Vorshlag 2011 Mustang 5.0 GT - track/autocross/street Project
- Thread starter Vorshlag-Fair
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Roadracer350
Senior Member
About $300 per muffler.
Well, the Burns are rebuildable. And the Burns use fiberglass packing while the Magnaflow use stainless wool.
WOW! I figured the Magnaflow race mufflers would be about the same price as the Burns! Well put another item On the list I need to call and buy from you guys!
Vorshlag-Fair
Official Site Vendor
Well, it was December 28th, and the weather was fairly cool. We're going to try them again in March at TWS at the TrackGuys weekend. I'll get more laps on them then, and some heat.
I think the real question to be asking here is: how long will that car continue to be Amy's "daily driver"?
Well, Amy now has a 740iL we got for her to daily drive in, which we've restored and upgraded in a bunch of ways (740 project build thread here). She loves this big German cruiser and hasn't been daily driving the Mustang for about 8 months. Still, we drive the Mustang on the street from time to time - to go get fuel, to run over to the shop that does the engine tuning, or to go to special events locally. We went to Cars & Coffee last weekend (drove out on Hoosier A6s!) and she had a ball driving it across town and back. It does get a lot of stares with the decals and wing, heh.
At the USCA event in March we have to do a 50 mile street drive in the car on the Friday of this 3 day competition, but we'll be on BFG Rivals for that, so I'm not worried. The Mustang still has A/C. sat nav, satellite radio, and all of the creature comforts.
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Vorshlag-Fair
Official Site Vendor
Terry, I shared one of your videos on our local autocross forum and this was born. Thought you'd enjoy...
LOL! That is awesome. More cowbell!
Well we aim to please, so look for this 345 tire on the rear in the next few days... it is finally happening. The 335 already fits up front.
More soon.
Jucostud
booooost'd
Dayum!
Well we aim to please, so look for this 345 tire on the rear in the next few days... it is finally happening. The 335 already fits up front.
More soon.
WOW that's nuts!!!
Norm Peterson
corner barstool sitter
Chris borzi
Junior Member
......wow....!
Vorshlag-Fair
Official Site Vendor
Project Update for March 5, 2014: After another extremely busy and record breaking month for the business, another 4 weeks has passed without a Mustang build thread post. I haven't had much "internet time", due to a lot of service/race prep work on customers cars. It got so backed up that I had to pitch in back there a few days, which is never a good sign. I hastily wrote this post, finishing it around midnight after a 12 hour work day, because this is the only time I can go more than 30 seconds without being called on by an employee, customer, PM, text or phone call. We've made some key changes to our red 2011 Mustang, the 2013 Mustang finally sold, and we are in the beginning stretch of 6 straight race weekend stint, including 3 days of racing this coming weekend. That means I will be writing at a furious pace with fewer edits - so if I sound a little loopy, and make some grammatical errors, that's due to the late hour and my compressed writing schedule.
2013 Mustang Finally Sold
Hallelujah! After 6 months of trying (or more? I'm afraid to count) the black '13 Mustang GT sold to a buyer out of state. I don't know if it was the latest of many price drops ($25K, ouch!) or the time of year was just right, but a mere 12 days after I lowered the price on January 31st the phones just all of a sudden lit UP. During a 24 hour period I had the car sold over the phone to an out of state buyer, sold and shown to a local buyer (first back-up), and then after we had 3 additional backup buyers lined up on the phone that same day - and the phones kept blowing up for another 24 hours. We finally just told the rest of the people that kept calling it was sold, before it was gone. We even had people offering $1000 over the asking price after I had accepted the first verbal offer, but we don't play like that, so I sold it to the first person who gave me confirmation and just waited for him to fly in and pick up the car a few days later.
The buyer loved the car when he arrived, then wanted to upgrade it to the full Bilstein StreetPro struts, shocks and camber plates. We had what he needed in stock, got them installed in a couple of hours, took care of the sale at the bank, and then he drove it 1400+ miles home through an ice storm that hit the east coast, with a smile on his face. Weirdest thing... so many buyers appeared during a 48 hour period, I thought I was being prank called at one point. I guess I won't ever try selling cars in December or January again, that's for sure. Probably the magic of Tax Return Season.
Was sad to see this one go, but with 8 personal cars and projects I needed to reduce the fleet a bit and this one just wasn't being used. Now it can be driven and appreciated by one of our S197 Mustang build thread's long timer readers, and with the new suspension and brake upgrades he should have a lot of fun on track.
Rear Flares Finally Happened!
So if you have been reading this Build Thread for the past 4 years you will know that I've complained about the 315mm tires we have run at all four corners are a bit on the small side and lusted for MOAR TIRE. While the "315s are skinny" statement sounds crazy to many of you, remember: we have been racing at 3770 pounds (with driver) in NASA TT3 class, and the "weight-to-tire" ratio isn't all that great with this many pounds and only a 315mm tire.
Typical TT1 C6 Z06 rear tire is a 345mm Hoosier, and these cars weigh around 3150 pounds stock, not 3550+ like our Mustang
Remember: the typical TT1 classed C6 Z06 Corvette (above) in Time Trial is on 18x12" wheels and 345mm rears under stock fenders, with the same power levels (440 whp) or maybe a tick more. And with a 400 (or more) pound advantage to our car, their "tire-to-weight" ratio is very favorable. We cannot run that light without removing large portions of the chassis, and bumping up classes, but have been making due with 315mm tires on a 3770 race weight, with similar power numbers as a stock Z06.
2012 SCCA ESP and NASA TTS wheel/tire set-up on 315/35/18 Kumho V710
Let's back up and cover the tire and wheel upgrades we've made since ditching the 18x9" then 18x10" wheels and street tires of our first 2 seasons, when we were building around STX/STU autocross classes. After a switch to ESP and TTS classes, we started running the 315mm R-compound DOT tires back in 2012 with a Forgestar 18x11" front and 18x12" rear, both of which just fit under the stock fenders (with some tricks out back to clear the 12's and 3 degrees of negative camber in the front to keep the top of the tire under the fender).
Early 2013 NASA TT3 wheel/tire set-up on 315/30/18 Hoosier A6
We have since perfected the 18x11" wheel fitment at both ends of the S197 and realize that, for most racers, a 295mm-305mm tire works and fits best with that wheel size. Fewer tricks are needed to fit the 18x11" rear wheel and that tire width, compared to the 18x12". But for our "ballasted up" Mustang making 420-430 whp, and with as aggressively as I drive the thing on Hoosier A6 tires, we were overheating the 315s within 2-3 laps. So I bought a pair of the widest DOT radial tires made by Hoosier: the 345/35/18 Hoosier A6. They fit the rear 18x12s "well enough" and looked liked they fit the car without any fender mods (but didn't really).
I did four autocrosses with these big 345 rear tires: a Pro Solo, a National Tour and two local autocross. It looked like it almost fit, until you started cornering and loaded up the read axle, and then they rubbed like mad and made billowing clouds of tire smoke. It was rubbing so badly on the rear inner fender sheetmetal that the car would bind up on the tires. It would start to load up in a corner, the tires would rub and slow down the car, unload the suspension and free up, lurch back into cornering then rub/slow down/lurch - rinse and repeat. But man, the traction off the line at standing start events was EPIC, and it cornered VERY WELL right up to the point where the rubbing started. Putting the 315s back on the car was a huge let-down, and I was determined to get them on this car again, eventually.
Failed experiment: 345 Hoosiers made tons of smoke from excessive rubbing under stock rear fenders
Back then we were using much softer spring rates (450F/175R) on the AST 4150s and a panhard rod, which of course doesn't control the rear axle location as well as a Watts Link. So why didn't we try the 345 mm tires out back after we went to the Whiteline Watts and upped the spring rates 3 different times on the Motons? Because it still wouldn't have worked on a road course. We noted that as hard as we pushed the car on TRACK with the 18x12" wheel/315/30/18 tire we still had a little whisper of tire rub, both inboard and outboard. It may have worked in a parking lot speeds, but no way would it have been safe on high speed road courses with long laterally loaded corners and the added speeds/downforce we see there. There's a big difference in some tire rub at 20-50 mph for 30 seconds at a time and then from 60-150 mph for ten minutes or more on track. We played with spacers and got it to a "pretty dang good" compromise spot with very minimal rubbing on the 12" wheels and 315s, but any addition of tire or wheel width would go back to the rub/lurch/unload scenario, which was terrible. And at road course speeds that would quickly destroy a tire and potentially cause a catastrophic failure.
Ugly cut front fenders at Hallett 2013 clear the now wider 18x12" front wheels
Before the June NASA Hallet event last year we cut the front fenders (a replacement pair of OEM units - the stock front fenders are in my attic, along with the OEM trunk, front bumper cover and hood) to clear a new wider 18x12" front wheel, to make the wheel set-up more "square". We ran it this way for a couple of months and in August of 2013 we finally made over-flares for the front. We made these in our shop using a vacuum formed ABS plastic material just before NASA Nationals last season, and made them big enough to clear a 335mm tire. But with stock rear sheet metal we kept all four corners at 315/30/18 sizes.
