2011 Mustang GT track log

[Roadracer350]

Now that's nice!

 

[ArizonaGT]

Looks great.

 

[sheizasosay]

Any impressions of the new dampers?

 

[neema]

There's quite a to-do list and I'm slowly chipping away at it. I've been busy with work and will stay busy for the rest of the week. Exhaust issues (i.e. the midpipe slipping off) are getting remedied at the moment and hopefully I'll have the ball joint sleeves welded in today.

Rear dampers came in but the top mounts/adapters were missing, still waiting on those to come in.

 

[neema]

Rear coilover mounts came in. Here are some pictures. The shock looks like its 17 3/4" from eye to eye, with 5.5" of travel. 8" hyperco 250lb springs with helpers.














Cortex claims that, as far as mushrooming shock towers go, they haven't had issues with coilovers on the rear. I hope that's the case. I'd like to have a braced shock tower but it's not in the cards at this point. The difference between their upper shock mount and the Ford Racing unit is that they bring the shock farther inboard, which is nice for running wide wheels. My bump stop brackets are still trimmed from running 20x12s, so if there's enough room with the coilover, I'll run 18x12s in the back and 11.5s in the front.

The Howe ball joints went in. Unfortunately, I couldn't do the install. The sleeves literally slide right in and must be welded in place to keep from falling out.

While the car was at the shop for welding the ball joints, I had two Magnaflow 14419 mufflers welded in after the x-pipe to quiet things down for Laguna Seca (90db limits!!!). Since the slip fit joints weren't doing their job holding the exhaust together, I had v-bands installed everywhere and had some turn downs made in case I feel like removing the axle back. Pics to come tomorrow.

 

[neema]

Howe ball joints are in.







Steeda front sway bar mounts are in.

The old




The new




V-bands going on the exhaust as we speak












Hopefully no more exhausts falling off. Yay

 

[csamsh]

You need the whiteline thing!!!

 

[2013DIBGT]

The camber/caster plates are made by Maximum motor sports, which is nice. You can see hints of their design with the caster tab on the strut tower.

View attachment 47187

Hello,

I was curious where you got these CC Plates from? Did they come with your Cortex front struts?

The reason I ask is because I also have the Cortex/Koni offset struts (with, Double Adjustable Fronts) but mine came with Ground Control CC Plates already attached. The thing is, I don't seem to have the little Caster Tab like you show here with the Cortex emblem.

Was I robbed, do I need it?

Thanks and nice build by the way.

 

[Rabee]

CC plate comes with cortex

 

[neema]

Hello,

I was curious where you got these CC Plates from? Did they come with your Cortex front struts?

The reason I ask is because I also have the Cortex/Koni offset struts (with, Double Adjustable Fronts) but mine came with Ground Control CC Plates already attached. The thing is, I don't seem to have the little Caster Tab like you show here with the Cortex emblem.

Was I robbed, do I need it?

Thanks and nice build by the way.

Like Rabee said, the camber plates came with the Cortex strut. Maybe Cortex uses a different plate for different shocks (hence your GC plates), or perhaps they made a change in camber plates recently. I have JRI struts with MM style cc plates.

 

[neema]

Mounted the rear coilovers today and did some measuring.

Here's inner coilover to wheel/tire clearance. Wheels are 18x10.5 et 38, tires are 305/35/18

This won't work for running 12s in the back, which I may use. I removed the collars, springs, and spring perch. Here's a comparison in length of the KW shock to the JRi. It appears shorter, but keep in mind the bracket on top of the shock that takes up some space.

Both coilovers used 8" (or roughly 8") springs with helper springs.

I flipped the damper upside down without the spring and measured available space

Adjustment would be fairly easy. Just jack up one side of the car to let the wheel droop. peek-a-boo, there are the adjusters

I made a ~38mm wedge out of a card to see where an 18x12 et 56 would be relative to the Enkei wheel on the car at the moment. Outboard positioning of the wheel is the same, but the 305 will be pulled more "taught" on the wheel.

Measurements were taken at full droop and compression. The clearance will be very close between shock body and wheel. I may need a tiny spacer.

