Haven't posted a message such as this in a while, so I thought it might be time to.
The latest event I went to was with NASA at Thunderhill, on 8/29 and 8/30. It was a lot of fun and very informative.
As you guys know, the tires I've been using are Bridgestone S-04 Pole Positions. For this event, that changed. Seems I've been putting too much heat into the tires. The last set lasted only 5 track days, and there was apparently some evidence of chunking. Admittedly, some of that was from doing oversteer control exercises around HOD's figure 8 "car control clinic" skidpad setup, but most of it was from the track.
I needed to go to a tire that would hold up better to the abuse, so I went with Bridgestone RE-11s. I also maxed out the camber, going from -1.8 degrees to -2.2 degrees. This caused a strange noise to come from the front when turning the steering wheel. I thought the sound might have been indicative of a problem with the steering rack, so I had Ford check it out. They ended up replacing the steering rack because it was apparently binding internally, but the sound remained. Turns out that the spring was contacting the strut tower. The shop I take my car to fixed that and now the car sounds like its old self.
So with those changes, it was off to the track...
My first day was in HPDE1. You might be thinking that, given my history, HPDE1 is the group I normally would run with. Nope! I signed up for HPDE1 because I wanted to prep for a checkride into HPDE3! I wanted to guarantee that I could get the instructor I've been working with all this time (we get along quite well), so HPDE1 was the logical approach. This was the second time I'd been to Thunderhill since I (re)started going to the track, and the first time I'd run the 3 mile counterclockwise course, so I would be figuring out the track as well as learning what I needed to do to pass the checkride to group 3. This worked wonderfully. More on that below.
My second day was in HPDE2. My goal was to take what I'd learned in HPDE1 and cement it. The main thing was to know the track and the line well enough to make driving it almost second nature, to make maximization of awareness possible. I found locations around the track where I could check my mirrors, check flag stations, etc., and ingrained all of that into the pattern I used while driving around the course (even the flag station at turn 15, which requires that I lean to the left so I can see it through the windshield, as the mirror and roofline otherwise obstructs my view of it). Seems I've gotten better at this over time. I kept some awareness of what was going on around me even at the beginning in HPDE1. I've gotten comfortable in the HPDE driving environment, and looking around while driving has become no big deal. Of course, I still do have to pay attention to the line, and can tell that there's more gains to be had with respect to making that automatic, but I now know from experience that it will happen. It's just a matter of practice.
My checkride was on the third session. I had to know the flags cold, had to drive the line accurately (within reason, of course), and had to maintain and demonstrate situational awareness. There were lots of opportunities for that, as we got a couple of yellow flags and even full course cautions during that session. Someone spun way to the inside of turn 8, and had come within inches of the wall there.
Annnd ... I passed the checkride! I am now in HPDE3 at NASA. Amusingly, the comments of the examiner (to my instructor, not to me) were that I was on the line, had good situational awareness, knew the flags cold, but was slow. Well, yes, I was slow. That was deliberate, something my instructor told me to do. I was "slow" (but not so slow as to hinder traffic behind me) because I was prioritizing all of those other things above anything else.
But ... slow, eh? Well, we'd see about that! On the next session (last of the day), I passed ten cars over the course of the session, all while driving the line better than I had any previous session, and of course all while maintaining the situational awareness that I'd learned to build into my driving over the course of the previous 18 days of track time.
What an awesome weekend!
Ah, but what did I learn?
Remember how I've mentioned that I wasn't able to feel the car's relatively slow responsiveness? I thought you guys were crazy or something.
I discovered why during that event.
During one of the HPDE sessions, I drove the car differently than I usually do. My steering inputs were more abrupt, as was my braking release. And suddenly, I was able to feel the car moving around. The instructor, of course, preferred that I be smooth on the inputs, so I reverted back to my usual style after that. But it was very informative!
I wasn't able to feel that before because until that point, my control inputs were so smooth that the car was always able to keep up! Which is to say, I'd been smooth almost to a fault, and it masked the car's response characteristics.
Why hadn't I been able to feel that during the Evolution Driving School events I'd been to? Simple: because how fast my inputs are depends on the situation, and their course is such that my inputs need to be that fast only for the slaloms, and for that, the car never had time to take a set in the first place -- the dampers made the car respond in a timely fashion there.
So: the car has sharp double transition (left-right, or vice versa) reflexes (quite possibly due to the Konis, but it seemed sharp enough even on the stock dampers), but not sharp single transition (left-only, or right-only) reflexes. And since driving on the track rarely requires the latter, it's possible to drive these cars in such a way that you never feel the lack of responsiveness in the suspension.
And yes, I have driven a car that doesn't have as sharp double-transition reflexes: my 300ZX Twin Turbo. It actually required anticipatory control inputs to do the slalom well, something that isn't true of the Mustang.
