A6s planned or if STP happens, those tires. For the next autocross event, both camera locations will be used with the RS3s mounted.
If you get bored at some point it would be cool to see another video showing the Torque Arm in action. Maybe have the camera mounted somewhere near the trans pointing back towards the rear pumpkin so that the whole length of the TA can be seen as it slides forward/backward.
If you get bored at some point it would be cool to see another video showing the Torque Arm in action. Maybe have the camera mounted somewhere near the trans pointing back towards the rear pumpkin so that the whole length of the TA can be seen as it slides forward/backward.
October 20, 2013 – Lincoln Air Park Nationals Site – Cone 502 Racing #23 STX Mustang
Well, time for that final update for the season on the last event for the year. Winter weather is quick on the heels of this event so I'm glad we got it out of the way before bad weather ruined all hope of a decent event! There were a few setup changes so I'll outline them below in traditional form:
-Ground Control Coilovers – 440lbs*in front/200lbs*in rear -3.0º camber, -0.10º toe and +7.0º Caster
-Fays2 Watts link – Top bolt hole
-Strano 35mm front bar – FULL STIFF from the middle position
-Strano 25mm rear bar – Middle Position instead of the stock swaybar
-Cortex Racing Torque Arm
-Modified stock lower control arms with Modified Prothane Poly Bushings
-Hankook RS3's in 265/40/18 at 36 PSI front and rear
-Enkei PF01 in 18x9 ET45
If you can't tell the changes, they are the addition of the Strano 25mm rear swaybar in the middle position, the moving of the front sway bar to the full stiff position and the addition of some modified rear lower control arms with Prothane Poly Bushings.
The process was quite laborious to make the modifications... it involved flames, lots of them, and a hammer, and a drill and maybe even a dremel!
The final product turned out quite nice:
Anyway, the changes were done to make the car work a little better. One thing that plagued the car during the autocross marathon at the end of August and start of September was a powerful on power push. The car had so much rear grip it was almost impossible to drive the car fast because it would just reward you with push and more push and more push. The ratio of front to rear wheel rate was increased slightly with this change. The overall addition to spring rate should help at the front end too. It was a bit of a gamble to be honest. I knew the end goal, but was a bit "paralyzed" as to the correct direction to take. I was also unaware how far the poly bushings would push the balance of the car towards oversteer. I knew the bar would move it pretty far. THANKFULLY the balance didn't go TOO far to the oversteer direction.
The course will look familiar to those who payed attention to the Nationals update as it is the West Course from Nationals this year. The perfect opportunity to see if any impact was made on the driver mod front and on the car prep front!
The course:
The course was completely unchanged from Nationals... same cone markers and the whole nine yards so this would be a good measure in the land of could have, should have, would have, what the changes to the car would have done for me at Nationals and there would also be fun runs! Of course the advantage of fun runs means that I can get the resident aliens to drive the car and get their opinion too! Tons of win to be had in this event!
Run #1 – After discussing with my co-driver how the car was behaving I went out and gave it a run. He said it wasn't overly loose but there were portions of the course where the car was power on loose. Considering the temperature outside (mid 60's) and the colder pavement, I was sure this was almost entirely due to the RS3's absolute LOVE for cold temperatures (not!). Car felt pretty damn good to me! Having a tire warmer sure helped out in my opinion! The car was a touch loose in quick transitions, probably due a shock setting but it was totally controllable and not over bearing. It felt "just about right" to me.
The first run ended with a 60.593 which was three and a half tenths quicker than I ran at Nationals (60.9XXX). A good sign considering the tires were still pretty cool after my co-driver's first run.
Run #2 – I didn't make a change to the car at all. I was actually enjoying the way the car felt in it's current state and it seems that the car was working the best it has ever been. Maybe channeling Toilet Duck while washing my car the night before was working! Unfortunately the entire run I ended up coming in too close to the car in front of me and set off a chain reaction of timing issues. I got a re-run and took it a few minutes after coming back to my grid spot. This re-run actually felt better than other run and the time showed it. The time fell to a 60.274 which was about seven tenths faster than my fastest run at Nationals! At this point and time I set out to break into the 59's.
Run #3 – Still no changes made to the car, not even pressure checks. The tires were not getting warm enough at all to really build up pressures anyway and the car was still pretty well balanced after the last run. Again, maybe a touch loose under power but not loose enough to be uncontrollable. This run came in as a 59.548 and was originally believed to have been coned. My co-driver confirmed that I hit a cone but the results do not indicate a cone so... I'll take it!
Run #4 – Ok, I'll stop telling you if I made changes to the car, because I didn't, for the next runs I didn't change a dang thing on the car, not pressures, not shock settings, nothing. I just drove the car. This run would end up getting a re-run because I stopped for a ton of downed cones and workers on the course. No red flag on course for it them though? One thing I'm noticing is that the corner workers are paying LESS attention than normal. I'm not sure why. Anyway, the re-run actually went better all the way until the end. I lunched a cone by trying to carry a slide wide when the car stuck. The scratch time was fast at 59.568 but with the cone it became a 61.568.
