Vorshlag 2011 Mustang 5.0 GT - track/autocross/street Project

[kcbrown]

Terry:

Hope your back is healed by now, or close to it. Having experienced back spasms myself (due strictly to fatigued muscles), I can easily sympathize with how painful the experience must have been. Ouch!

If you don't mind a little advice from a complete neophyte ...

Use a checklist!

I've detected a consistent theme from the various messages you've posted about your track experiences so far, and that is that there's always something that is being forgotten. It seems to me that you're in this seriously enough now that you can't afford any more mistakes. As this experience should show, such mistakes can endanger your life.

As a private pilot, I use checklists for everything I do in the aircraft, because I can't afford to miss something. It's life and death stuff I'm dealing with, and the same is true for what you're doing.

If you religiously use a checklist for all of your prep work (list of things to load into the trailer, to check on the car, etc.), then you'll minimize problems arising from forgetting things. It won't be perfect (nothing is), and you may miss things that are particular to the event you're going to, or to the ever-changing setup of the car (I would suggest in that case that you make sure the checklist is correct a couple of days or so before the event). But the fewer things you miss, the fewer the opportunities for something to go horrifyingly wrong.

You might even want to use one for oil changes!

Can't wait to see what you guys do with the S550...

 

[ddd4114]

Yeah, checklists are a really good idea. I find myself having to use them at work, or I'll occasionally... well, fuck things up. Even after you've done things dozens or even hundreds of times, it's amazing how easy it is to glance over a checklist and think to yourself "Oops! I completely forgot to do that!". The more busy and rushed you are, the more likely you are to make mistakes. I started using one for track days because I hated driving hours away to find that I forgot something basic like the stupid funnel for the capless fuel system.

I'm interested to hear how RBF660 compares to RBF600 on your car. It's an interesting compromise because the 660 has a higher dry boiling point, but the 600 has a higher wet boiling point. You would certainly have to bleed the 660 more frequently to realize its advantage, but I wonder how long it lasts.

 

[kcbrown]

Oh, one other little suggestion ...

You should have more than one spare set of pads with you! And if you don't already, you should have a spare set of rotors as well. You're very hard on brakes (in reading your messages, it almost seems like a point of pride!). It makes no sense to skimp on the consumables you're hardest on (tires and brakes, in this case). If it were tires you were short on, I could understand because those at least take a lot of space, but pads and rotors don't.

 

[Benjamin T]

hi terry.

i was watching this video of the falken mustang:

http://youtu.be/EW4VnCxdgcQ?t

any idea if those fender flares on the car custom or aftermarket? it almost looks like they took the shape from the 05-09 bodystyle and grafted it on...

 

[modernbeat]

Posted this in the STU-ESP thread also, but it's important enough to post it here too.

Holy Moly! All of our work has paid off. I have to give a tip of the hat to anyone on the forum that wrote letters and urged the SCCA SEB to give stick-axle cars more allowances. The new Fastrack is coming out and it's got two new proposals that allow relocation of axle side pickup points and replacement lower arms for solid axle cars in Street Touring and Street Prepared classes.

-BUT-

This is just a proposal! You, yes YOU, have to write in to the SEB in support of these proposals if you want them to go through.

Send those comments to www.sebscca.com

Here's the text from the new Fastrack, located here, http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/assets/solo.pdf:

Change Proposals

Street Touring
#12063 Solid Drive Axle Allowances
Replace 14.8.G.5 with the following:
“The lower arms may be replaced or modified and the lower pickup points on the rear axle housing may be relocated.”

Street Prepared
#14101 Solid Drive Axle Allowances
Replace 15.8.I.5 with the following:
“The lower arms may be replaced or modified and the lower pickup points on the rear axle housing may be relocated.”

 

[Norm Peterson]

We're not going to use a cool suit, as that is overkill for our typical 2-3 lap stints.

Please re-think this. Obviously not all of your stints are that short, and losing mental sharpness can begin before you start feeling crappy.


Norm

 

[ArizonaGT]

Please re-think this. Obviously not all of your stints are that short, and losing mental sharpness can begin before you start feeling crappy.


Norm

x10000

It's especially valuable while waiting on the grid as well as the cool down from your hotlaps to the time you arrive at your paddock stall.

 

[SoundGuyDave]

X10000, +1....

First, you already run ballast, so the weight penalty of carrying the gear is moot.
Second, heat, like dehydration, affects both fine motor control and judgement, and does do before you "feel" hot.
Third, if you DO start running longer sessions, as you apparently have started to do, you are NOT going to be used to the sheer heat inside the car. I've clocked temps inside of mine in excess of 140*F, and it's mostly from the header collectors directly below your feet, and the trans tunnel just to your right.
Fourth, while you do have working A/C in yours, it won't do squat for you out on track.
Fifth: Cost of the hardware is negligible compared to the rest of the costs involved in competitively campaigning a car.
Sixth: It WILL give you a competitive edge. Maybe a few thousandths, maybe a few tenths...