"Ugly but Functional" front flares. We say that phrase a lot, I know...
They were not the prettiest things to look at, but they were functional and aerodynamically correct - you want to COVER the entire FRONT of a spinning tire, as that reduces drag, and you want to EVACUATE the rear portion of the tire by leaving it UNCOVERED on the back side. This helps pull air from the wheelwell and undercar areas, increasing brake cooling + engine cooling and reducing lift. This is a trick used in sedan car racing and was easy enough to emulate.
Testing the mega-splitter at ECR, August 2013, days before making the front flares
We added a MASSIVE front splitter to the car at the same time and integrated the front flares/wheel spats into it. I had wanted to flare the rear wheels at the same time, and switch to the 335/345 tire combo before Nationals, but we simply ran out of time (and Amy said NO!). After Nationals I wanted to attack that at our shop, as we've done steel flares as well as wide-body conversions in steel before, such as these cars below (but Amy said NO!).
Left: Boxed flared E30 we built. Right: Widening the OEM flares on this Pikes Peak raced 2005 Subaru STi at Vorshlag
Problem was we just got too buried in customer fabrication work, plus Amy absolutely REFUSED to let us "cut on her car". Yes, even after we made the ducted hood, massive rear wing and mega front splitter... Every other thing we had done to the car for 3 seasons could still be unbolted and replaced with the OEM sheetmetal, but cutting on the unibody was verboten. Plus it would take away our technicians from paying service work, and when you are trying to save $$ to buy a building, every dollar counts. So we had the new front areo and big flares, but no additional tire... we raced it like this at Miller in September on skinny 315s, and TWS in September, and ECR in November, and MSR-Houston in January, and Cresson with the Club Trials in January. ...I simply had enough...
This is just some of the custom bodywork Shiloh has done for us...
When we realized late last year that the all new 2015 Mustang was going to likely be delayed until Fall 2014, and decided to keep the 2011 GT and race it in the 2014 season, I REALLY wanted to do the Big Tire Upgrade. RIGHT. THEN. AND. THERE. But we were too busy to tackle the rear flares, so I called Shiloh at Heritage Collision in Sherman, Texas, who had done such an amazing job on the custom flares for McCall's Z3 LS1 project (above). He worked the rear fender contours to clear that car's massive rear tires, then made front flare sections that he integrated into a carbon fiber hood, then made flared lower fender sections to blend it all in, and even fabricated some little splitter sections for the nose. That car looked AMAZING, so I took him the 2011 Mustang...
Dropping the car off at Heritage Collision in early February - 345s installed and spaced out 1/2"
Amy was NOT AWARE that I had done this, of course, as I knew she wouldn't approve. I figured it would better to ask for forgiveness than permission in this case. So it was done during a very hectic time in the shop, hoping she wouldn't notice the red Mustang being gone for a couple of weeks during the ~5 week break between Race Events we had from Jan 31st until March 8th.
Our shop guys (Ryan, Kyle and Olof) had blown apart the front splitter, front grill block-off plate, bumper cover, and rear wing uprights to have all of the aluminum bits blasted and powder coated (no more rattle can black paint or raw metal), as well as the Gloss "White" wheels (which were to be blasted and powder coated Anthracite grey with a semi-flat clear coat) then we loaded the car in the trailer and I dropped it off at Heritage. I discussed the timeline, budget and look we wanted with Shiloh and he said it would take a week or two. Well in 2 weeks we had our annual Open House and SCCA Tech Day, and I wanted this car to be there, so that was the absolute latest deadline we agreed upon.
continued below
2013 Mustang Finally Sold
Hallelujah! After 6 months of trying (or more? I'm afraid to count) the black '13 Mustang GT sold to a buyer out of state. I don't know if it was the latest of many price drops ($25K, ouch!) or the time of year was just right, but a mere 12 days after I lowered the price on January 31st the phones just all of a sudden lit UP. During a 24 hour period I had the car sold over the phone to an out of state buyer, sold and shown to a local buyer (first back-up), and then after we had 3 additional backup buyers lined up on the phone that same day - and the phones kept blowing up for another 24 hours. We finally just told the rest of the people that kept calling it was sold, before it was gone. We even had people offering $1000 over the asking price after I had accepted the first verbal offer, but we don't play like that, so I sold it to the first person who gave me confirmation and just waited for him to fly in and pick up the car a few days later.
The buyer loved the car when he arrived, then wanted to upgrade it to the full Bilstein StreetPro struts, shocks and camber plates. We had what he needed in stock, got them installed in a couple of hours, took care of the sale at the bank, and then he drove it 1400+ miles home through an ice storm that hit the east coast, with a smile on his face. Weirdest thing... so many buyers appeared during a 48 hour period, I thought I was being prank called at one point. I guess I won't ever try selling cars in December or January again, that's for sure. Probably the magic of Tax Return Season.
Was sad to see this one go, but with 8 personal cars and projects I needed to reduce the fleet a bit and this one just wasn't being used. Now it can be driven and appreciated by one of our S197 Mustang build thread's long timer readers, and with the new suspension and brake upgrades he should have a lot of fun on track.
Rear Flares Finally Happened!
So if you have been reading this Build Thread for the past 4 years you will know that I've complained about the 315mm tires we have run at all four corners are a bit on the small side and lusted for MOAR TIRE. While the "315s are skinny" statement sounds crazy to many of you, remember: we have been racing at 3770 pounds (with driver) in NASA TT3 class, and the "weight-to-tire" ratio isn't all that great with this many pounds and only a 315mm tire.
Typical TT1 C6 Z06 rear tire is a 345mm Hoosier, and these cars weigh around 3150 pounds stock, not 3550+ like our Mustang
Remember: the typical TT1 classed C6 Z06 Corvette (above) in Time Trial is on 18x12" wheels and 345mm rears under stock fenders, with the same power levels (440 whp) or maybe a tick more. And with a 400 (or more) pound advantage to our car, their "tire-to-weight" ratio is very favorable. We cannot run that light without removing large portions of the chassis, and bumping up classes, but have been making due with 315mm tires on a 3770 race weight, with similar power numbers as a stock Z06.
2012 SCCA ESP and NASA TTS wheel/tire set-up on 315/35/18 Kumho V710
Let's back up and cover the tire and wheel upgrades we've made since ditching the 18x9" then 18x10" wheels and street tires of our first 2 seasons, when we were building around STX/STU autocross classes. After a switch to ESP and TTS classes, we started running the 315mm R-compound DOT tires back in 2012 with a Forgestar 18x11" front and 18x12" rear, both of which just fit under the stock fenders (with some tricks out back to clear the 12's and 3 degrees of negative camber in the front to keep the top of the tire under the fender).
Early 2013 NASA TT3 wheel/tire set-up on 315/30/18 Hoosier A6
We have since perfected the 18x11" wheel fitment at both ends of the S197 and realize that, for most racers, a 295mm-305mm tire works and fits best with that wheel size. Fewer tricks are needed to fit the 18x11" rear wheel and that tire width, compared to the 18x12". But for our "ballasted up" Mustang making 420-430 whp, and with as aggressively as I drive the thing on Hoosier A6 tires, we were overheating the 315s within 2-3 laps. So I bought a pair of the widest DOT radial tires made by Hoosier: the 345/35/18 Hoosier A6. They fit the rear 18x12s "well enough" and looked liked they fit the car without any fender mods (but didn't really).
I did four autocrosses with these big 345 rear tires: a Pro Solo, a National Tour and two local autocross. It looked like it almost fit, until you started cornering and loaded up the read axle, and then they rubbed like mad and made billowing clouds of tire smoke. It was rubbing so badly on the rear inner fender sheetmetal that the car would bind up on the tires. It would start to load up in a corner, the tires would rub and slow down the car, unload the suspension and free up, lurch back into cornering then rub/slow down/lurch - rinse and repeat. But man, the traction off the line at standing start events was EPIC, and it cornered VERY WELL right up to the point where the rubbing started. Putting the 315s back on the car was a huge let-down, and I was determined to get them on this car again, eventually.
Failed experiment: 345 Hoosiers made tons of smoke from excessive rubbing under stock rear fenders
Back then we were using much softer spring rates (450F/175R) on the AST 4150s and a panhard rod, which of course doesn't control the rear axle location as well as a Watts Link. So why didn't we try the 345 mm tires out back after we went to the Whiteline Watts and upped the spring rates 3 different times on the Motons? Because it still wouldn't have worked on a road course. We noted that as hard as we pushed the car on TRACK with the 18x12" wheel/315/30/18 tire we still had a little whisper of tire rub, both inboard and outboard. It may have worked in a parking lot speeds, but no way would it have been safe on high speed road courses with long laterally loaded corners and the added speeds/downforce we see there. There's a big difference in some tire rub at 20-50 mph for 30 seconds at a time and then from 60-150 mph for ten minutes or more on track. We played with spacers and got it to a "pretty dang good" compromise spot with very minimal rubbing on the 12" wheels and 315s, but any addition of tire or wheel width would go back to the rub/lurch/unload scenario, which was terrible. And at road course speeds that would quickly destroy a tire and potentially cause a catastrophic failure.