Run #5 – I was unaware during this run that Run #3 was going to be counted as clean so I went out again to try and recreate it and maybe attempt to better it. Unfortunately it would not be so. I ended up running a 60.087 which was still faster than my Nationals runs and what I thought would be my fastest run of the day.
My runs would be fast enough to win the class for the day and ninth overall which I think, not 100% sure of, maybe even STX for the year in the Nebraska Region. More interesting is in the land of would have, could have and should have and how if we take out the cones on day 1 and use these new times on the West course I could have ran a 140.606 combined time which would have placed me in 41 of 59 drivers. Not that I'm complaining about my position but it just goes to show there is a lot of time left in car prep and obviously A LOT left for the driver mod! The confidence gained from a car that is actually working feels great. I think the rush to get the car ready for the Mid Divs and Nationals may have needed a little more direction and guidance. I had a test'n'tune to actually test these issues and I think lazyness got the better of me and I didn't flesh out all the potential options for a properly set up car and that hindered performance at Nationals some.
Enjoy a photo from nationals since there wont be any photos from this event:
To add to that, I had our resident alien drive my car during the fun runs... I figured since he won CSP at Nationals he'd be a worth while driver to show me how it's done! And show he did! He managed to pull two back to back 58.5XX second runs... He even said he made a few mistakes and made a recommendation for a little less rear swaybar or something that would preserve the turn in but allow better power down. Not a horrible run, consistent with cars in the 20-30 positions. Who knows what advantages he could have taken with the added power over other cars in the class on Sam's course. We probably will never know since this car may never run that course in STX trim again let alone in similar conditions. It is ALREADY a stretch to compare times from today to Nationals in September so it's nothing more than a mental exercise!
That said I now have the "data" necessary to keep this balance in the car, and there is sufficient "room" to alter the car tighter, both through RC height adjustments and swaybar adjustments if necessary. I should also be able to take this information and get newer spring rates too if time permits. Unfortunately though... My brand new GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition decided it would "eat" its fully charged battery after being shut off, Wi-Fi off after getting it "setup"... Horray... I guess I'll just pull the damn battery from now on and maybe get some aftermarket ones such as the WASABI ones. Anyone used them? I was hoping to recreate my front and rear suspension videos in an autocross setting to which I obviously failed at because of the dead battery...
Planning for next year:
Next year is going to be a bit hard to plan for. I received a call earlier this month from a local Police Department and they have extended an offer to me to join their department and I have accepted. I start on November 4. My academy start date isn't until April and goes for 16 weeks. That would mean that I would be missing Spring Nationals AND potentially missing Nationals. While it may "suck" from the perspective of autocross, this is the start of a career and that will always take priority over hobbies!
The original plan was to buy A6's and go play in ESP until such time that STP gets created but it seems both unlikely that I'll have the time to participate either Nationally or locally, but it would also be entirely silly to buy a set of Hoosier A6's and then use them in the maybe 2 or 3 local events I would be able to attend. I'm also not 100% sure I want to do that. For right now, "changes" are on hold to the car. Obviously I will try my hardest to continue to be active in autocross but it may be a full year before I have enough "stability" in my work hours to begin participating. I have yet to decide what direction I will take the car. There is a bad thought in my mind about building this car into a "CP" car Nationally and SM locally since the local SM contingent runs street tires only. Since ESP and CP run similar times, the freedom of the CP rules seem to be a bit more fitting of my desires for this car.
Of course there is one issue with this and that comes in the form of the 2015 Mustangs. That is a certain "unknown" right now due to the sparse details but from the sounds of the Turbo 4 Cylinder's power/torque and weight make it appealing, and of course the reduction in NVH from not having to resort to extreme measures to make the car work correctly (read: No Watts Link and no Torque Arm noises! Yay!). The lower weight and IRS should certainly make for a better ST car, maybe even fit into the existing ST framework without special considerations...
So I guess that concludes Project Tilty then? It seems awfully strange that it has already been two years in STX, and three in autocross and that in three years the car has come so far. Fascinating how far it really has come since last year even! It is also sad that I will be leaving the National autocross scene for a year as I'm sure I'll greatly miss my new found friends from across the US that travel to Lincoln every May and September.
I figured I should update. While no longer in STX, I plan on running basically the same setup as last year with a few exceptions. Last year while removing my coilovers I snapped a stud on the camber plates so I had to call Ground Control anyway. While the guy was on the phone I asked about changing out springs and at the price he quoted me, I jumped on new springs for next year. I will be going from 440/200 to 550/275. The goal here is to keep the ride height the same for next year (of which I'll have to go find out what it was...) so that I still have my negative camber, but reduce body roll enough to keep better wear on the tires. The added spring rate should help the car in quick transitions and it should help remove some of the massive rear bar I've been using.
I've also made the decision that I will be keeping the 2009 for better or worse until I can get the situation with my house in Omaha and my new job figured out.
Tire wise, I'm hanging onto my 265/40/18 RS3's until I can swing for more rubber. This season is going to be the "not-so-serious" season anyway with my Police Academy occupying my entire summer.
