Project STX update and 13/14 April Solo event After Action

csamsh

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If you lived anywhere near Texas I'd volunteer to co-drive with ya at least once, to see how far off of our STX car it was.

Serious offer Terry? Fancy a trip to OKC some weekend?

Shane I'd be interested to see how you did at one of these National things...besides nitpicky and stupid ROI mods I think you're reasonably STX prepped, as well as seemingly being somewhat of a freak driving these things. Let me know if you go to Nebraska this year...I might be venturing up there myself.
 
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Whiskey11

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Terry, I dont consider 440lbs/in springs up front and 200 out back as "glorified lowering springs". That is 10 less than you ran up front and 25 more than you ran out back during your STX forray. The GC coilovers are not the sleeves for a set of Koni Yellows, these are their full coilover kit with custom valved Koni inserts (I have dyno plots if you want them) in GC's strut bodies. They arent 4150s with your plates and they never will be but it is all I could afford and is miles ahead of the Steeda Sports I was running and they arent as awful as you make them out to be.

The top winning cars were on RS3s and only 245s at that. I know because I was gridded between both cars. STX also ran in the dry, bone dry, conditions both days and it was about 80°F during our runs. Yeah, Star Specs are "old hat" now but this decision was made when they were within driver noise just last year and these are carryovers from last year. No use tossing out good tires when you cant afford to replace them. Next year will be new wheels and tires and what will depend on what the SEB/STAC decides is appropriate and what is winning. Even if that becomes the Rivals (likely) they wont have either 265s or 285s in 18s.

As for the rest of my stock Suspension, I dont follow. I am using the stock rear bar and stock UCA which to my knowledge are the only mods left in the Suspension department. I have the rear bar but I cant say I find it necessary with my Watts link where it is. I am also at -3° of camber which is all the strut tower will allow. At this point raising the front or running camber bolts are the only options for increasing static.negative camber on my car.

I will be the first to admit I am not that good of a driver. No questions asked. This was the first National event I have participated in. Locally, top 25% usually in PAX but no Nationally competitive STX people to compare to. Most of the drivers here that are frequent National tour/Nationals are focused heavily on their own cars. I have asked, trust me.

Terry I respect the hell out of your experience and opinion so hopefully that doesnt come off as combative, that isnt my intention.
 

modernbeat

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Looking at that photo right there and seeing your seating position I'm going to make a recommendation that you take a professional driving class before you do any other modifications to the car. You'll be money ahead by investing in some training and learning some techniques (and why those techniques work) before trying to improve the car. ST class Mustangs are hard enough to drive well. Don't make it worse by not using the right driving tools.

Every man I've every met thinks he's an excellent driver and a fantastic lover. :naughty1:
 

csamsh

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Looking at that photo right there and seeing your seating position I'm going to make a recommendation that you take a professional driving class before you do any other modifications to the car. You'll be money ahead by investing in some training and learning some techniques (and why those techniques work) before trying to improve the car. ST class Mustangs are hard enough to drive well. Don't make it worse by not using the right driving tools.

Every man I've every met thinks he's an excellent driver and a fantastic lover. :naughty1:

Any recommendations on good ones in the TX/OK area?
 

Vorshlag-Fair

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Terry, I dont consider 440lbs/in springs up front and 200 out back as "glorified lowering springs". That is 10 less than you ran up front and 25 more than you ran out back during your STX forray. The GC coilovers are not the sleeves for a set of Koni Yellows, these are their full coilover kit with custom valved Koni inserts (I have dyno plots if you want them) in GC's strut bodies. They arent 4150s with your plates and they never will be but it is all I could afford and is miles ahead of the Steeda Sports I was running and they arent as awful as you make them out to be.

The top winning cars were on RS3s and only 245s at that. I know because I was gridded between both cars. STX also ran in the dry, bone dry, conditions both days and it was about 80°F during our runs. Yeah, Star Specs are "old hat" now but this decision was made when they were within driver noise just last year and these are carryovers from last year. No use tossing out good tires when you cant afford to replace them. Next year will be new wheels and tires and what will depend on what the SEB/STAC decides is appropriate and what is winning. Even if that becomes the Rivals (likely) they wont have either 265s or 285s in 18s.