Ugly cut front fenders at Hallett 2013 clear the now wider 18x12" front wheels
Before the June NASA Hallet event last year we cut the front fenders (a replacement pair of OEM units - the stock front fenders are in my attic, along with the OEM trunk, front bumper cover and hood) to clear a new wider 18x12" front wheel, to make the wheel set-up more "square". We ran it this way for a couple of months and in August of 2013 we finally made over-flares for the front. We made these in our shop using a vacuum formed ABS plastic material just before NASA Nationals last season, and made them big enough to clear a 335mm tire. But with stock rear sheet metal we kept all four corners at 315/30/18 sizes.
"Ugly but Functional" front flares. We say that phrase a lot, I know...
They were not the prettiest things to look at, but they were functional and aerodynamically correct - you want to COVER the entire FRONT of a spinning tire, as that reduces drag, and you want to EVACUATE the rear portion of the tire by leaving it UNCOVERED on the back side. This helps pull air from the wheelwell and undercar areas, increasing brake cooling + engine cooling and reducing lift. This is a trick used in sedan car racing and was easy enough to emulate.
Testing the mega-splitter at ECR, August 2013, days before making the front flares
We added a MASSIVE front splitter to the car at the same time and integrated the front flares/wheel spats into it. I had wanted to flare the rear wheels at the same time, and switch to the 335/345 tire combo before Nationals, but we simply ran out of time (and Amy said NO!). After Nationals I wanted to attack that at our shop, as we've done steel flares as well as wide-body conversions in steel before, such as these cars below (but Amy said NO!).
Left: Boxed flared E30 we built. Right: Widening the OEM flares on this Pikes Peak raced 2005 Subaru STi at Vorshlag
Problem was we just got too buried in customer fabrication work, plus Amy absolutely REFUSED to let us "cut on her car". Yes, even after we made the ducted hood, massive rear wing and mega front splitter... Every other thing we had done to the car for 3 seasons could still be unbolted and replaced with the OEM sheetmetal, but cutting on the unibody was verboten. Plus it would take away our technicians from paying service work, and when you are trying to save $$ to buy a building, every dollar counts. So we had the new front areo and big flares, but no additional tire... we raced it like this at Miller in September on skinny 315s, and TWS in September, and ECR in November, and MSR-Houston in January, and Cresson with the Club Trials in January. ...I simply had enough...
This is just some of the custom bodywork Shiloh has done for us...
When we realized late last year that the all new 2015 Mustang was going to likely be delayed until Fall 2014, and decided to keep the 2011 GT and race it in the 2014 season, I REALLY wanted to do the Big Tire Upgrade. RIGHT. THEN. AND. THERE. But we were too busy to tackle the rear flares, so I called Shiloh at Heritage Collision in Sherman, Texas, who had done such an amazing job on the custom flares for McCall's Z3 LS1 project (above). He worked the rear fender contours to clear that car's massive rear tires, then made front flare sections that he integrated into a carbon fiber hood, then made flared lower fender sections to blend it all in, and even fabricated some little splitter sections for the nose. That car looked AMAZING, so I took him the 2011 Mustang...
Dropping the car off at Heritage Collision in early February - 345s installed and spaced out 1/2"
Amy was NOT AWARE that I had done this, of course, as I knew she wouldn't approve. I figured it would better to ask for forgiveness than permission in this case. So it was done during a very hectic time in the shop, hoping she wouldn't notice the red Mustang being gone for a couple of weeks during the ~5 week break between Race Events we had from Jan 31st until March 8th.
Our shop guys (Ryan, Kyle and Olof) had blown apart the front splitter, front grill block-off plate, bumper cover, and rear wing uprights to have all of the aluminum bits blasted and powder coated (no more rattle can black paint or raw metal), as well as the Gloss "White" wheels (which were to be blasted and powder coated Anthracite grey with a semi-flat clear coat) then we loaded the car in the trailer and I dropped it off at Heritage. I discussed the timeline, budget and look we wanted with Shiloh and he said it would take a week or two. Well in 2 weeks we had our annual Open House and SCCA Tech Day, and I wanted this car to be there, so that was the absolute latest deadline we agreed upon.
continued below
Vorshlag-Fair
Official Site Vendor
Behind The Scenes : Making Custom Steel Rear Flares
Trust me - you don't want to see this kind of bodywork being done on your pretty car. Here's are some pictures that Shiloh was texting me while the rear flare work was ongoing, and my near mental breakdown that ensued. At first he showed me a method (these two below) that might have worked with a narrower tire, if we didn't need the extra clearance for lateral movement of the axle (even with a Watts there is some movement + tire deflection).
Before and After - this was just the outer panel separated, moved out and massaged. "Looks great!"
He cut the tack welds that join the outer rear fender skin to the unibody inner structure and WORKED that panel out about 2 inches. It covered the edge of the 345/35/18 tire we mounted to the 18x12" rears just barely, and it might have worked.... for hard parking but NOT for road course use, though. This method yielded about 1.5" more wheel clearance and never even touched the paint. It was beautiful, and damn I wish that would have been enough. But we were already getting tire rub with the 315s on the 12" wheels under the stock fenders, and the new shape really needed 3-4" of additional room or flaring beyond stock to clear the 345s and a potentially wider 18x13" rear wheel (coming soon, I hope?)
"Wait.. what just happened!?!"
After those pictures got my hopes up, he sent these terror inducing "making of the sausage" pictures. At one point I sent him a text: "AHH! I'm freaking OUT! Please stop sending me pictures until it is in primer!" He said to have faith, and reminded me that he had never let us down in his paint and body magic before, so I stressed out for another week while they made ALL NEW FENDERS from steel, added 4" of wheelhouse to the outboard side of the inner fender, and got the shape bodyworked and perfected.
That SHAPE was looking much better, but I still couldn't see the final look in raw steel. Once the bodywork was done and the fenders were in primer he sent me these pics below ...and I calmed WAY down. Unlike a lot of flare jobs I've seen, Shiloh and his guys at Heritage understand racing, proper suspension travel and tire clearance under full bump loads - so they pulled the rear springs and compressed the tire up into the fenders they created to make the most room possible. This adds a on of work, but that's the right way to do flares. Shiloh said that this same job would cost around $3000 to fabricate, test fit, clearance, weld, seam seal, bodywork, prime, block and paint if he were to do S197 flares like this again. Two weeks of late nights and LOTS of hours, but now LOTS of tire clearance. We've sent lots of racers and friends to Shiloh for paint and body work and it is worth the drive north from Dallas - they are that good. If you are in or near DFW area and need crash repair, custom paint or wild flares like this made, call Shiloh at (903) 891-3040.
But by now Amy was getting suspicious, and I couldn't keep her out of the shop every night she came in (after her day job) to do our accounting work. Luckily, with end of year bookkeeping she was pretty busy and somehow never noticed her car being gone. Now I never lied to her, and if she had asked "where's the Mustang?" I would have fessed up immediately, but I dang sure didn't volunteer the information!
We took it down to the wire, as Heritage needed the full two weeks we had before our deadline to get it bodyworked, painted and buffed. They even painted the ABS front flare sections for us, as the red vinyl wrap job we had done was not sticking well and starting to peel off. Shiloh really wanted to make steel front flares for us, and I wanted him to as well, but we simply didn't have time.
As it was, I didn't get back to the shop 5 pm on Friday, with the car and the many powder coated aluminum bits picked up from Crosslink Powder Coating on the way back (another great resource run by another real car guy). We needed the car assembled for the Open House the next day at 9 am, and still needed to clean up the shop - which was a disaster! Our fabricators and techs have been working nearly around-the-clock on customer race projects for weeks and we had to clean until the wee hours that night.
Meanwhile, as I'm taking the trailer back to our remote storage lot Amy drives up to the shop right after I left. CRAP! I ducked down and hoped she didn't notice me... in the giant red F350 dually with 36' enclosed trailer behind me. See, I was hoping our guys would have a chance to reassemble the wing and front end parts before she showed up and noticed the massive rear flares and missing rear graphics. Nope, she walked right into the shop while four of our guys were standing right next to the Mustang, which had the front end exploded apart on the floor (below) in front of it...
They all looked innocently at the pallet racks or stared at the ceiling while she asks them "Where is Terry going with the trailer???" It took her about 30 seconds to notice the new J-Lo booty on the Mustang, then her jaw dropped. Luckily she really liked the work, but that didn't stop her from calling me and giving me grief. 10 minutes of expletives began, and she really lit it up. I thought was in the dog HOUSE, I tell ya... I was thinking about sleeping in that trailer that night. Finally then she cracked, started laughing, and I could hear the whole shop rolling on the floor. She told me it looked great, and let me off the hook. WHEW! Two weeks of panic and stress were lifted in seconds.
After I got back from dropping the trailer the entire shop was in full "CLEAN MODE". We still had to re-arrange all of the "Stuff" and throw out junk (the scrap guy came by three times and was all smiles), and we cleaned up for many hours that night. I had to help sweep, scrub and mop the floors in the shop, too. Somehow we managed to clean up the messy floors, get most of the ongoing project cars shined up and presentable, get the lobby looking good, and got a few hours sleep before I had to be there at 7 to get ready for the Open House the next day.