I'm banking comp time right now (no vacation for the first year 0.o) to get Nationals off and if I do go to Nationals I'll be looking for a co-drive so I can warm up tires or something because my car wont be ready for wherever it ends up. Still undecided there too. The decision is between CAM (locally), SM locally/CP Nationally on A6/A7's (build for CP, run in SM on street tires locally with my friends), or suck it up and run ESP. I'm stuck between CAM and SM/CP since I can fix the stuff that I want to fix in all three of those classes. Obviously CP will still have the tire expenses of ESP so that is something to keep in mind.
So I know there are some people who are curious what 550/275 spring rates look like in STX prep so here are some photos from this past Saturday SCCA Starting Line School. I was a volunteer for the event, not a participant and we got a good number of runs as we were allowed to take students for rides. I met a Modded Mustangs member who I had convinced with an old post to come out to an event and I think he'll be a regular.
At any rate, here are the photos:
I wont create a long detailed boring post since the actual event was canceled but I did want to give my opinion on how this setup works. Car setup:
Ground Control Track/School Valved Coilovers (550/275 springs)
Alignment: -3.0* camber, -0.10* toe out and +7.0*
Strano 35mm front bar (full stiff)
Stock 20mm rear bar
Fays2 Watts link (Top bolt hole)
Cortex Racing Torque Arm
Modified stock rear LCA's with poly bushings
The car was very well balanced and poised. Throttle oversteer when you wanted it, none when you didn't want it. Ferocious turn in but still able to put power down very well. I like this setup a lot and it's quite streetable. No idea on how it will compare in actual competition though against other drivers but the car works really well right now and I quite like the change a lot!
You don't feel that the toe-out setting causes the car to feel "darty" on the street? I've heard that problem does go away with large amounts of static negative camber, and you're running... Wow, -3 deg!
You don't feel that the toe-out setting causes the car to feel "darty" on the street? I've heard that problem does go away with large amounts of static negative camber, and you're running... Wow, -3 deg!
It definitely does make the car feel darty but I don't think large amounts of negative camber solve that issue. If anything it exacerbates the issue. I have a street setting of -1.5* of camber and 0 total toe that my camber plates afford me.
The difference between -1.5/0.0 and -3.0/-0.10 is pretty substantial on 265/40/18 Hankook RS3's. The steering gets insanely light with the -3.0/-0.10 settings and the stiff spring rates don't help the darty feeling either. It was WORK to keep the car on the interstate at 80 mph going there and back at -3.0/-0.10.
I went to -1.5/0.0 after returning home on Sunday when they called it off and my drive to the Academy on Sunday night was noticeably less work and the steering had some heft to it that it didn't at -3.0/-0.10. Same tires both times.
1 June 2014 – Solo Points #2 @ LAP-N – NRSSCA - #23 STU
I guess I should get off my duff and get to writing this after action report for this event since I know how many people are just DYING to hear how I'm doing this year! Don't everyone jump up and say how excited you are now!
Before we begin, it should be noted that this event was actually canceled in May and rescheduled to June due to lightning at the site. I did get a “shake down” series of runs on the Saturday before the canceled event which helped get things kind of tweaked for this year since I made some subtle changes to the car. Lets go over that now:
Ground Control Coilovers (550lbs/in Front, 275 lbs/in Rear)
Ground Control Camber Plates (-3.0* camber, -0.10* toe out, +7.0 Caster)
Strano 35mm front swaybar (full stiff)
Fays2 Watts link (top hole for rear RC)
Stock 20mm rear bar
Cortex Racing Torque Arm
Modified Stock LCA's with poy bushings
Enkei PF01's in 18x9 with 265/40/18 RS3's
Lets start on that Saturday event. The event was actually the SCCA Starting Line school and I was a volunteer. I helped them and I'd get some runs in at the end of the day and would give people rides. I gave a couple of people rides (and obviously performed horribly because show off ) but in general I was able to get a good feel for how the car handles now. The new springs are GREAT. Not bad for a DD setup (upper end of “tolerable” on salted, pot holed, and bricked streets) either. The car is flat in all aspects of weight transfer and the balance was spot on. The crazy “maths” I did as an estimate at the end of last year on what I needed for wheel rates and came up with a ratio of front to rear wheel rate. I took this number and tweaked front/rear spring rates until I came up with a package I thought would give me a little more oversteer without going stupid far. The result is an extremely well balanced car that can be fine tuned easily with shock and pressure adjustments. The other thing is it made the car noticeably easier to drive and quicker on course.
On to the 1 June 2014 event. The day started off well. I was running in STU (Huzzah!) on 265 wide RS3's vs a local STU guy in his prepped-ish(?) Evo IX. It would be a pretty solid test of the car. We also had an Sti and two M3's who were less prepped. The course was the Spring Nationals West course run in reverse with some slight tweaks.
I didn't do a course map because I'm lazy and out of time to do my usual one so bear with me. I attempted to get video from this event but I forgot my AAA batteries for my GoPro Hero SD and my Hero 3 Black Edition's battery was dead... again (I'm noticing a theme with GoPro Hero 3 batteries...) and at the Starting Line school someone ran over a bunch of my stuff and destroyed my cell phone camera mount... Awesome work team. No video for this event sadly.