My continued oversteer education (which mainly consists of driving rear-heavy cars in Gran Turismo) proved its worth at this last event as well. More than once, the rear end stepped out and I reflexively countersteered (well, let out some steering, really. It didn't take much). Given the way the car drives in general, versus how it's characterized here, I'd say that it appears that when the rear steps out and you're on stock springs, it's called "understeer"!
And the tires? They held up nicely. There wasn't any more peak grip in them than in the previous tires, according to the G meter, but the grip felt more consistent, the tires less prone to grease up than the previous ones did (though they did grease up a little in the afternoon sessions). They certainly seem to be wearing better. With the greater camber up front, the fronts and rears appear to be wearing the same now. It'll be interesting to see if that remains the case.
I'm making some changes to the car that should change the balance a little, and it'll be interesting to see what the result is. I'm putting on the standard Boss 302 springs up front (148 lb/in), the Laguna Seca rear springs (191 lb/in), the Laguna Seca rear sway bar (26mm instead of 24), and the Laguna Seca panhard bar (why? Because it was dirt cheap, and has stiffer bushings, so it should help me feel the rear end a bit better). Why standard Boss springs up front instead of the Laguna Seca variety? Because I'm running a square setup, and the stiffer springs up front will keep the final (i.e., under load) suspension geometry about the same under cornering and braking as it is now (the spring change will lower the front about half an inch). I figure the balance should wind up being about the same as the Laguna Seca. Which, of course, means massive "understeer".
Yes, I don't expect a massive change in the behavior. But it'll be interesting to see what that change is. And it's consistent with the dual-purpose mission of the car.
Up next is NASA at Sonoma Raceway. I'll be running in HPDE3, at a track that I'm much more familiar with than Thunderhill. Even so, I'm also signed up for Simraceway's Stage 2 performance driving school there (I've already completed all 3 stages, so I get to pick and choose which ones I want to sign up for), a week earlier, for the purpose of refamiliarizing myself with the track. The first part of that makes use of an autocross-style course (a mini-track that uses cones to designate it), so I'll be testing the car's handling changes in that venue before I hit the track. I strongly prefer to know how the car behaves at the absolute limits before taking it onto a track, especially one with as many things to hit as Sonoma, so this will be a good opportunity for that.
It's going to be fun!
How far I seem to have come. It wasn't all that long ago that I wasn't even sure I could function properly in a track environment, much less be comfortable in it.
The latest event I went to was with NASA at Thunderhill, on 8/29 and 8/30. It was a lot of fun and very informative.
As you guys know, the tires I've been using are Bridgestone S-04 Pole Positions. For this event, that changed. Seems I've been putting too much heat into the tires. The last set lasted only 5 track days, and there was apparently some evidence of chunking. Admittedly, some of that was from doing oversteer control exercises around HOD's figure 8 "car control clinic" skidpad setup, but most of it was from the track.
I needed to go to a tire that would hold up better to the abuse, so I went with Bridgestone RE-11s. I also maxed out the camber, going from -1.8 degrees to -2.2 degrees. This caused a strange noise to come from the front when turning the steering wheel. I thought the sound might have been indicative of a problem with the steering rack, so I had Ford check it out. They ended up replacing the steering rack because it was apparently binding internally, but the sound remained. Turns out that the spring was contacting the strut tower. The shop I take my car to fixed that and now the car sounds like its old self.
So with those changes, it was off to the track...
My first day was in HPDE1. You might be thinking that, given my history, HPDE1 is the group I normally would run with. Nope! I signed up for HPDE1 because I wanted to prep for a checkride into HPDE3! I wanted to guarantee that I could get the instructor I've been working with all this time (we get along quite well), so HPDE1 was the logical approach. This was the second time I'd been to Thunderhill since I (re)started going to the track, and the first time I'd run the 3 mile counterclockwise course, so I would be figuring out the track as well as learning what I needed to do to pass the checkride to group 3. This worked wonderfully. More on that below.
My second day was in HPDE2. My goal was to take what I'd learned in HPDE1 and cement it. The main thing was to know the track and the line well enough to make driving it almost second nature, to make maximization of awareness possible. I found locations around the track where I could check my mirrors, check flag stations, etc., and ingrained all of that into the pattern I used while driving around the course (even the flag station at turn 15, which requires that I lean to the left so I can see it through the windshield, as the mirror and roofline otherwise obstructs my view of it). Seems I've gotten better at this over time. I kept some awareness of what was going on around me even at the beginning in HPDE1. I've gotten comfortable in the HPDE driving environment, and looking around while driving has become no big deal. Of course, I still do have to pay attention to the line, and can tell that there's more gains to be had with respect to making that automatic, but I now know from experience that it will happen. It's just a matter of practice.