Vorshlag Open House + SCCA Solo Annual Tech Day, Feb 22
Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Car-Shows/Vorshlag-Open-House-2014-SCCA/
This Open House event went even better than the two previous years' did, and we had 100+ people through the shop that day. Dozens came for the SCCA Annual Solo Tech, which saves them 15+ minutes during each of the 9 autocross events that Texas Region SCCA SOLO holds each year.
Lots of our customers came by, and we had tons of food and drinks. Breakfast was kolaches and donuts and lunch was catered Mexican food by Ryan's mom's place, Ojedas. MMM, mmmm it was good! We also had cake, cookies, chips, queso, salsa, and lots of beer.
I never sat down from 7 am until 5 pm, when it all wrapped up, and I talked so much I was hoarse. Lots of people looked at the Mustang's new flares, the C4 Corvette cage we had just built, the Scion FR-S and NB Miata LSx Alpha projects, a customer E36 M3 LS1, among other projects underway.
One of our customers, Tyler, brought his Unimog out that day and rolled up in line for tech. The SCCA tech guys just shook their heads and laughed. He then proceeded to drive up every incline in the surrounding property in front of our shop, giving rides.
All of the Vorshlag crew (9 of us) were there at the Open House, except two. Ryan was sleeping in after pulling a string of all-nighters at the shop the previous week, and Jason was co-driving the vintage 1963 Saab 96 rally car at the 100 Acre Woods Rally that weekend.
Left: Jason at 100 Acre Woods rally - Photo by Alex Wong of Emotive Image. Right: Kyle reassembling the TT3 Mustang
During the Open House Kyle stayed busy all day, when he re-assembled the Mustang's splitter and front end, installed the wing, and then worked on a customer's Corvette race car - all while the rest of our crew was eating food, drinking and goofing off. Nicely done, Kyle!
To be fair, Olof helped him for the Mustang front end, and mounted the 335 tires on the newly refinished 18x12" front wheels. Of course Brandon was busy taking pictures all day and we were all busy talking to folks and giving tours of our little shop, too.
Just want to give a shout out to all of our crew here at Vorshlag for a job well done, after the two busiest months we've ever had. It was good to kick back and take a day to eat, drink and bench race with our friends and customers.
New 335 front 345 rear Hoosiers + New COBRA Seats
So the whole point of (last year's) front and (new) rear flares was to house these wider tires. We knew the 335/30/18 Hoosier A6 fit up front, and I had a pair of scrubs that were mounted up for the Open House. The rear got another set of scrub 345/35/18 Hoosier A6 tires, which I have about 10 of (from the pair I purchased earlier plus some more I acquired).
The sticker set got here today. So the plan is that we will have the Mustang loaded in the trailer on the four scrubs, with the sticker 345s mounted on the spare 18x12" rears and the sticker 335/30/18s loose in the trailer. Blast out to MSR and test in the afternoon on the 1.7 mile course on the scrub tire set.
Then take the front wheels off and mount the sticker 335s trackside at PST (since Amy busted one of the extra pair of front 18x12s at MSR-H and the replacement isn't here yet). That Friday night I'll mount the sticker front and rear wheels onto the car after I'm done testing.
The old seats that came out of the 2011 GT. These will be for sale on our Clearance Page soon.
While we were getting the car cleaned up for the Open House I noticed how faded the COBRA seats have become. The passenger seat, a narrow ("normal width") Suzuka kevlar fixed back composite racing seat, is from 2005 and with nearly 9 years of use in two of my cars without tinted windows, that often get parked outside during the day (to make room in the shop to work), is fading fast. And it is a bit narrow for most folks, so my passengers have had to suffer (it is really made for folks under 160 pounds). The driver's seat is also a Cobra Suzuka, but the "GT width" version (wide, which fits 90% of the people in the USA) from 2009. The fabric is perfect on that one, but the outer left side edge has seen some sun fade also. It isn't noticeable unless you sit it next to a new set, though.
But with an event in March that will be televised (USCA) I wanted to put in a fresh pair of COBRA seats, and get that narrow passenger seat upgraded to a wide version, that will make it easier to give rides at track events and autocrosses. So I took the Cobra Evolution GT seat from our lobby, and another Cobra Suzuka GT we had in stock, and had Olof and Kyle put them in the Mustang. They had to modify the (fixed) bracket on the passenger side, but it is all good now. We routed the OEM seat belt through the head protection section and down through the lap belt hole of the Evolution seat, and it fits across my shoulder and hips just like it does on an OEM seat. So yes, a racing seat can be safe in a street car, if you keep the stock belts and route them properly... I had a whole article written about seats, roll bars and harnesses (for autocross, track and street use) but it needs some more edits. I'll post it in a week or two.
Continued below
Trust me - you don't want to see this kind of bodywork being done on your pretty car. Here's are some pictures that Shiloh was texting me while the rear flare work was ongoing, and my near mental breakdown that ensued. At first he showed me a method (these two below) that might have worked with a narrower tire, if we didn't need the extra clearance for lateral movement of the axle (even with a Watts there is some movement + tire deflection).
Before and After - this was just the outer panel separated, moved out and massaged. "Looks great!"
He cut the tack welds that join the outer rear fender skin to the unibody inner structure and WORKED that panel out about 2 inches. It covered the edge of the 345/35/18 tire we mounted to the 18x12" rears just barely, and it might have worked.... for hard parking but NOT for road course use, though. This method yielded about 1.5" more wheel clearance and never even touched the paint. It was beautiful, and damn I wish that would have been enough. But we were already getting tire rub with the 315s on the 12" wheels under the stock fenders, and the new shape really needed 3-4" of additional room or flaring beyond stock to clear the 345s and a potentially wider 18x13" rear wheel (coming soon, I hope?)
"Wait.. what just happened!?!"
After those pictures got my hopes up, he sent these terror inducing "making of the sausage" pictures. At one point I sent him a text: "AHH! I'm freaking OUT! Please stop sending me pictures until it is in primer!"
He said to have faith, and reminded me that he had never let us down in his paint and body magic before, so I stressed out for another week while they made ALL NEW FENDERS from steel, added 4" of wheelhouse to the outboard side of the inner fender, and got the shape bodyworked and perfected.
That SHAPE was looking much better, but I still couldn't see the final look in raw steel. Once the bodywork was done and the fenders were in primer he sent me these pics below ...and I calmed WAY down. Unlike a lot of flare jobs I've seen, Shiloh and his guys at Heritage understand racing, proper suspension travel and tire clearance under full bump loads - so they pulled the rear springs and compressed the tire up into the fenders they created to make the most room possible. This adds a on of work, but that's the right way to do flares. Shiloh said that this same job would cost around $3000 to fabricate, test fit, clearance, weld, seam seal, bodywork, prime, block and paint if he were to do S197 flares like this again. Two weeks of late nights and LOTS of hours, but now LOTS of tire clearance. We've sent lots of racers and friends to Shiloh for paint and body work and it is worth the drive north from Dallas - they are that good. If you are in or near DFW area and need crash repair, custom paint or wild flares like this made, call Shiloh at (903) 891-3040.
But by now Amy was getting suspicious, and I couldn't keep her out of the shop every night she came in (after her day job) to do our accounting work. Luckily, with end of year bookkeeping she was pretty busy and somehow never noticed her car being gone. Now I never lied to her, and if she had asked "where's the Mustang?" I would have fessed up immediately, but I dang sure didn't volunteer the information!
We took it down to the wire, as Heritage needed the full two weeks we had before our deadline to get it bodyworked, painted and buffed. They even painted the ABS front flare sections for us, as the red vinyl wrap job we had done was not sticking well and starting to peel off. Shiloh really wanted to make steel front flares for us, and I wanted him to as well, but we simply didn't have time.
As it was, I didn't get back to the shop 5 pm on Friday, with the car and the many powder coated aluminum bits picked up from Crosslink Powder Coating on the way back (another great resource run by another real car guy). We needed the car assembled for the Open House the next day at 9 am, and still needed to clean up the shop - which was a disaster! Our fabricators and techs have been working nearly around-the-clock on customer race projects for weeks and we had to clean until the wee hours that night.
Meanwhile, as I'm taking the trailer back to our remote storage lot Amy drives up to the shop right after I left. CRAP! I ducked down and hoped she didn't notice me... in the giant red F350 dually with 36' enclosed trailer behind me. See, I was hoping our guys would have a chance to reassemble the wing and front end parts before she showed up and noticed the massive rear flares and missing rear graphics. Nope, she walked right into the shop while four of our guys were standing right next to the Mustang, which had the front end exploded apart on the floor (below) in front of it...
They all looked innocently at the pallet racks or stared at the ceiling while she asks them "Where is Terry going with the trailer???" It took her about 30 seconds to notice the new J-Lo booty on the Mustang, then her jaw dropped. Luckily she really liked the work, but that didn't stop her from calling me and giving me grief. 10 minutes of expletives began, and she really lit it up. I thought was in the dog HOUSE, I tell ya... I was thinking about sleeping in that trailer that night. Finally then she cracked, started laughing, and I could hear the whole shop rolling on the floor. She told me it looked great, and let me off the hook. WHEW! Two weeks of panic and stress were lifted in seconds.