Run #1: On Run #1 I went out and did my best for a run. Car was running extremely well and handling well. It put down power the way I wanted it to and it rotated well too. The only thing I did not like was it was a little “push loose” at corner entry. After this run I upped the rear rebound a quarter turn and it cured it. I came in with a 70.136 but hit a cone for a final of 72.136 seconds. This put me in a healthy lead over the Evo (which ran a 71.XXX but with 2 cones for a final of 75.XXX). The course itself did NOT flow very well. In fact I would say it was one of my least favorite courses. I heard good things about it running in the correct way but it did not work for the reverse very well.
Run #2: On run #2 I took a new guy out on course as he was lost on course to show him how us do it wrong. I drove worse (I thought) but dropped my time down to a 69.717. The car felt good, the push loose was gone but by the end of the run I could tell the front tires were getting greasy. The RS3 does not generally get “too” hot but I'm making them hotter than shit with the new springs and how heavy the car is. No matter, that time was keeping me in first place by a good margin.
Run #3: My goal on run #3 was to push it a little harder and then on run #4 I would clean everything up and “run the last run tight”. Well, I pushed TOO hard. The front end washed out and I clipped 2 cones. My friend in the Evo ended up running a 70.580 and I was afraid that I would get passed up on the final run. I was still in the lead, but only barely.
Run #4: This run was GOLDEN up until the slalom in the middle of the course. The corner before the slalom was extremely tight and it was easy to get wide and miss the gate before the start of the slalom (poor course design IMO). As I was looking ahead, I was looking at the end of the slalom and I realized it was off to my 2 o'clock when it should be straight ahead. I found the first cone in the slalom and realized that I DNFed the run as I missed the start gate and ended up outside the gate. Ohh well. When I got into the grid the announcer was just announcing the Evo's time and all I heard was 69 seconds and I my stomach dropped. While we were discussing it afterwords neither he nor I really got a solid time but the other competitors did. His final run, clean was a 69.841, just .124 seconds off of my fastest time.
So in my first debut in my STX prepped Mustang in STU, I managed to squeak out a victory over the better car for the class. I call it dumb luck as I was running POORLY all day. The car was running great but the nut behind the wheel was sucking it up big time. On the upside, it took me a little over 3 years to accomplish but I did finally beat my F-Stock benchmark from my STX days for all but one run. He ran a 69.313 on older Hoosiers while I was packing up.
So what is the plan for this year? Well, this year is a bit of a cluster fuck because I'm here at the Academy until July 25th when I graduate. No issue there as I DO have Sundays off so long as I'm here by 11PM. More importantly, I have the comp time set aside for Nationals this year but I have yet to make a firm decision on if I'm going to go in STU or if I'm going to look for a co-drive instead.
A lot of that is contingent on a few things coming through. I've been in talks with one of the vendors in the Mustang world who is interested in working with me on a partial sponsorship which will greatly offset some of the costs with going to STU. Nothing is “final” yet as I have to hold up my end of the bargain first but I think it will be the start of a good relationship and they do good work and sell good product line up for what I want to do. Until that is a “go”, they will remain nameless (unless the owner wants me to name them right now! ).
The other part of that “contingency” is my 18x9's being sold. Yup, the Enkei PF01's in 18x9 ET45 are for sale, with the 265/40/18 RS3's on them. The RS3's are getting close to the wear bars and should be flipped on the rims but are otherwise in good shape. No patches, no chords showing and no detrimental tire wear aside from needing a flipping on the rims. These wheels are 5x114.3 and have centering rings to fit the S197 chassis bore (70mm) but I'm sure there are other centering rings out there. These would make for a great set of wheels and tires for a Brembo Mustang in F-Street looking to try 18” wheels instead of sticking to 19” wheels. I'm asking $1500 + shipping. Or, make me an offer you think is fair. If I can get the wheels and tires sold then I will jump on a set of 18x10 Forgestar F14's from the above mentioned vendor and put some 285/35/18 Hankook RS3V2's on them and run in STU. I also plan on buying the replacement front suspension lower control arm bushings to remove the play up there under hard braking.
So far, 2014 has been an interesting year. I just hope I can continue to do well in STU and hopefully can get the wheels/tires sold and get to STU this year. Of course if someone would like to provide the wheels/tires for STU, I'll gladly run them on my car!
D-Forces + 285 RS3's...the perfect STU combo. I would sell them to you if I still had them, unfortunately they are on another STU stang here in the OK/TX area already.
D-Forces + 285 RS3's...the perfect STU combo. I would sell them to you if I still had them, unfortunately they are on another STU stang here in the OK/TX area already.
No worries. The price I've been quoted for a set of F14's is hard to pass up. I've got a back up plan to buy the Strano ET38 Enkei PF01's in 10.5" width should this all go south on me. I like them being the same wheel all around and I like the looks.
I realize that and it certainly is an advantage to that setup. The weight isn't bad either! It just comes down to that dollar factor. I dont mind what poke is present with the Strano PF01 setup but the Cortex one works too with a spacer up front. They only come in Black ATM though.