I've seen driver changes in the enduros that I run (3+ hours) where the exiting driver has collapsed once over the wall, where they fell out of the car, and where they had to be grabbed and directed towards the wall because they were disoriented. Exactly how well do you think a driver in that type of shape was doing out on track?

A cool-suit is one of those pieces that seems a pure "luxury" item until you use one. Then suddenly, you ask yourself how you survived without one. When the temp on grid is 105*F, the sun is pounding down, and everybody else is sweltering under layers of Nomex, sitting in an apparent high-60's environment is rather nice...

 

[Roadracer350]

What all equipment do you need to run a "Cool Suit"? In motorcycle racing our suits were perforated because we were out in the airflow. It worked for a bit but hot air is hot air. I remember in long endurance races (8hrs of Texas World, 24hrs of Willow Springs) we would be helped off the bike from a 60-90min stint and stripped down to our under suit and had IVs put in to keep us from dehydrating. I remember loosing 14lbs one year at willow springs.

 

[sheizasosay]

What all equipment do you need to run a "Cool Suit"? In motorcycle racing our suits were perforated because we were out in the airflow. It worked for a bit but hot air is hot air. I remember in long endurance races (8hrs of Texas World, 24hrs of Willow Springs) we would be helped off the bike from a 60-90min stint and stripped down to our under suit and had IVs put in to keep us from dehydrating. I remember loosing 14lbs one year at willow springs.

I think you can just get a couple trash bags and tie them off around your ankles, wrists and neck and then run 3" ducting from your AC to your scrotum and armpits through the trash bags (sealed with duct tape of course). Maybe hang a water bag off your cage and run an IV to your jugular. Wouldn't want to mess with the trash bag seal... so Jugular is usually preferred. Should take care of ventilation and hydration for pennies.

 

[SoundGuyDave]

LOL!! A it's core, a "cool-suit" is really very simple. Take a T-shirt, sew a LOT of small-diameter tubing to it, then circulate ice water through it. The T-shirt will be under the Nomex suit, right against your skin, and is designed to keep your core temp in check. If the core is in check, the peripheral will follow right along. Shirts are also commercially available with a hood that has tubing in it to directly cool your head, as well, rather than just relying on cooling the blood flowing to the head from the core.

"Cool Suit" and "Cool Shirt" are the two most popular commercially available setups. I use a Cool Suit (LINK), with a pulse-timer to control water flow. That lets me reduce the level of cooling, trading slightly elevated temps for longer duration of cool water supply. I'm doing the exact polar opposite from Terry: I run endurance races that are measured in HOURS, not TT sessions that are a handful of laps, but even when I'm out for just a "regular track day," I still load the cooler. It's that cool (pun intended). I also have a portable bag system that I use (cigarette lighter plug) when I instruct on really hot days. That one is from Cool Shirt.

For the fund of useless knowledge, a "cool shirt" will plug into a "cool suit" system, but not the other way around, if you wind up mixing and matching pieces and parts. I have one setup in my old CMC car, and another setup in my enduro car, the S197.

 

[Roadracer350]

I think you can just get a couple trash bags and tie them off around your ankles, wrists and neck and then run 3" ducting from your AC to your scrotum and armpits through the trash bags (sealed with duct tape of course). Maybe hang a water bag off your cage and run an IV to your jugular. Wouldn't want to mess with the trash bag seal... so Jugular is usually preferred. Should take care of ventilation and hydration for pennies.

BWAHAHAHA!!!

 

[Roadracer350]

LOL!! A it's core, a "cool-suit" is really very simple. Take a T-shirt, sew a LOT of small-diameter tubing to it, then circulate ice water through it. The T-shirt will be under the Nomex suit, right against your skin, and is designed to keep your core temp in check. If the core is in check, the peripheral will follow right along. Shirts are also commercially available with a hood that has tubing in it to directly cool your head, as well, rather than just relying on cooling the blood flowing to the head from the core.

"Cool Suit" and "Cool Shirt" are the two most popular commercially available setups. I use a Cool Suit (LINK), with a pulse-timer to control water flow. That lets me reduce the level of cooling, trading slightly elevated temps for longer duration of cool water supply. I'm doing the exact polar opposite from Terry: I run endurance races that are measured in HOURS, not TT sessions that are a handful of laps, but even when I'm out for just a "regular track day," I still load the cooler. It's that cool (pun intended). I also have a portable bag system that I use (cigarette lighter plug) when I instruct on really hot days. That one is from Cool Shirt.

For the fund of useless knowledge, a "cool shirt" will plug into a "cool suit" system, but not the other way around, if you wind up mixing and matching pieces and parts. I have one setup in my old CMC car, and another setup in my enduro car, the S197.