After I got back from dropping the trailer the entire shop was in full "CLEAN MODE". We still had to re-arrange all of the "Stuff" and throw out junk (the scrap guy came by three times and was all smiles), and we cleaned up for many hours that night. I had to help sweep, scrub and mop the floors in the shop, too. Somehow we managed to clean up the messy floors, get most of the ongoing project cars shined up and presentable, get the lobby looking good, and got a few hours sleep before I had to be there at 7 to get ready for the Open House the next day.
Vorshlag Open House + SCCA Solo Annual Tech Day, Feb 22
Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Car-Shows/Vorshlag-Open-House-2014-SCCA/
This Open House event went even better than the two previous years' did, and we had 100+ people through the shop that day. Dozens came for the SCCA Annual Solo Tech, which saves them 15+ minutes during each of the 9 autocross events that Texas Region SCCA SOLO holds each year.
Lots of our customers came by, and we had tons of food and drinks. Breakfast was kolaches and donuts and lunch was catered Mexican food by Ryan's mom's place, Ojedas. MMM, mmmm it was good! We also had cake, cookies, chips, queso, salsa, and lots of beer.
I never sat down from 7 am until 5 pm, when it all wrapped up, and I talked so much I was hoarse. Lots of people looked at the Mustang's new flares, the C4 Corvette cage we had just built, the Scion FR-S and NB Miata LSx Alpha projects, a customer E36 M3 LS1, among other projects underway.
One of our customers, Tyler, brought his Unimog out that day and rolled up in line for tech. The SCCA tech guys just shook their heads and laughed. He then proceeded to drive up every incline in the surrounding property in front of our shop, giving rides.
All of the Vorshlag crew (9 of us) were there at the Open House, except two. Ryan was sleeping in after pulling a string of all-nighters at the shop the previous week, and Jason was co-driving the vintage 1963 Saab 96 rally car at the 100 Acre Woods Rally that weekend.
Left: Jason at 100 Acre Woods rally - Photo by Alex Wong of Emotive Image. Right: Kyle reassembling the TT3 Mustang
During the Open House Kyle stayed busy all day, when he re-assembled the Mustang's splitter and front end, installed the wing, and then worked on a customer's Corvette race car - all while the rest of our crew was eating food, drinking and goofing off. Nicely done, Kyle!
To be fair, Olof helped him for the Mustang front end, and mounted the 335 tires on the newly refinished 18x12" front wheels. Of course Brandon was busy taking pictures all day and we were all busy talking to folks and giving tours of our little shop, too.
Just want to give a shout out to all of our crew here at Vorshlag for a job well done, after the two busiest months we've ever had. It was good to kick back and take a day to eat, drink and bench race with our friends and customers.
New 335 front 345 rear Hoosiers + New COBRA Seats
So the whole point of (last year's) front and (new) rear flares was to house these wider tires. We knew the 335/30/18 Hoosier A6 fit up front, and I had a pair of scrubs that were mounted up for the Open House. The rear got another set of scrub 345/35/18 Hoosier A6 tires, which I have about 10 of (from the pair I purchased earlier plus some more I acquired).
The sticker set got here today. So the plan is that we will have the Mustang loaded in the trailer on the four scrubs, with the sticker 345s mounted on the spare 18x12" rears and the sticker 335/30/18s loose in the trailer. Blast out to MSR and test in the afternoon on the 1.7 mile course on the scrub tire set.
Then take the front wheels off and mount the sticker 335s trackside at PST (since Amy busted one of the extra pair of front 18x12s at MSR-H and the replacement isn't here yet). That Friday night I'll mount the sticker front and rear wheels onto the car after I'm done testing.
The old seats that came out of the 2011 GT. These will be for sale on our Clearance Page soon.
While we were getting the car cleaned up for the Open House I noticed how faded the COBRA seats have become. The passenger seat, a narrow ("normal width") Suzuka kevlar fixed back composite racing seat, is from 2005 and with nearly 9 years of use in two of my cars without tinted windows, that often get parked outside during the day (to make room in the shop to work), is fading fast. And it is a bit narrow for most folks, so my passengers have had to suffer (it is really made for folks under 160 pounds). The driver's seat is also a Cobra Suzuka, but the "GT width" version (wide, which fits 90% of the people in the USA) from 2009. The fabric is perfect on that one, but the outer left side edge has seen some sun fade also. It isn't noticeable unless you sit it next to a new set, though.
But with an event in March that will be televised (USCA) I wanted to put in a fresh pair of COBRA seats, and get that narrow passenger seat upgraded to a wide version, that will make it easier to give rides at track events and autocrosses. So I took the Cobra Evolution GT seat from our lobby, and another Cobra Suzuka GT we had in stock, and had Olof and Kyle put them in the Mustang. They had to modify the (fixed) bracket on the passenger side, but it is all good now. We routed the OEM seat belt through the head protection section and down through the lap belt hole of the Evolution seat, and it fits across my shoulder and hips just like it does on an OEM seat. So yes, a racing seat can be safe in a street car, if you keep the stock belts and route them properly... I had a whole article written about seats, roll bars and harnesses (for autocross, track and street use) but it needs some more edits. I'll post it in a week or two.
Continued below
Vorshlag-Fair
Official Site Vendor
Call Vorshlag For 315mm Scrubs!
So now that we've finally made the switch to 335/345 tires, we've got a shop full of my used Hoosier A6 (and even six R6s) DOT race tires in 315/30/18 that we need to move. They have been stored in our climate controlled shop and all are less than one year old. These are all my TT scrubs, and I've been saving and hoarding them from last season - I think I used 32 new A6s last year, and most of them are still here. They'd all work great for autocrossers, even track guys - if you don't mind the fastest TT laps have been taken on each set already. These cost $376 new, selling them for $100-125 per tire. Call us and see if we still have any left. I'll be moving the 335 and 345 Hoosier scrubs pretty soon as well.
And of course we still have several sets of new Continental 305 and 320/650/18 racing slicks. All of these are either in our Clearance Page now or will be soon.
Getting Ready for NASA @ MSR Cresson March 7-9th
Amy is out of town so "Team Vorshlag" will be just me, driving solo this weekend. The signups were a little light for this event in TT, and TT3 only has 4 cars right now. That means: nobody can win tires. It also means that we only have 27 in TT, not enough to warrant the extra track length (and 3 extra corner stations) of the 3.1 mile course that TT normally runs at MSR (the race groups and HPDE always have smaller run groups and just run the 1.7). Most of the TT racers are bummed about running the 1.7 mile course, but after that 1:18 lap time in January, I'm not! I had one of my best drives on the 1.7 five weeks ago, and that was on worn out 315s. What will the car run on sticker set of 335/345s? Who knows but I doubt it will be slower.
Here's the old NASA TT track records on both the 3.1 mile and 1.7 mile courses (NASA TT hasn't been run the 1.7 since 2010):
My 2:22 record for TT3 set last year on the 3.1 is probably a little soft, so I could have worked on improving that if we were to run the 3.1 mile course, assuming I could get a clear and unobstructed lap (which never happens on the 3.1). But it seems we're running the 1.7, and my 1:18.6 from January slots in there quite nicely in the old lap records. Of course nobody has set a TT record on the 1.7 in 4 years, so I suspect all of those old 1.7 TT records will fall. Hopefully, maybe, fingers crossed we can set the TT3 record on the 1.7 this weekend? That's assuming everything goes according to plan, which it almost never does.
This is the 1.7 mile course everyone will be running this weekend with NASA
Weather could play a major factor, and rain is in the forecast this weekend (but it changes by the hour). We've seen days as recently as this week where it was 80 degrees and sunny in the afternoon one day and then 16 degrees and sleeting the very next morning. Totally psychotic temperature swings, with 4 freak ice storms this winter season - unheard of in Dallas. So it is anyone's guess how this weekend will go.
The Car Guy Show
So in my last update I mentioned that we went to Cars & Coffee in the red T3 Mustang in February. Amy drove out on the 315 A6 tires and I drove out in the 2013 GT. The weather was COLD but the crowds were HUGE, and out of the 1000+ cars there that day a film crew for a new TV show was on site and interviewed about 6 car owners. One of those was our red car, with my goofy ass standing in front of it - wired up for sound, talking to the host and answering questions on camera.
The first show of this new series aired March 1st in the Dallas TV market only (so far), and somehow they used about 2 minutes of my interview in the pilot episode, spread across 3 different segments. This wasn't scripted; it was just some questions they asked and my answers given off the cuff. Pretty cool that this made it on the show. The on-track segments we filmed with this crew December 28th might get re-shot soon, once they get their filming schedule opened up, and they might even shoot a bit at our shop. We'll see.
You can watch the pilot episode of The Car Guy Show at the link above
This show airs on KTXD Channel 47 Saturday's @ 11:30am with encore presentations Sundays @ 6pm and Fridays @ 1:30am. This is a Dallas CBS affiliate network, but the show is supposed to make it to more TV markets in the coming months. So its not a nationwide show, and not a huge deal, but was a nice surprise to see that I made this show's first episode. The promo video they made for 30 second commercials for the show has in-car footage from our TT3 Mustang, shot at the December 28th film shoot.