Cool. I'm glad people are still interested in my build but it has just been a slow year for autocross for me because of the Police academy stuff occupying a large amount of my time.
I'm two events behind on getting these up so I'll try and get those done too but I felt like this one was so fresh in my mind that it would be better to write it up before I forgot what all happened! Hang in there, this is going to be a lot of text and not a lot of pictures or videos. The disadvantages of being in the same heat as both photographers...
Sooooo... this event, Solo points #5, and our charity event for the year. It was also the Mustang club event and they ended up running on a different course, unfortunately, but that is another issue in and of itself. It would have been nice to force them into the regular SCCA crowd to hopefully hook some of them and get them to come out to events. More people means more fun!
At any rate, the course was designed by Mark Walker and had some pretty interesting elements to it. The finish was a sweeper but right before this sweeper was an extremely, visually, tight parallelagram box thingy. When "stepped" off the width between the first two cones if taking the element straight on was only a touch over 6 feet. Just barely wide enough to fit a car through. It was 15 feet between the gate cones, just that the gate was angled heavily to produce this wierd pucker inducing element that really was a well hidden straight away.
So I realize that there have been some changes to the car, nothing major from the suspension standpoint but I've since added a JLT Gen 3 CAI, Hypermotive Performance Tune (7000 RPM redline and 91 octane FTW!), and Roush Extreme Catbacks which in addition to their great sound shed some weight off the back end of the car. The additional power through the power band didn't upset the car nearly as much as I thought it would. About a quarter turn less rear rebound put it all to the ground without inducing too much, if any, push. Can't argue with that! The one thing I LOVE about this tune is that it takes the stock 3V bi-linear power curve where it "comes up on cam" about 3000-3500 RPM and smooths that out. That annoying "hold on – warp speed" feeling is gone and is now far more progressive. The throttle positioning is spot on perfect IMO and there is next to no tip in to blow the tires away by looking at the throttle. The car doesn't stutter, it doesn't lag, you apply gas, it goes.
It brings up something else interesting that I'll talk about later. In STU we had quite the talent pool. The guy who co-drove with me last year for the Nebraskhana event, Jon Simmons, picked up a co-drive with the guy I normally compete against in STU, David. Mark Hill from the KC region was up getting more runs in on the Lincoln Air Park's concrete before the MidDiv Championship and Nationals. We had our usual WRX guy there too, Joel, a never seen before STI and a 4th Gen Camaro SS. I had a lot of work to do to keep off the bottom of the rankings and to add insult to injury it was raining the morning of the event and drizzeling all the way up until the driver's meeting when it finally quit. I got lucky and it was announced that STU would run heat 2 so I knew the course would be fully dry and cleaned off by the time our runs came on and that was a welcomed relief!
Run #1 I left every setting where I had it from the previous event. Mostly this was damper settings as I haven't touched the tire pressures (and don't know what they are) since the SCCA starting line school earlier this year when my tire pressure gauge was ran over by "someone". I haven't gotten around to purchasing another since because I'm pretty lazy about some stuff! The car felt pretty good. A touch loose but I expected that with the new power. I also expected it to be a little loose just based on the fact that my RS3's, now at the wearbars, were not up to temp. This course ended up being a 60 second course for most of the "usuals". I didn't see the time, didn't hear the time, but Mark Hill told me that it was in the 59's and clean. I felt pretty good about that time considering what some of the folks were running in the first heat.
Run #2 I didn't change any settings because I wanted to see what happened with hot tires. The car felt exactly the same. Loose on the throttle about a third the way into the loud pedal (which I now like hearing because of the new exhaust sounding EPIC!). I made some driving mistakes too and it showed in the final time. The biggest of which came after the wallom where instead of carrying the speed to the outside of the corner I tapped the brakes and came in a little shallower into the quick offsets after the sweeper. This killed a lot of time. This time I got to see the time and it was in the 60.5XX range.
Run #3 would go a lot better and I attribute it mainly to the change in the rear rebound settings. I dialed back a quarter turn of rear rebound to help utilize the power that the car had and it just put power down so much better. It took some getting used to because the car had a slight mid corner push and then had throttle oversteer on command. Even though the run was faster, I think an 1/8th more rebound might be the happy spot for this particular course between a car that is more neutral mid corner and puts power down better. I'll talk about that later too. The video on this is interesting because you can really hear the throttle inputs as the intake manifold is seeing them and you can tell when I'm being more abrupt with the loud pedal because of the way it "pops" at first application of the gas. The time for this run was like a 59.3XX which was good enough to put me in the "noise" for the rest of us. Simmons had ran a 57 something by this point, Mark Hill was running 57 scratch times but coming up dirty and my usual STU competitors where in the 59's with me with me just barely ahead.