As for the rest of my stock Suspension, I dont follow. I am using the stock rear bar and stock UCA which to my knowledge are the only mods left in the Suspension department. I have the rear bar but I cant say I find it necessary with my Watts link where it is. I am also at -3° of camber which is all the strut tower will allow. At this point raising the front or running camber bolts are the only options for increasing static.negative camber on my car.

I will be the first to admit I am not that good of a driver. No questions asked. This was the first National event I have participated in. Locally, top 25% usually in PAX but no Nationally competitive STX people to compare to. Most of the drivers here that are frequent National tour/Nationals are focused heavily on their own cars. I have asked, trust me.

Terry I respect the hell out of your experience and opinion so hopefully that doesnt come off as combative, that isnt my intention.

OK, didn't mean to offend either. I honestly forgot you were on GC coilovers - I read a lot of interweb posts and I "mis-remembered" seeing Koni and assumed lowering springs. Sorry. I wasn't saying you have to buy 4150s or MCS singles or whatever - I know you probably won't - but that possibly you should upgrade from lowering springs and OEM style Konis. Which you have. :thumb:

But there are still areas of the car to work on. Sure, rear UCA and rear adjustable bar are more things, but also: full lightweight exhaust, exhaust headers, lightweight racing seats (weight + control), front LCA poly bushings, and more camber. -3° is almost enough, but I'd shoot for more. A lower ride height helps get more camber at the same plate settings. And of course more tire...

While the STX winners were only on 245s, those were cars that were what, 600-800 pounds lighter? I assume they were FT86 or E36 cars. The same width tires on a much lither car = more mechanical grip. As the heaviest car in class you'd want to be the first one on wider tires, and can benefit the most from that. I think you are underselling how much this would help. :) Of course I don't have some formula to give you on how much it would be, not is there likely a way to quantify that even remotely accurately. That would be highly course/day/car dependant.

Its all good - do your thing. :popcorneat:
 

modernbeat

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Any recommendations on good ones in the TX/OK area?

In the immediate area? No. But a school like this is something that you would travel for. The good thing is that they are usually scheduled along with some National level event so you aren't traveling only for the school.

The two schools I've been happy with are Evolution and SoloPro.
 

Whiskey11

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OK, didn't mean to offend either. I honestly forgot you were on GC coilovers - I read a lot of interweb posts and I "mis-remembered" seeing Koni and assumed lowering springs. Sorry. I wasn't saying you have to buy 4150s or MCS singles or whatever - I know you probably won't - but that possibly you should upgrade from lowering springs and OEM style Konis. Which you have. :thumb:

But there are still areas of the car to work on. Sure, rear UCA and rear adjustable bar are more things, but also: full lightweight exhaust, exhaust headers, lightweight racing seats (weight + control), front LCA poly bushings, and more camber. -3° is almost enough, but I'd shoot for more. A lower ride height helps get more camber at the same plate settings. And of course more tire...

While the STX winners were only on 245s, those were cars that were what, 600-800 pounds lighter? I assume they were FT86 or E36 cars. The same width tires on a much lither car = more mechanical grip. As the heaviest car in class you'd want to be the first one on wider tires, and can benefit the most from that. I think you are underselling how much this would help. :) Of course I don't have some formula to give you on how much it would be, not is there likely a way to quantify that even remotely accurately. That would be highly course/day/car dependant.

Its all good - do your thing. :popcorneat:

By all means, continue posting, no need to chomp on the popcorn. I'm listening intently here. I'm just trying to explain why I am where I am. Originally, last year I was going to stay in F-Stock and run RTR. I wasn't comfortable cramming a 265/40/18 RS3 on a set of stock 18x8.5 rims (in hindsight I should have just done it) and then worrying every time it rained so I went with the "does it all good but none of it exceedingly well" Star Spec in 245/45/18 flavor. All I'm doing is continuing to use this set of Star Specs until I hit the wear bars. At the rate they are wearing it will easily be around Nationals time. I'd love to go to Nationals since the crowd is an absolute hoot but there just isn't anyway for me to pull more money out of thin air (I guess I could load up the CC :evillaugh:) to make prepping the car to the max happen but wheels and tires are the priority right now. That is followed up very quickly by the rear diff. Those are the plans for the next year's autocross parts budget.