Cars and Coffee Dallas, March 1st
While the pilot episode of The Car Guy Show was airing we were at Cars & Coffee Dallas once again, bright and VERY early Saturday morning, parking with the SCCA Solo folks to promote their events. We drove out on the Hoosiers, this time the 335/345 scrubs that I will test with on Friday. The crowds flocked to the car even more this time, as the rear fenders were fairly obnoxious looking. The Car Guy Show crew also brought out a couple of cool cars, including this Viper and this Mosler MT900, which parked next to our Mustang.
Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Car-Shows/Cars-Coff030114/
They filmed some B-roll out there and a few brief "we'll be right back" segments with some folks. Vorshlag's Ops Manager Sofi rode her Cafe themed Honda motorcycle (that she hand built) and also parked with us. The weather was PERFECT and the lot was jammed with 1200+ cars and thousands of people.
At about 10:30 who walks up? None other than Aaron and 5 of his guys from Gas Monkey Garage. Even though he hates Mustangs, Aaron stopped and talked to me about the car for 20 minutes, and we realized that one of his crew was someone I knew that used to work at a shop we dealt with a lot. Then the subject of his '63 Falcon came up and the Pikes Peak 2014 race, which Aaron is entered in. We've supported racers at this event in the past, and Vorshlag's head engineer Jason has crew chiefed there 4 or 5 times, and will again this year.
Left: Me chatting with the GMG crew. Right: Aaron's recently purchased 63 Falcon is sweet!
We talked a bit about the tricky nature of this treacherous hill climb event, the altitude and prep you need to tackle. Aaron is going to be getting more seat time in the Falcon at NASA events, a Bondurant school, the upcoming Goodguys autocross, and the Ultimate Street Car Association's event at TMS this month as well. Our own beared wonder Jason spoke with Aaron at the PPIHC event last year, and I suspect they will trade some more Pikes Peak stories at one of the events we will see the GMG guys at in the coming months.
Left: In Texas we have everything from Exotics to Bubba Trucks. Right: Yep, that's wood grain on an Audi R8
After C&C we went and had breakfast with the SCCA Solo peeps Brad and Jen Maxcy, with me and Amy plus Brandon and Sofi from Vorshlag. Best breakfast ever = the Chicken and Waffles at Whiskey Cake Cafe. Bacon is infused into the waffle...!! And After four mimosas it was nap time for Terry, and Amy drove us home. Then we switched cars and went to some Irish Festival all afternoon, where I had plenty of Irish beer and ale. And that was my first day off in about 4 weeks, which was epic.
I drove the Mustang to the shop the next morning, with a healthy hangover, after the temperature dropped by more than 60 degrees. It began raining then sleeting on my drive in, of course. Oh well, the defrost and wipers worked just fine, and the DOT Hoosiers had enough grip on the slick roads to where I didn't even notice the slick conditions (left the traction control on, just this one time). Worked about 7 hours while it continued to sleet and I drove another vehicle home, towing an empty trailer in much worse road conditions... passing inexperienced winter drivers on the highway. Good grief, Texas drivers on ice are terrible.
Dyno Retune Finds Some Lost Power?
Yesterday the tuning gurus at True Street Motorsports in McKinney, TX made time for us in their busy schedule and we got them the 2011 Mustang for a re-tune and dyno check-up. We have changed the exhaust (added the lighter Magnaflow mufflers and dumps) and needed a re-tune and NASA Time Trial Dyno Certification Form for this season. We don't plan to make any more changes that would affect power.
Dyno pulls from 3/5/2014. Left is STD correction factor, right is SAE correction factor (which NASA uses)
So in the past ~8 months we had been making from 419 whp to 421 whp and around 402 wtq, right before Nationals and again in a late December dyno test. That's the number we used to get to that 3770 pound TT3 race weight, which we used to ballast up about 45-85 pounds to meet (depending on fuel load and driver). Well this new dyno pull kind of threw a kink in those numbers.
Left: New TT3 classing sheet, page 1. Center: New TT3 classing sheet, page 2. Right: Dyno Certification Form
The 442 whp and 429 wtq STD corrected numbers were a little shocking, until I realized that the SAE numbers were only 432 whp and 419 wtq - SAE numbers are what NASA uses to get to the correct power-to-weight for our TT class. I've included the updated TT1/2/3 classing sheets as well as the dyno certification form. I did the calcs and it looks like the bump in power was only a modest bump up in minimum weight, going from 3770 to 3802 pounds with the new power boost. This was helped by the fact that at 3801+ pounds we get the highest bonus possible from weight, +0.6. The non-OEM aero penalty is -0.4, taking the 9.0:1 base TT3 ratio to 8.8:1. Then if you do the math... 432 whp x 8.8 = 3801.6 pounds, rounded up to 3802. While it might seem backwards how we came up with these numbers (and it is opposite of how the TT sheets have you calculate it), this is exactly how the NASA TT National Director (Greg G) showed us how to do it at the 2013 NASA Nationals.
I asked Olof to modify the existing weight box bracket to make it a bit more robust ballast, to hold additional weight. I never liked the old one (it was the black 1x2" tubing that bolted in at 2 points/4 bolts), and the new design is a "T" shape with two more mounting bolts + an all new thicker/stronger M14 bolt to secure the weights with. Please don't over-analyze this brace - you can lift the back of the car from that bolt and brace.
We figured the new flares and especially the much wider (and taller rear) tires would add some weight, and boy it did. With nearly a full tank of fuel and me sitting in it (210 pounds, been eatin' good!) with my helmet and the new weight box bracket we're at 3822 pounds sans ballast, so that is overweight now by a solid 20 pounds. And that was after removing the rear seats today (33 pounds) because it was way over minimum an hour earlier. Granted it has about 80 pounds of fuel in it, and it can probably go down to 1/2 tank on this course safely, but dang this car is heavy. Those new tires added some pounds, but a lot of added width - should sill be quicker, I hope? We will see soon enough.
Olof and Kyle did a ride height change in the rear - Shiloh had it "tucking some tire", which looked cool for pictures but it bottomed out on the street a bit much. Then they did a corner balance adjustment to get the cross weights even.
Getting a quick corner balance done on the car after some changes. It was at 48.2/51.8% cross but we got it to 49.9/50.1%
And yes, for TT2 we're still WAY too heavy (even without ballast) and WAY down on power to hit the power-to-weight ratio limit for the class (for us it would be 8.0:1 -0.3 for weight = 7.7:1 at 3500-3600 pounds). We'd have to drop nearly 300 pounds and gain another 30 whp to hit the 7.7 ratio (3500 pounds and 454 whp) to max out for TT2. I think we've found the limit of power for this car with a bone stock engine from throttle body to exhaust port, and I don't want to dump time and money into a built motor and gutting the car to get to that weight. Not even going to entertain that idea.
Continued below
So now that we've finally made the switch to 335/345 tires, we've got a shop full of my used Hoosier A6 (and even six R6s) DOT race tires in 315/30/18 that we need to move. They have been stored in our climate controlled shop and all are less than one year old. These are all my TT scrubs, and I've been saving and hoarding them from last season - I think I used 32 new A6s last year, and most of them are still here. They'd all work great for autocrossers, even track guys - if you don't mind the fastest TT laps have been taken on each set already. These cost $376 new, selling them for $100-125 per tire. Call us and see if we still have any left. I'll be moving the 335 and 345 Hoosier scrubs pretty soon as well.
And of course we still have several sets of new Continental 305 and 320/650/18 racing slicks. All of these are either in our Clearance Page now or will be soon.
Getting Ready for NASA @ MSR Cresson March 7-9th
Amy is out of town so "Team Vorshlag" will be just me, driving solo this weekend. The signups were a little light for this event in TT, and TT3 only has 4 cars right now. That means: nobody can win tires. It also means that we only have 27 in TT, not enough to warrant the extra track length (and 3 extra corner stations) of the 3.1 mile course that TT normally runs at MSR (the race groups and HPDE always have smaller run groups and just run the 1.7). Most of the TT racers are bummed about running the 1.7 mile course, but after that 1:18 lap time in January, I'm not! I had one of my best drives on the 1.7 five weeks ago, and that was on worn out 315s. What will the car run on sticker set of 335/345s? Who knows but I doubt it will be slower.