Run #4 was going to be a pretty good run until I made a HORRIBLE mistake going into the final turn. I came in too hot, didn't brake hard enough and ended up pushing WAY wide. Not only did I clip two cones on the outside but I killed so much time by pushing out that wide. I really think this run could have been a 58.5 or faster had I not blown the final turn and finish. Ohh well, what can you do right? I knew I wasn't going to place first but I was going to try my damndest. I think Mark had an off day as he is usually a good 3+ seconds faster than me on any given autocross day. Hell the last event he and I ran against each other it was closer to 6 seconds but I blame the rain and "drying" conditions of the heat we ran in! Simmons wasn't getting slower either and had a good clean run that was slightly faster than his previous fastest run. I'm not sure if David improved on his last run or not. I'm interested to see just how close we are since we are usually right there with each other.
At any rate, I hung around for the "trophy presentation" to see where I ended up since I was unsure. I came in third place, just a few tenths behind Mark Hill who didn't get a clean run the whole event. Simmons took first and David was behind me by a tenth and change. Tight competition as always and one reason I love our ST fields. Of course Simmons had something like 8 looks at the course as he got several re runs for timing errors and downed cones. Milking that system for all he can! I was content with this. My car isn't anywhere near a fully prepped car. I certainly don't think there is 2+ seconds of time between the remaining mods, maybe a second or so but the car is a hell of a lot of fun to drive on street tires and this event was a good reminder of that.
So that takes us to the "what's next?" I spent a lot of time coming to a decision with this and I wont say it was an easy one. There are a lot of factors that were considered, including the interests of my relationship with Jason at Hypermotive Performance and the potential interests of future sponsors as well as my learning and financial needs. Everything has been made into such a gradual progression from stock, to STX lite, and to STX (more serious) and the car has made great strides in driveability along the way and it has helped me improve as a driver as well. I would like to continue that trend and I think STU makes A LOT of sense for progression. It ups the grip level without drastically upping the cost level and smooths out the transition from my car's current STX prep level and grip level to that of an ESP car. The wheels can be used for both and the suspension mods are identical. It also has the added benefit of providing a data point, however good or bad that data point is, on the capabilities of the S197 chassis in ST. So with that, I'm staying with STU where local competition is, where it matches my financial and learning needs on car control and it can be used as a data point for others to utilize. ESP just doesn't make sense right now.
So what about for the remainder of the year... well... I wont be going to Nationals, either in my own car or someone elses car. The cost of attending in my own car is too great to run and not be on the right wheels/tires. The tires I want (RS3V2) are not in stock in 285/35/18 and the only other competitive choice is a tire that will be obsolete next year (ZII is being replaced by the ZII Star Spec). Add that to the cost of attending (which doubled since I missed the "deadline") was just too great. David offered me a co-drive in his Evo for which I am greatful for but I found out that I have mandatory range qualification on one of the days of the event in the morning which was kind of the final nail in the coffin saying I shouldn't attend this year as a competitor. I am going to try to get out there to say hi to people and maybe take a few photos though. I knew this year was going to be a bit of a throw away year anyway so it shouldn't be a huge shocker!
Lets talk about modifications though since that is really the meat of the "what's next?" section. Right now the plan is for next year to be the year for new wheels and tires (something I'm starting to notice is becoming a yearly "staple") and the rebuild of the rearaxle. The rear axle is doing great right now but I want to throw a Torsen out back and replace all the seals and bearings and have some form of differential catch can made or installed to eliminate the soaking of the right side axle tube. To facilitate the rear axle rebuild I'm going to have to go cheaper on the rear wheels than I genuinely want. I'm looking heavily at the SVE Drifts in black in 18x10. Tires will probably be the new RS3V2 but I wont leave out the ZII Star Spec as an option.
With that decision comes the discussion about speed in gear calculations. Those of you that have me as af riend on Facebook have already seen the maths I did for this. Right now my Hypermotive Performance tune (which is fucking awesome by the way!) has the rev limiter at 7000 RPM on the 3V motor. With 3.55's out back and the 2.00:1 second gear ratio that puts my top speed with a 285/35/18 at 76 mph... that's... uhm... a lot. Even the shorter 285/30/18 ZII Star Spec size only drops that down to 72 mph which is far better but far from ideal. My fear with the ZII Star Spec is the combination of lateral + longitudinal with the shorter sidewall height. It's critical to this car's speed to be able to do both extremely well. The Torsen helps but it isn't as potent as a good tire that will do both well in combination with the Torsen. So this brings up the inevitable question of whether it is better to have a higher "thrust" in gear or to be able to utilize the thrust you currently have.
The last modification is kind of a "if they give it to us" modification and that is the LCA's and relocation brackets. If we get them awesome, I'll be spending more money with BMR or Filip at Cortex Racing.
So there it is... I'm trying to get the other ones written up but it's been slow going with busy work days.
As always, questions, comments, concerns, bitches, gripes or complaints, feel free to speak up!
They certainly have that appeal of being functional and cheap. Their weight isn't too bad either at 24lbs. It isn't great either. The PF01's in 10.5 are 22lbs but they are triple the price. 2lbs and a half inch isn't worth the added cost to me. (That's what she said).
It'll be interesting to see if they allow alternative control arms or not. That could produce some interesting %AS numbers with the torque arm! I'll have to go crunch the numbers again.