I just totaled it up to about $6630 without longtubes and catted H-Pipe to get this car through the majority of allowances. I'm more afraid of being too loud with the LT's and H-Pipe with the basically straight through Roush Extreme "Cat Back" (really a Mid-Pipe and back resonated straight through exhaust) and the added power being too much for the 265's though which is why I've left out LT's and Catted H-Pipe.

Also, the front of my car is lowered past the horizontal point in the lower control arm. My understanding of MacFailson strut suspensions is that past this point you wont see any more negative camber from lowering and will actually lose it. Is that not true? I'm all ears. There is a practical limitation on how low I will go though since this car does get daily driven and I do have a pretty crappy ramp up into my apartment complex and the roads have frequent dips in them.

For what it is worth, Heitkotter on another forum said:
Not too long ago at a school I drove an RX-8 and current-gen Mustang on the same day, both in STX trim. I didn't feel the Mustang was doing poorly at all. In fact, on that course (which did have a couple good spots for the Mustang's torque to be put to good use) I was told the times were similar.

Not knowing Mustangs real well, I'm not sure how far off a similarly prepped 4.6 car would be compared to the 5.0, but I know the new 5.0 can trophy at Nationals easily, probably compete for a top 5, and maybe even win.

My 2 grains of salt for the day.

Then again:
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Terry, is there anything from the videos that you can recommend different lines or anything? There were a couple really big F ups into the finish on both day one and two that really held me up... not enough braking and either pushed wide or turned in too early. One more valid reason why I need to find an Evo school.
 

chilema

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For what it is worth, Heitkotter on another forum said:
Quote:
Not too long ago at a school I drove an RX-8 and current-gen Mustang on the same day, both in STX trim. I didn't feel the Mustang was doing poorly at all. In fact, on that course (which did have a couple good spots for the Mustang's torque to be put to good use) I was told the times were similar.

Not knowing Mustangs real well, I'm not sure how far off a similarly prepped 4.6 car would be compared to the 5.0, but I know the new 5.0 can trophy at Nationals easily, probably compete for a top 5, and maybe even win.

My 2 grains of salt for the day.

Hehehe...Bryan was refering to my car, and this was BEFORE I went to the AST 4100s and Vorshlag CC plates :naughty1: (had just the Koni Yellows and Steeda Sports)! The RX-8 he was referring to is decently prepped and could run with the Charlie Davis E36 and the Tsang brothers' E36 on a good day at the hands of a good driver. I think he was referring to my times compared to the RX-8 owner lolll but yes I agree in his hands with enough time in the car he can probably work some black magic (though at the school I managed to better his limited 2 runs in my car). But yes, Bryan's words to need to be taken with a grain of salt. I don't think there's a car out there that Bryan would summarily dismiss when it comes to autocross...but Mack Tsang also drove my car at a event in STX trim and called it a cow LOL.

I'm not gonna jump to conclusions about the national competition in STX this coming year but I CAN tell you guys that in the San Francisco region Mack and Justin Tsang in the E36 and Mark Scroggs in his new BRZ are starting to put upwards of a second on Charlie's national's winning car on a sub-50 second lap so for all we know the gap for S197's has gotten even larger. Someone should ask Mack how he likes his new JRZ RS PRO's and 255/40/17 Rivals ;) .

Being able to observe first-hand this many potential trophy winner's locally I have to say that the game has likely changed again, and TBH us Mustang guys haven't done/don't have much to do to keep up the pace. Not to mention STX is starting to attract some of the best drivers around. It helps that this class has just about the best choice of cars from a street tire autocross driving dynamics perspective, outside of Miatas in STS/STR. Just hoping it doesn't turn into a Toyobaru spec class because these cars are seriously good at autocross...
 
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Norm Peterson

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Also, the front of my car is lowered past the horizontal point in the lower control arm. My understanding of MacFailson strut suspensions is that past this point you wont see any more negative camber from lowering and will actually lose it. Is that not true? I'm all ears. There is a practical limitation on how low I will go though since this car does get daily driven and I do have a pretty crappy ramp up into my apartment complex and the roads have frequent dips in them.
Close. The turning point is when the LCA inclination at whatever ride height is perpendicular to the strut inclination at that same ride height. Lowering beyond that starts dialing camber change the wrong way. Whether any given McStrut car has enough suspension travel to actually reach the perpendicular condition "depends".