Here's the old NASA TT track records on both the 3.1 mile and 1.7 mile courses (NASA TT hasn't been run the 1.7 since 2010):
Code:
Motorsports Ranch Cresson (3.1 CCW)
Class Driver Car
TTU John Page Chevy Corvette 02:19.489 Mar-11
TT1 Troy Messer Chevy Corvette 02:16.519 Mar-13
TT2 Mike Perkins Chevy Corvette 02:18.353 Mar-13
[B]TT3 Terry Fair Ford Mustang 02:22.753 Mar-13[/B]
TTA Josh Dunn Mistubishi Evo 02:23.043 Mar-12
TTB Dysen Pham Honda S2000 02:24.302 Mar-13
TTC Eric Foss Mazdaspeed 3 02:28.562 Mar-12
TTD Eric Foss Mazdaspeed 3 02:30.047 Mar-11
TTE Steven Farrell Mazda Miata 02:37.153 Mar-11
TTF Ken Brewer Toyota MR2 02:37.955 Mar-13
Motorsports Ranch Cresson (1.7 CCW)
Class Driver Car
TTU - - -
TT1 Troy Messer Corvette C6 01:17.113 Mar-10
TT2 Sean Farrah Nissan 350Z 01:20.283 Mar-10
TT3
TTA Ken Orgeron BMW E46 M3 01:22.755 Mar-10
TTB John Zepeda Mazda Miata 01:27.682 Mar-10
TTC Josh Konkle Chevy Cobalt 01:27.006 Mar-09
TTD Terry Fair BMW 328 01:29.811 Mar-10
TTE Josh Price Acura Integra 01:26.583 Mar-10
TTF Ken Brewer Toyota MR2 01:29.804 Mar-10My 2:22 record for TT3 set last year on the 3.1 is probably a little soft, so I could have worked on improving that if we were to run the 3.1 mile course, assuming I could get a clear and unobstructed lap (which never happens on the 3.1). But it seems we're running the 1.7, and my 1:18.6 from January slots in there quite nicely in the old lap records. Of course nobody has set a TT record on the 1.7 in 4 years, so I suspect all of those old 1.7 TT records will fall. Hopefully, maybe, fingers crossed we can set the TT3 record on the 1.7 this weekend? That's assuming everything goes according to plan, which it almost never does.
This is the 1.7 mile course everyone will be running this weekend with NASA
Weather could play a major factor, and rain is in the forecast this weekend (but it changes by the hour). We've seen days as recently as this week where it was 80 degrees and sunny in the afternoon one day and then 16 degrees and sleeting the very next morning. Totally psychotic temperature swings, with 4 freak ice storms this winter season - unheard of in Dallas. So it is anyone's guess how this weekend will go.
The Car Guy Show
So in my last update I mentioned that we went to Cars & Coffee in the red T3 Mustang in February. Amy drove out on the 315 A6 tires and I drove out in the 2013 GT. The weather was COLD but the crowds were HUGE, and out of the 1000+ cars there that day a film crew for a new TV show was on site and interviewed about 6 car owners. One of those was our red car, with my goofy ass standing in front of it - wired up for sound, talking to the host and answering questions on camera.
The first show of this new series aired March 1st in the Dallas TV market only (so far), and somehow they used about 2 minutes of my interview in the pilot episode, spread across 3 different segments. This wasn't scripted; it was just some questions they asked and my answers given off the cuff. Pretty cool that this made it on the show. The on-track segments we filmed with this crew December 28th might get re-shot soon, once they get their filming schedule opened up, and they might even shoot a bit at our shop. We'll see.
You can watch the pilot episode of The Car Guy Show at the link above
This show airs on KTXD Channel 47 Saturday's @ 11:30am with encore presentations Sundays @ 6pm and Fridays @ 1:30am. This is a Dallas CBS affiliate network, but the show is supposed to make it to more TV markets in the coming months. So its not a nationwide show, and not a huge deal, but was a nice surprise to see that I made this show's first episode. The promo video they made for 30 second commercials for the show has in-car footage from our TT3 Mustang, shot at the December 28th film shoot.
Cars and Coffee Dallas, March 1st
While the pilot episode of The Car Guy Show was airing we were at Cars & Coffee Dallas once again, bright and VERY early Saturday morning, parking with the SCCA Solo folks to promote their events. We drove out on the Hoosiers, this time the 335/345 scrubs that I will test with on Friday. The crowds flocked to the car even more this time, as the rear fenders were fairly obnoxious looking. The Car Guy Show crew also brought out a couple of cool cars, including this Viper and this Mosler MT900, which parked next to our Mustang.
Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Car-Shows/Cars-Coff030114/
They filmed some B-roll out there and a few brief "we'll be right back" segments with some folks. Vorshlag's Ops Manager Sofi rode her Cafe themed Honda motorcycle (that she hand built) and also parked with us. The weather was PERFECT and the lot was jammed with 1200+ cars and thousands of people.
At about 10:30 who walks up? None other than Aaron and 5 of his guys from Gas Monkey Garage. Even though he hates Mustangs, Aaron stopped and talked to me about the car for 20 minutes, and we realized that one of his crew was someone I knew that used to work at a shop we dealt with a lot. Then the subject of his '63 Falcon came up and the Pikes Peak 2014 race, which Aaron is entered in. We've supported racers at this event in the past, and Vorshlag's head engineer Jason has crew chiefed there 4 or 5 times, and will again this year.
Left: Me chatting with the GMG crew. Right: Aaron's recently purchased 63 Falcon is sweet!
We talked a bit about the tricky nature of this treacherous hill climb event, the altitude and prep you need to tackle. Aaron is going to be getting more seat time in the Falcon at NASA events, a Bondurant school, the upcoming Goodguys autocross, and the Ultimate Street Car Association's event at TMS this month as well. Our own beared wonder Jason spoke with Aaron at the PPIHC event last year, and I suspect they will trade some more Pikes Peak stories at one of the events we will see the GMG guys at in the coming months.
Left: In Texas we have everything from Exotics to Bubba Trucks. Right: Yep, that's wood grain on an Audi R8
After C&C we went and had breakfast with the SCCA Solo peeps Brad and Jen Maxcy, with me and Amy plus Brandon and Sofi from Vorshlag. Best breakfast ever = the Chicken and Waffles at Whiskey Cake Cafe. Bacon is infused into the waffle...!! And After four mimosas it was nap time for Terry, and Amy drove us home. Then we switched cars and went to some Irish Festival all afternoon, where I had plenty of Irish beer and ale. And that was my first day off in about 4 weeks, which was epic.
I drove the Mustang to the shop the next morning, with a healthy hangover, after the temperature dropped by more than 60 degrees. It began raining then sleeting on my drive in, of course. Oh well, the defrost and wipers worked just fine, and the DOT Hoosiers had enough grip on the slick roads to where I didn't even notice the slick conditions (left the traction control on, just this one time). Worked about 7 hours while it continued to sleet and I drove another vehicle home, towing an empty trailer in much worse road conditions... passing inexperienced winter drivers on the highway. Good grief, Texas drivers on ice are terrible.
Dyno Retune Finds Some Lost Power?
Yesterday the tuning gurus at True Street Motorsports in McKinney, TX made time for us in their busy schedule and we got them the 2011 Mustang for a re-tune and dyno check-up. We have changed the exhaust (added the lighter Magnaflow mufflers and dumps) and needed a re-tune and NASA Time Trial Dyno Certification Form for this season. We don't plan to make any more changes that would affect power.
Dyno pulls from 3/5/2014. Left is STD correction factor, right is SAE correction factor (which NASA uses)
So in the past ~8 months we had been making from 419 whp to 421 whp and around 402 wtq, right before Nationals and again in a late December dyno test. That's the number we used to get to that 3770 pound TT3 race weight, which we used to ballast up about 45-85 pounds to meet (depending on fuel load and driver). Well this new dyno pull kind of threw a kink in those numbers.
Left: New TT3 classing sheet, page 1. Center: New TT3 classing sheet, page 2. Right: Dyno Certification Form
The 442 whp and 429 wtq STD corrected numbers were a little shocking, until I realized that the SAE numbers were only 432 whp and 419 wtq - SAE numbers are what NASA uses to get to the correct power-to-weight for our TT class. I've included the updated TT1/2/3 classing sheets as well as the dyno certification form. I did the calcs and it looks like the bump in power was only a modest bump up in minimum weight, going from 3770 to 3802 pounds with the new power boost. This was helped by the fact that at 3801+ pounds we get the highest bonus possible from weight, +0.6. The non-OEM aero penalty is -0.4, taking the 9.0:1 base TT3 ratio to 8.8:1. Then if you do the math... 432 whp x 8.8 = 3801.6 pounds, rounded up to 3802. While it might seem backwards how we came up with these numbers (and it is opposite of how the TT sheets have you calculate it), this is exactly how the NASA TT National Director (Greg G) showed us how to do it at the 2013 NASA Nationals.
I asked Olof to modify the existing weight box bracket to make it a bit more robust ballast, to hold additional weight. I never liked the old one (it was the black 1x2" tubing that bolted in at 2 points/4 bolts), and the new design is a "T" shape with two more mounting bolts + an all new thicker/stronger M14 bolt to secure the weights with. Please don't over-analyze this brace - you can lift the back of the car from that bolt and brace.
We figured the new flares and especially the much wider (and taller rear) tires would add some weight, and boy it did. With nearly a full tank of fuel and me sitting in it (210 pounds, been eatin' good!) with my helmet and the new weight box bracket we're at 3822 pounds sans ballast, so that is overweight now by a solid 20 pounds. And that was after removing the rear seats today (33 pounds) because it was way over minimum an hour earlier. Granted it has about 80 pounds of fuel in it, and it can probably go down to 1/2 tank on this course safely, but dang this car is heavy. Those new tires added some pounds, but a lot of added width - should sill be quicker, I hope? We will see soon enough.