Bump stop brackets are still removed from running 20x12s. The bump stop relocating bracket collided with the frame without adjustment from the LCAs. I still need to adjust/check my drive shaft angle

Here's clearance at full bump (only one side compressed)

Everything fits well with the current wheel setup. I'll get some weight jacks and flip the shocks when the 12s come in and go from there.


This is everything mounted at the moment. The brackets and hardware are nice pieces and fit up without issue.

 

[Rabee]

Waiting for a review now...

 

[neema]

V-bands installed. I put the cats back in--frankly I like the sound a little better. Hopefully they hold up with track driving.

Also, I called Bama to get a milder throttle map tune sent out. They suggested to try the newest update, but that had the same crazy throttle response as the ones before. They had an autocross map that was supposed to be better, but I ended up settling for stock throttle mapping, which they can do if you ask. At this point, the only reason I still have a tune is for the airaid intake sans the insert and for the o2 sensor CEL that the car throws (even with cats).

 

[neema]

Waiting for a review now...

It's hard to do a straight comparison on the street from KWs to JRi's because the alignment is still out of wack and ride heights are only haphazardly set. If I can get corner balanced and aligned before the watts link goes on, I think that'll be a great comparison between the two. So far, it feels great. I could soften up compression in the rear for less "skating" going over chop, but it rides pretty well. My on ramp/off ramp test circuit seemed to be more hooning than test-worthy. I'll try to make it more scientific for you next time.


I didn't get any instructions (or find any online) on how to make adjustments to the shocks and what the adjustment range is. The front was easy to figure out, but the rears have a dial that was hard to turn both directions and I didn't feel like breaking anything. It's probably best to wait until I actually know how the dial is used.

 

[trawoc]

Thanks for putting together your build thread (very inspiring and informative). Would you go with Kumho tires again? They seem to be priced very competitively - wondering how you have found them vis a vis performance / wear & tear.

 

[neema]

Thanks for putting together your build thread (very inspiring and informative). Would you go with Kumho tires again? They seem to be priced very competitively - wondering how you have found them vis a vis performance / wear & tear.

I would go with other tires over the Ecsta XS. Performance wise, they were okay. I used them mostly in autoX, only once on track. The mileage I got out of them was okay, but they made a horrible noise from the way they wore down. It was so bad that a friend thought something was broken on the car. Lots of feathering on the tread and they tramlined aggressively. If I could pick another tire, I'd go with a Rival, Hankook RS3, or Michelin PSS for street use. I've driven them on my car or other cars on track and street and prefer them over the Kumhos.

 

[sheizasosay]

Neema, what kind of coating is on the JRi? Kinda looks like a black chrome. I'm also interested to hear how the damping and damping adjustments are.

 

[neema]

Neema, what kind of coating is on the JRi? Kinda looks like a black chrome. I'm also interested to hear how the damping and damping adjustments are.

It looks/feels like it's a black anodized finish on the rears. The shock housings are aluminum. They're substantially lighter than steel OEM shocks, which is cool.

The car is getting the exhaust tweaked a bit. It haven't driven it after finding that the center mufflers were contacting the e-brake cable housings (you can see where they get close to the tunnel walls in the pictures). Once that issue is straightened out, the ride height will be set, car will be corner balanced, and it'll be aligned. Watt's link will happen this week too. I still have Sparcos on back order, the Watson Roll bar to go in, and my oil pan somehow needs to find its way on the car. There's a lot of parts that have been collecting but I haven't had the time to work on the car.

In other news, new wheels should be in by the end of this week or next . Also, I'm getting the CNC router up and running. I hope to have splitter test cuts made on OSB this week. yay

 

[FR500GT]

What wheels do you have coming in?

 

[neema]

What wheels do you have coming in?

Weld RTS S71s. I like that there are a plethora of different wheel sizes and fitments to choose from, so I went with 18x11.5 and 18x12. JP with Modify my Stang guys beat everyone else's price by a pretty good margin (in case anyone is interested). They should be shipping this Wednesday unless Weld has delays.