That said, at any ride height lower than OE, camber gain (in degrees per inch) is less than it is at OE ride height, and the closer you get to the 'perpendicular' condition above the slower (poorer) it is. Once past perpendicular, the wrong-way camber gain gets progressively "faster".

Kind of hints at needing stiffer springs the lower you go with struts for more reasons than simply not wanting the suspension getting into the bump stops over anything bigger than a pavement ripple.


Norm
 

Vorshlag-Fair

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Serious offer Terry? Fancy a trip to OKC some weekend?

OKC is pretty far for me to drive for an autocross, but if you came down to DFW and I didn't have another race planned that day, I'd do it. :)

www.http://dfwautocross.com/ - We have 5+ clubs that autocross usually once a month, so there's always an autox going on here, pretty much 12 months out of the year (but January can be flaky). Some months I'm already booked racing 4 weekends in a row, but July and August are pretty light. :thumb:
 

csamsh

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OKC is pretty far for me to drive for an autocross, but if you came down to DFW and I didn't have another race planned that day, I'd do it. :)

www.http://dfwautocross.com/ - We have 5+ clubs that autocross usually once a month, so there's always an autox going on here, pretty much 12 months out of the year (but January can be flaky). Some months I'm already booked racing 4 weekends in a row, but July and August are pretty light. :thumb:

I will probably take you up on that, but August sounds hot.
 

Whiskey11

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Close. The turning point is when the LCA inclination at whatever ride height is perpendicular to the strut inclination at that same ride height. Lowering beyond that starts dialing camber change the wrong way. Whether any given McStrut car has enough suspension travel to actually reach the perpendicular condition "depends".

That said, at any ride height lower than OE, camber gain (in degrees per inch) is less than it is at OE ride height, and the closer you get to the 'perpendicular' condition above the slower (poorer) it is. Once past perpendicular, the wrong-way camber gain gets progressively "faster".

Kind of hints at needing stiffer springs the lower you go with struts for more reasons than simply not wanting the suspension getting into the bump stops over anything bigger than a pavement ripple.


Norm

A touch of Chapman's law to make it work ehh? :)

Instead of blowing money on gumballs or more parts, go to EVO School.

You will not spend better money on going faster.

I would agree, Evo school is something I'd love to do. Closest one seems to be the Denver area and both days of the school is $560 not including gas, lodging or food. The Denver school is too soon to really plan for budget wise so I may have to hold off until next year on that. =\
 

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IMO I would just do one at at time rather than doing back to back. They throw a lot of things at you fairly quick and there's a ton of things that you can work on over a year. I want to take a phase II probably before next season, but this season I'm making it a point to work on and try to master the things I learned in phase 1
 
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Interesting, we did phase 1 and 2 back to back and I wouldn't have it any other way. The second day REALLY hammered home everything we learned in phase 1.

Any instructional seat time is better than none.
 

Whiskey11

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Terry, you can relax... The Star Specs weren't going to make it through the season and I need some tires with enough tread to actually daily drive my Mustang. Soooooooo..............

I ordered some RS3's in 265/40/18






Ohh yeah, and some Enkei PF01's in 18x9 ET45. At 19.3lbs they should help keep the rotational mass down some without unnecessarily lightening my wallet.

What does this mean? Well what it means is that the SEB/STAC will FINALLY make a decision and these wheels/tires will be too narrow to "max out" for ST in the Mustang... such is life! Back up contingency, if needed, is to sell to my buddy in his RX8 since these will fit his car really nicely!

Speaking of weight reduction, how about a 35lb weight reduction over my current stock setup and all of it unsprung AND rotating weight at that! That puts the current car's weight at 3405 ish.
 
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Vorshlag-Fair

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Terry, you can relax... The Star Specs weren't going to make it through the season and I need some tires with enough tread to actually daily drive my Mustang. Soooooooo..............

I ordered some RS3's in 265/40/18... Ohh yeah, and some Enkei PF01's in 18x9 ET45. ... how about a 35lb weight reduction over my current stock setup and all of it unsprung AND rotating weight at that! That puts the current car's weight at 3405 ish.