Olof and Kyle did a ride height change in the rear - Shiloh had it "tucking some tire", which looked cool for pictures but it bottomed out on the street a bit much. Then they did a corner balance adjustment to get the cross weights even.
Getting a quick corner balance done on the car after some changes. It was at 48.2/51.8% cross but we got it to 49.9/50.1%
And yes, for TT2 we're still WAY too heavy (even without ballast) and WAY down on power to hit the power-to-weight ratio limit for the class (for us it would be 8.0:1 -0.3 for weight = 7.7:1 at 3500-3600 pounds). We'd have to drop nearly 300 pounds and gain another 30 whp to hit the 7.7 ratio (3500 pounds and 454 whp) to max out for TT2. I think we've found the limit of power for this car with a bone stock engine from throttle body to exhaust port, and I don't want to dump time and money into a built motor and gutting the car to get to that weight. Not even going to entertain that idea.
Continued below
Vorshlag-Fair
Official Site Vendor
What's Next?
This weekend we have the NASA TT event, plus testing Friday. Then the following weekend is Goodguys at TMS. If you are near DFW, have some 200 treadwear tires, and have a domestic car or anything "domestic powered", come out and join us on Sunday. Its only $40 to run the tightest autocross you will ever see. It will be a good test for us for the following weekend, which is the BIG event we've been waiting for since last Fall...
USCA @ TMS March 21-23 - Mention Vorshlag to Save $200!
This is the big event in March I am really looking forward to. This is the 2nd round of the all new series from the Ultimate Street Car Association, which will be a TELEVISED and consistent 3-day format competition event leading up to the Optima Challenge in Vegas after SEMA. All cars must run on a 200 treadwear, and there is no restriciton on makes and models - you can bring anything from a Civic to an EVO to a late model Mustang to a classic muscle car, as long as it is street legal and meets a few basic requirements to prove that. The treadwear rating of the tires are the great equalizer, too.
This USCA event at TMS is going to be very similar to the Optima Qualifier we ran over in 2012 (and even run by the same crew) where we did the speed stop and autocross at the Horse Track in Arlington, then did a 70 mile road rally (to prove these are street cars) to Eagles Canyon, where we had a time trial event and a 5 lap shootout. Our Mustang did pretty well at that event, 3rd fastest in the time trial, winning the autocross and taking 3rd place overall (I tanked the speed stop event - long story).
That Optima Qualifier event was a BLAST and we got to run our Mustang against some serious machinery from all over the country. And we got on TV - everyone did. So, what are you doing March 21-23rd??? Why don't YOU come join us at this event???
I have heard from a lot of folks that the $500 entry fee for this 3 day event was too much to stomach. The entire event is held inside the oval at Texas Motor Speedway, with the autocross and speed stop held on some big parking lots and the Time Trial on the 1.4 mile infield road course. This course is a blast and we ran that with Global Time Attack in 2012 and the local Texas Region SCCA Solo group runs it every year for their one road course autocross.
I talked to Jimi Day of the USCA and he wants to get more LOCAL TEXAS RACERS to enter this event, so we worked out a deal to get the price down for you by two hundred bucks. Here's the deal: Go to this link and sign up with either Gold or Platinum entry ($500), then note that you are WITH VORSHLAG somewhere. You will then get a $100 refund after you sign up. Next, come to Vorshlag with your car (not your buddy's car) within the next 6 months and get $100 Credit towards service work at our shop, effectively bringing your price down to $300 instead of $500. Of course if you are out of state this $100 service credit doesn't do you much good, but I am trying to get LOCALS to support a race in our back yard. That service credit can be used for fabrication work, repair work, race prep, parts installation, whatever.
That $300 price gets this 3 day event in line with a typical 2-day HPDE or Time Trial, and you will get a FREE MEAL Friday night after the road rally, a FULL DAY of autocrossing and speed stops (Saturday), and a FULL DAY of laps on the TMS Infield Road Course. That's a lot of seat time for the money. So please, if you have anything with 200+ treadwear tires, PLEASE COME JOIN US!
I'm calling you out, Texas Region SCCA Solo people! You've run this road course and tons of autocrosses on this pavement at TMS. We need you to REPRESENT! And I'm calling you out, Texas NASA Time Trial racers! This is a chance to get on TELEVISION! Get your TT car on some 200+ street tires and come REPRESENT! Just remember to say you are with VORSHLAG to help save you $200 off the $500 entry fee ($100 refund + $100 service credit at Vorshlag). Nobody else is getting this sweet of a deal...
USCA Rules: http://ultimatestreetcarassociation.com/usca-rules/
Sign Up Here: http://ultimatestreetcarassociation.com/events/fort-worth-tx-march-21-23/
That's all I have for now, more next week.
This weekend we have the NASA TT event, plus testing Friday. Then the following weekend is Goodguys at TMS. If you are near DFW, have some 200 treadwear tires, and have a domestic car or anything "domestic powered", come out and join us on Sunday. Its only $40 to run the tightest autocross you will ever see. It will be a good test for us for the following weekend, which is the BIG event we've been waiting for since last Fall...
USCA @ TMS March 21-23 - Mention Vorshlag to Save $200!
This is the big event in March I am really looking forward to. This is the 2nd round of the all new series from the Ultimate Street Car Association, which will be a TELEVISED and consistent 3-day format competition event leading up to the Optima Challenge in Vegas after SEMA. All cars must run on a 200 treadwear, and there is no restriciton on makes and models - you can bring anything from a Civic to an EVO to a late model Mustang to a classic muscle car, as long as it is street legal and meets a few basic requirements to prove that. The treadwear rating of the tires are the great equalizer, too.
This USCA event at TMS is going to be very similar to the Optima Qualifier we ran over in 2012 (and even run by the same crew) where we did the speed stop and autocross at the Horse Track in Arlington, then did a 70 mile road rally (to prove these are street cars) to Eagles Canyon, where we had a time trial event and a 5 lap shootout. Our Mustang did pretty well at that event, 3rd fastest in the time trial, winning the autocross and taking 3rd place overall (I tanked the speed stop event - long story).
That Optima Qualifier event was a BLAST and we got to run our Mustang against some serious machinery from all over the country. And we got on TV - everyone did. So, what are you doing March 21-23rd??? Why don't YOU come join us at this event???
I have heard from a lot of folks that the $500 entry fee for this 3 day event was too much to stomach. The entire event is held inside the oval at Texas Motor Speedway, with the autocross and speed stop held on some big parking lots and the Time Trial on the 1.4 mile infield road course. This course is a blast and we ran that with Global Time Attack in 2012 and the local Texas Region SCCA Solo group runs it every year for their one road course autocross.
I talked to Jimi Day of the USCA and he wants to get more LOCAL TEXAS RACERS to enter this event, so we worked out a deal to get the price down for you by two hundred bucks. Here's the deal: Go to this link and sign up with either Gold or Platinum entry ($500), then note that you are WITH VORSHLAG somewhere. You will then get a $100 refund after you sign up. Next, come to Vorshlag with your car (not your buddy's car) within the next 6 months and get $100 Credit towards service work at our shop, effectively bringing your price down to $300 instead of $500. Of course if you are out of state this $100 service credit doesn't do you much good, but I am trying to get LOCALS to support a race in our back yard. That service credit can be used for fabrication work, repair work, race prep, parts installation, whatever.
That $300 price gets this 3 day event in line with a typical 2-day HPDE or Time Trial, and you will get a FREE MEAL Friday night after the road rally, a FULL DAY of autocrossing and speed stops (Saturday), and a FULL DAY of laps on the TMS Infield Road Course. That's a lot of seat time for the money. So please, if you have anything with 200+ treadwear tires, PLEASE COME JOIN US!
I'm calling you out, Texas Region SCCA Solo people! You've run this road course and tons of autocrosses on this pavement at TMS. We need you to REPRESENT! And I'm calling you out, Texas NASA Time Trial racers! This is a chance to get on TELEVISION! Get your TT car on some 200+ street tires and come REPRESENT! Just remember to say you are with VORSHLAG to help save you $200 off the $500 entry fee ($100 refund + $100 service credit at Vorshlag). Nobody else is getting this sweet of a deal...
USCA Rules: http://ultimatestreetcarassociation.com/usca-rules/
Sign Up Here: http://ultimatestreetcarassociation.com/events/fort-worth-tx-march-21-23/
That's all I have for now, more next week.
Sky Render
Stig's Retarded Cousin
Hey, Terry, would this be an option for someone who wants to run some super-wide tires front and rear without quite as many sheet metal modifications, or do you think this kit is more for "hard parkers"?
http://www.modbargains.com/Ford-mustang-5.0-gt-apr-widebody-kit.htm
http://www.modbargains.com/Ford-mustang-5.0-gt-apr-widebody-kit.htm
I think that kit requires even MORE sheetmetal modifications than we have done and would cost more to purchase, install and paint than we will end up paying for front and rear metal flares. So unless you are looking for that look, I'd just get metal flares done.
Roadracer350
Senior Member
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