#23 STU – October 12th, 2014 – Last Chance Solo - LAP-N
Uggh... so I've been dreading writing this up but I figure I might as well just suck it up and get it done. Before we begin I'd like to put a huge thanks out to Hypermotive Performance again for coming through with the parts for my rear differential in plenty of time to get them all installed before this event! Jay has been a tremendous help in getting stuff here in a timely fashion and at a price that is hard to argue with!
So lets talk about the run up to this event. Best laid plans and all that. I had purchased the following items from Jay at Hypermotive:
Torsen T2R
New 3.55 rear gears
FRPP Ring and Pinion install kit
FRPP axle bearings and seals
JLT Oil Catch Can (long overdo IMO)
The install of this was supposed to take place on Tuesday, be painless, and be DONE on Tuesday evening so I could make sure things had a chance to get a brief wear in pattern before beating the piss out of new gears while autocrossing. I started to tear everything apart and it took me four hours to drop the rear axle out from under the car. I started checking the factory stuff... factory backlash at .019" an inch. FOR the RECORD Ford's spec is .008"-.012" so that number was waaaaaaaay off and explained some of the driveline clunking I've experienced since owning the car. The wear pattern on the gears was good though so it was "out" but still good according to Ford anyway.
The stock diff clutch packs... well... there was no break away torque at all. I haven't pulled the S-Spring and looked at the clutch packs but I'm sure they will "look" fine. Sadly for the T-lok a few thousandths worth of wear is enough to make the entire unit stop working correctly and the clutch pack material is still very much intact. You can bandaid it with alternative shim stacks or frequent rebuilds but nothing quite like replacing it with units that don't suck. So why the T2R? Well, you obviously know why, torque biasing diffs don't wear out as fast (some claim never but that couldn't possibly be true), the ability to put power down while cornering and the proven track record.
Sooooooooo... back to the install. First pinion gear shim goes on using the "Math" method involving a bunch of measuring with a caliper. Lets just say the pattern that resulted wasn't that good. Ford says a thicker pinion shim required. Now at this time I didn't have the factory shim pulled from the stock gear set. In hind sight this would have been a damn good idea. Ford even recommends that, heavily, especially given the gear ratio, Ford Racing (made to "exact" specs) gears and a Ford 8.8 housing. I was speaking with a local guy who has done these installs for his livings, several of which he set up for racing. He said he would have ran the pattern, only when we went to remove the pinion bearing the bearing came apart. Just my luck.
A little off for my taste...
I tried tracking down a replacement bearing which matched the part number that Ford Racing gave me. I found one, in Lincoln, last one in the state supposedly. My landlord was kind enough to let me borrow his vehicle. Thankfully I had the foresight to burn all of my comped time to have Saturday off so I drove all the way to Lincoln, paid $115 for this new bearing and drove home. Get all the way home and go to put the axle back together and it's the wrong bearing... The race for this supposed "Shelby GT500 high torque bearing" is about a half inch larger in diameter and doesn't go in the factory hole! Horray!
The panic nearly set fully in as I called the local parts stores and thankfully the local NAPA had the bearing and race in stock. I pulled the bearing off the stock 3.55 pinion and pulled the shim. The stock shim measured .025", the shim I calculated was .014"... Given that the factory bearing and race was different than the one that was in the install kit I didn't think this was terribly odd. Well the NAPA bearing and race was the same as the factory bearing and race so I reused the stock shim. In hindsight, I should have started there from the get go but what ever. I got everything reinstalled. Pinion bearing preload was at 22in*lbs of rotational resistance which is on the high end of the specs for new bearings. Initially the backlash came out at .011" and the pattern showed a little high and just a touch off center. Ford said that by decreasing the backlash the pattern will move down on the gears and in the direction the pattern needed to go. It would have been fine at .011" but since I'm not going to leave well enough alone I did some shim swapping to get my backlash down to .008" which is the tightest for recommends. I rechecked the pattern and it came out perfect! Horray! Install this bitch so I can go out for a test drive. I managed to get everything installed by about 11:30PM. I went for a test drive and put about 40 miles on the new gears. Everything is quiet, well ok, there is bearing noise but that was there from the factory too and the torque arm doesn't exactly hide those noises very well, nor would an aftermarket UCA for that matter.
Dat body roll! Just kidding, not too bad!
The next morning I woke up and drove all the way to Lincoln for the last solo event of the year for us. It was an adventurous drive to Lincoln as I didn't want to maintain the highway speed and tried to vary the load on the rear gears. Anything to keep them from whining or otherwise making wierd noises. I arrived with plenty of time to let the rear end cool down completely. Initial impressions are that the car was wicked loose during the test drive. You can definitely feel the rear diff working very, very, very hard to get the car pushed around a corner. Feels VERY differently than the stock diff does. When you get on the gas the rear end of the car wants to rotate very easily... somewhat over rotate.
Now for the event, the part you all were actually reading this post for right? Or have you all given up on me! As is the "tradition" with the Nebraska Region we run a course from Nationals, usually the west course (less fence to setup) and this was no different.