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Whiskey11

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Well played clerks, well played!

More good news everyone! My order has shipped which means it will be here in time for the next autocross event! TireRack pulled through on the order after telling me it could be 60-90 days. Turns out they changed the part number on the wheels in their system and they actually have "a bunch" of them in stock. Also, the RS3's were in too.

So where do we go from here? Through the encouragement of several people on another forum, I'm looking at unconventional setups to help maximize power delivery and that conversation devolved into the "Torque Arm vs 3 Link" debate. Given ST's restrictive rules on modifying the 3 link setup (UCA only, mount can be replaced but can only use factory mounting hole) and seeing the effects that would have on the already wearing out differential side UCA bushing, I'm investigating the Cortex Torque Arm. I think, given the rules, the Torque Arm is going to allow for much better power delivery within the ruleset. I'm sure there will bet hose who adamantly disagree with such a notion and considering no one that I know of is currently running one, I figured I'd be that guy to make the leap for "SCIENCE!" After the debacle in the previous Torque Arm thread, I think it would be beneficial for someone else to drive a TA setup on these cars and provide a little bit more quantifiable data.

That also means fixing the pinion angle issue, something that I think is finally starting to show up. I'm getting more driveline noise under acceleration so I think lowering the rear of the car further is going to cause problems in that regard.

I'm also purchasing new rod ends for the Fays2 Watts linkage. One of them is starting to make a noise that would indicate it is time to replace them. The rod ends are $15 a pop which is far less awful than I thought it would be but it will be cheap insurance that the Watts link stays in good shape for at least another year. This was something I had budgeted for anyway. While it is off I may bribe my Ford Tech buddy and replace the clutch packs in the T-Lok with the Carbon Fiber ones while everything is off and out of the way. That will give me the opportunity to lengthen the Watts link a little and mitigate some frame-to-watts link bolts contact I'm getting.
 

fun4me

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Well played clerks, well played!

More good news everyone! My order has shipped which means it will be here in time for the next autocross event! TireRack pulled through on the order after telling me it could be 60-90 days. Turns out they changed the part number on the wheels in their system and they actually have "a bunch" of them in stock. Also, the RS3's were in too.

So where do we go from here? Through the encouragement of several people on another forum, I'm looking at unconventional setups to help maximize power delivery and that conversation devolved into the "Torque Arm vs 3 Link" debate. Given ST's restrictive rules on modifying the 3 link setup (UCA only, mount can be replaced but can only use factory mounting hole) and seeing the effects that would have on the already wearing out differential side UCA bushing, I'm investigating the Cortex Torque Arm. I think, given the rules, the Torque Arm is going to allow for much better power delivery within the ruleset. I'm sure there will bet hose who adamantly disagree with such a notion and considering no one that I know of is currently running one, I figured I'd be that guy to make the leap for "SCIENCE!" After the debacle in the previous Torque Arm thread, I think it would be beneficial for someone else to drive a TA setup on these cars and provide a little bit more quantifiable data.

That also means fixing the pinion angle issue, something that I think is finally starting to show up. I'm getting more driveline noise under acceleration so I think lowering the rear of the car further is going to cause problems in that regard.

I'm also purchasing new rod ends for the Fays2 Watts linkage. One of them is starting to make a noise that would indicate it is time to replace them. The rod ends are $15 a pop which is far less awful than I thought it would be but it will be cheap insurance that the Watts link stays in good shape for at least another year. This was something I had budgeted for anyway. While it is off I may bribe my Ford Tech buddy and replace the clutch packs in the T-Lok with the Carbon Fiber ones while everything is off and out of the way. That will give me the opportunity to lengthen the Watts link a little and mitigate some frame-to-watts link bolts contact I'm getting.
Sounds like you're getting serious over there.
 

Whiskey11

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Sounds like you're getting serious over there.

Yeah, semi-serious :D Budget is pretty limited but these are modifications that are becoming more a necessity for longevity than performance enhancement, although they will also have that purpose.

The Torsen T2R will have to go in next year when the budget is more forgiving. I would have put it before other modifications but I think it would be worthless to have the rear end apart only to have to take it apart again when the pinion bearings go tits up.
 

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