My checkride was on the third session. I had to know the flags cold, had to drive the line accurately (within reason, of course), and had to maintain and demonstrate situational awareness. There were lots of opportunities for that, as we got a couple of yellow flags and even full course cautions during that session. Someone spun way to the inside of turn 8, and had come within inches of the wall there.
Annnd ... I passed the checkride! I am now in HPDE3 at NASA. Amusingly, the comments of the examiner (to my instructor, not to me) were that I was on the line, had good situational awareness, knew the flags cold, but was slow. Well, yes, I was slow. That was deliberate, something my instructor told me to do. I was "slow" (but not so slow as to hinder traffic behind me) because I was prioritizing all of those other things above anything else.
But ... slow, eh? Well, we'd see about that! On the next session (last of the day), I passed ten cars over the course of the session, all while driving the line better than I had any previous session, and of course all while maintaining the situational awareness that I'd learned to build into my driving over the course of the previous 18 days of track time.
What an awesome weekend!
Ah, but what did I learn?
Remember how I've mentioned that I wasn't able to feel the car's relatively slow responsiveness? I thought you guys were crazy or something.
I discovered why during that event.During one of the HPDE sessions, I drove the car differently than I usually do. My steering inputs were more abrupt, as was my braking release. And suddenly, I was able to feel the car moving around. The instructor, of course, preferred that I be smooth on the inputs, so I reverted back to my usual style after that. But it was very informative!
I wasn't able to feel that before because until that point, my control inputs were so smooth that the car was always able to keep up! Which is to say, I'd been smooth almost to a fault, and it masked the car's response characteristics.
Why hadn't I been able to feel that during the Evolution Driving School events I'd been to? Simple: because how fast my inputs are depends on the situation, and their course is such that my inputs need to be that fast only for the slaloms, and for that, the car never had time to take a set in the first place -- the dampers made the car respond in a timely fashion there.
So: the car has sharp double transition (left-right, or vice versa) reflexes (quite possibly due to the Konis, but it seemed sharp enough even on the stock dampers), but not sharp single transition (left-only, or right-only) reflexes. And since driving on the track rarely requires the latter, it's possible to drive these cars in such a way that you never feel the lack of responsiveness in the suspension.
And yes, I have driven a car that doesn't have as sharp double-transition reflexes: my 300ZX Twin Turbo. It actually required anticipatory control inputs to do the slalom well, something that isn't true of the Mustang.
My continued oversteer education (which mainly consists of driving rear-heavy cars in Gran Turismo) proved its worth at this last event as well. More than once, the rear end stepped out and I reflexively countersteered (well, let out some steering, really. It didn't take much). Given the way the car drives in general, versus how it's characterized here, I'd say that it appears that when the rear steps out and you're on stock springs, it's called "understeer"!
And the tires? They held up nicely. There wasn't any more peak grip in them than in the previous tires, according to the G meter, but the grip felt more consistent, the tires less prone to grease up than the previous ones did (though they did grease up a little in the afternoon sessions). They certainly seem to be wearing better. With the greater camber up front, the fronts and rears appear to be wearing the same now. It'll be interesting to see if that remains the case.
I'm making some changes to the car that should change the balance a little, and it'll be interesting to see what the result is. I'm putting on the standard Boss 302 springs up front (148 lb/in), the Laguna Seca rear springs (191 lb/in), the Laguna Seca rear sway bar (26mm instead of 24), and the Laguna Seca panhard bar (why? Because it was dirt cheap, and has stiffer bushings, so it should help me feel the rear end a bit better). Why standard Boss springs up front instead of the Laguna Seca variety? Because I'm running a square setup, and the stiffer springs up front will keep the final (i.e., under load) suspension geometry about the same under cornering and braking as it is now (the spring change will lower the front about half an inch). I figure the balance should wind up being about the same as the Laguna Seca. Which, of course, means massive "understeer".
Yes, I don't expect a massive change in the behavior. But it'll be interesting to see what that change is. And it's consistent with the dual-purpose mission of the car.
Up next is NASA at Sonoma Raceway. I'll be running in HPDE3, at a track that I'm much more familiar with than Thunderhill. Even so, I'm also signed up for Simraceway's Stage 2 performance driving school there (I've already completed all 3 stages, so I get to pick and choose which ones I want to sign up for), a week earlier, for the purpose of refamiliarizing myself with the track. The first part of that makes use of an autocross-style course (a mini-track that uses cones to designate it), so I'll be testing the car's handling changes in that venue before I hit the track. I strongly prefer to know how the car behaves at the absolute limits before taking it onto a track, especially one with as many things to hit as Sonoma, so this will be a good opportunity for that.
It's going to be fun!
How far I seem to have come. It wasn't all that long ago that I wasn't even sure I could function properly in a track environment, much less be comfortable in it.
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