Course map for those who are not familiar:
Basically your typical speed maintenance course with a healthy dose of "what the fuck?" at the end. In the end it was a great course up until the last about 5 seconds which was just pure unadultured rape of your fun. Lots of places to lose speed, lots to gain speed and places to carry a lot more speed than you thought. Lets go through an overview of what is on the car right now though:
Ground Control Coilovers (550/275 for spring rates)
-3.0º Camber, -0.10º Toe, +7.0º of Caster
Strano 35mm front bar, full stiff
Stock 20mm GT rear bar
Fays2 Watts link (top RC hole)
Cortex Racing Torque Arm
BMR TCA022 Lower Control Arms
BMR Relocation Brackets (top hole)
Torsen T2R *NEW! *
Roush Extreme Catbacks
JLT Gen 3 CAI + Hypermotive Tune
JLT Oil Separator *NEW! *
Enkei PF01's in 18x9
Hankook RS3V1 in 265/40/18
That list gets longer and longer! Hopefully one day I'll reach that "end" where I can stop buying things that aren't consumables. That light gets bigger and bigger but it is still at the end of a very long tunnel.
Run #1: 67.126
Lets say that this run required A LOT of adjustment in my driving. The car felt like it was wicked loose. Long gone was the "drive it into the corner and then punch it Chewey" as that would yield some big tom foolery with the ass end all over the place. Of course re-watching the video doesn't quite show that very well so I guess we can chalk that up to the new diff and the sensation that comes from how it operates. This run was painfully slow, lots of time left on course and plenty of re-learning the car. The finish was brutally slow... brutally...
Run #2: 66.984
This run was supposed to be better... it wasn't... I mean it was time wise but talk about HUGE mistakes made going through the "Beach Huts". The other bad part was not backsiding the cones in the "Another Day in Paradise". Maybe I was getting used to the feeling but the car didn't feel as loose although the video shows it being a little bit looser than I was really hoping for. The tires just never got hot either so I'll just blame this run on that!
Run #3: 65.687
For run 3 I dialed the rear rebound down a quarter turn in an attempt to gain a little more rear grip. That change in rear grip actually made the car push a little in the fast transitions which showed up in "Another Day in Paradise". I probably started off behind in that anyway. I also learned the valuable lesson surrounding how a T2R works on and off throttle. Twice in this run I applied the brakes and the ass end got too loose on me. Off throttle oversteer is a new sensation for me as the car was never set up to do that. As soon as you transitioned to the throttle the "back end" would continue it's trip around so off throttle oversteer resulted in on throttle oversteer as soon as you breathed on the throttle.
Run #4: 64.732
For this run I dropped the tire pressure down from 38 to 34 and dialed the rear rebound back up an 1/8th of a turn. This... really... helped the car. Tire temp came up much quicker in the run and the car felt better in transititions without being insanely loose on throttle. I was also getting much more confident in the new rear diff and how it operated. Still a little loose on throttle but it was manageable. I also drove better which is nothing short of a miracle!
Run #5: 63.829
The final run involved a slight tweak in driving at the beginning. According to a buddy who was watching my runs I was lollygagging around the start area and he "encouraged" me to go faster there... I just delayed my 1-2 shift until after the first element and before the first left hand turn. Between that and some better driving I ended up with a much better run. Better lines and overall a healthy dose of "pulling my head out of my ass" seemed to actually work! Imagine that!
Comparing to Nationals... well... yeah. My best run was comparable to about second to last in Nats but it was good enough to be about 3.872 seconds off of Mark Hill who actually ran better times than he did at Nationals on a set of Rivals when he was on ZII's at Nats. Funny that considering how much he HATES those tires at Lincoln and how they don't do well on Lincoln's surface. Now for the excuses! Two things conspired to make this event a toss out when comparing to Nats... overall temperature of the event, about 60º and learning the new rear diff setup. RS3's and cold temperatures = bad.
So where do we go from here? Well... STU next year. RS3V2's in 285 trim on some wheel. I haven't decided if I'm going to go with the SVE Drift route (which is easy) or going with a set of Forgestars or something else. I've got options and plenty of time to think about it since we are done with autocross for the season. No idea on whether the co-drive offer to a local will go through, possibly, we'll see.
From a car setup standpoint, I'm not entirely sure where I want to go with the car at the moment. I think we'll leave it and give it a shot with the new, wide tires and go from there. On the short list for next year is a new set of brake pads and rotors though. I'm thinking about ditching the rear swaybar entirely (less weight, yay! ) but we may hold off on that until I get the opportunity to do a test'n'tune with the car and really try different settings. Same with %AS settings. With the Torsen's new behavior, it is going to take a little getting used to driving in order for me to really feel confident in it. It isn't as easy as the stock diff is but it should also work a hell of a lot better. I think the throttle is going to be used a little more gingerly but I think smoothing the use of it out should also make the car faster!
As always, questions, comments, concerns, gripes, bitches and complaints, go ahead and fire away. I'm a big boy, hit me with it!
The car was a touch loose in quick transitions, probably due a shock setting but it was totally controllable and not over bearing. It felt "just about right" to me. 