Ok so the "suit" is actually just a shirt? You just have the hoses going thru thru the front of the drivers suit or is their a special suit or mod to the suit you are doing to route the hoses? Sorry for all the questions but if it gets near as hot in the cars(which it sounds like it will be hotter) as the bike you almost need one of these setups!

 

[SoundGuyDave]

You can flop it out the front of the suit, below the bottom zipper pull, but that tends to look, um, not exactly family friendly. I put a VERY small slit in the corner of one pocket in my suit and route the hose through there. That way you maintain full Nomex coverage. Pull it out of the pocket, plug it in, and then just smile...

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

That picture shows a cool suit shirt + cooler + lines. There's also a pump, that circulates the cold water through the shirt, of course. Typically some amount of water is used with a full 8-10 pound bag of ice to keep it COLD.

We have installed these systems for customers with W2W race cars, and they are very popular in endurance race cars.

NASA Time Trial isn't necessarily where you'd use one of these systems, though, and I don't want people reading the advice above to thing that they NEED a cool suit in any way shape or form to do normal HPDE track events or TT. Adding a cool suit is so far down the list of "good safe things to do" it almost doesn't register on the radar for a TT driver. Maybe if you only race in mid-summer in Arizona, and you want to stay out on track for the longest possible time, then.... maybe. These systems add a significant chunk of weight and cost. Drivers are constantly swapping out bags of ice, and if the track doesn't have ice for sale you are pretty much out of luck. I've done multiple endurance races in Texas (with stints ranging from 2-3 hours) and have yet to use a cool suit... but they are popular in that form of racing.

I will not be installing a cool suit system in our TT3 car. Road Atlanta was a complete fluke - I ran stints so uncharacteristically long that my complaints the heat there should be ignored. I did notice 3 TT drivers at the NASA Hallett race (out of 44 TT drivers) this past weekend with cool suit set-ups, but they were driver's in cars that take a LOT of laps (read: not on Hoosier A6 tires) and/or driver's that "double-up" and run TT plus W2W.

This event was hot - 94 degrees and very humid - but the only time I felt any discomfort was when wearing my crappy, heavy, cheap, 3-layer driving suit. I've got to replace this old thing, which is much heavier and hotter than a quality suit would offer. My longest stints were 4 laps, but most of my sessions were 2 laps each. That's how you use a Hoosier A6 competitively, what can I say? We did manage to snag another double TT3 win, reset the track record, and won 4 more tires with a fairly quick overall time (3 seconds quicker than our old lap record from last year). More details coming soon in an event write-up.



Edit: here's a team mate from a LeMons race team I ran with in 2012 showing his cool suit quick-connect lines exiting his suit.... right out of the fly.

Cheers,

 

[ArizonaGT]

For anyone that has or is interested in the driver cooling systems, we have had good luck with the "block ice" as opposed to typical cubes. Just let the block melt a little first so it fits in the cooler box and you will have COLD ice for the entire day, sometimes even still good the next morning. That means you might only have to get a block once per day instead of adding fresh ice multiple times per day.

 

[Boaisy]

Or, you know, just spend the $7,000 for the "iceless" system, lol:

http://www.fastraceproducts.com/cooling/koolbox/koolbox-li.html

Hopefully stuff like that gets quite a bit cheaper sometime in the future.

 

[csamsh]

Or, you know, just spend the $7,000 for the "iceless" system, lol:

http://www.fastraceproducts.com/cooling/koolbox/koolbox-li.html

Hopefully stuff like that gets quite a bit cheaper sometime in the future.

Peltier cooled coolshirt? That is really...cool. I don't see the price coming down significantly without advances in the materials needed, or at least an alternative to Bismuth Telluride...Tellurium is not too easy to come by, and the price keeps going up, up, up, up.....

 

[Norm Peterson]

This event was hot - 94 degrees and very humid - but the only time I felt any discomfort was when wearing my crappy, heavy, cheap, 3-layer driving suit.

Don't assume that your current level of tolerance for heat will continue indefinitely. It wasn't all that many years ago when I might have said much the same thing (me being in my mid-50's at the time), and there was a time before that when I could run 3 miles in 18 minutes in 100°F heat, catch my breath, drink a glass of water, and be good to go. Not any more, not by a long shot. Yours may not fall off as far as mine has (or as fast), but it's foolish to deny the possibility . . . kind of like 1/4 thickness pad material, old fluid, and one more event or session.


Norm

 

[2008 V6]

For anyone that has or is interested in the driver cooling systems, we have had good luck with the "block ice" as opposed to typical cubes. Just let the block melt a little first so it fits in the cooler box and you will have COLD ice for the entire day, sometimes even still good the next morning. That means you might only have to get a block once per day instead of adding fresh ice multiple times per day.

++1

Any cooler box can be adapted with a pump - Space limitations & weight being the determining factor. When I used a cool suit setup years ago block ice was the ticket. Once you have a proper shirt anything can be adapted.