Some more pictures. High pad front wheels on right, medium pad wheels on left.
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High pad
Medium pad
Yay
All done with the watts link
The propellor bolt comes very close to the cross-support tube, but doesn't come into contact through the suspension's range of motion. Maybe my LCAs are at their adjustment threshold? That's what I get for using the lower arms to adjust the pinion angle. I can see this actually coming into contact due to bushing movement (LCAs are poly/spherical)
Would you see any issues with adding an aluminum spacer of sorts between the cross support mounting point where it attaches to the Watts tower on the drivers side? Seems odd that its that close to the propeller bolt.
That is close, but I don't think it will be a problem. Mine was damn close and I was sweating it. No contact though. I checked mine at full droop. Might consider a thin spacer for the brace to push it out a 1/2mm. I will check mine again to see, but I doubt I will before you goto the track.
Edit- sorry 2013DIBGT , didn't read your post or I would just put "+1 on the spacer". I considered the same when I ran into that, but didn't need to do it.
From what I can tell this lack of clearence is probably due to Cortex changing the Watts tower to a shorter design. I have the "older one" which moves the cross support bar further down away from the bolt.
Okay well, the front wheel was a major fail. The measurements that I got from Weld and seeing the 370mm 6 piston Brembo brakes in 18x10s (on CTS-Vs/Camaros), as well as GT500 6 piston calipers fitting in the skinny versions made me fairly confident that there's enough room for the brakes. they're slightly smaller in almost every dimension than the 6 piston Brembos, but there's no way the wheel is going over the caliper. I'll do some digging to see if they have different hoops (i.e. with no steps) or if there's anything else that could work.
If not, any Cortex strut users want to run some wide wheels? It should fit over 14" brakes.
The propellor bolt comes very close to the cross-support tube, but doesn't come into contact through the suspension's range of motion. Maybe my LCAs are at their adjustment threshold? That's what I get for using the lower arms to adjust the pinion angle. I can see this actually coming into contact due to bushing movement (LCAs are poly/spherical)
I'd be very tempted to grind a tiny bit off the bolt head and shim the lateral brace back another tiny bit instead of trying to make all of the gains in clearance at the brace.
Sheiza(!), that looks much better than what I have. I drove around for the day yesterday with the car and didn't hear anything out of the norm. When the car was on the alignment rack, there were no signs of contact. I'll keep an eye on it this weekend. I'm weary of throwing a washer on the cross brace because of the limited threads available on both bolts holding it in. It's really how the cross tube was fabricated that seems to be the issue. I'll bring it up to Filip and see what he suggests. The poor guy, I'm probably one of his worst nightmare customers
I also threw the bump steer kit on the car while on the rack yesterday. The spacer orientation is optimized for a steeda tall balljoint with 4.5" of ground clearance to the front subframe with 25.5" tires. I got as close as I could with the ride height (adjusted for my ~26.3" OD tires). I know the Howe BJs are 19.2mm taller. We'll see how it works out.
Sadly, the MM camber plates maxed out at 2.3 of camber. Without slotted strut bolts and a top hat design that limits the strut from shifting all the way inboard (maybe to prevent contact with the strut tower opening), as well as the strut being more upright from the offset positioning for wider tires, I can see why there isn't much camber adjustability possible. The car has tall ball joints and isn't slammed per se, so I'm hoping for some slight camber gain under compression. At least the car should brake well. I'll monitor tire wear
I need a camber plate that let's me hit the strut tower before I slot them! That may be what's needed with this kind of strut though. The KWs could easily get 4° of camber if you fiddle with the slotted bolt and upper hat at the same time. Not an option with Cortex struts.
I put my factory brembo into the weld wheel to see if it'd work. There's hope...
Last weekend I attended a Speedventures event. There were a handful of S197 Mustangs there and I got the chance to meet a few of their owners. Here are a couple observations I made about the track and my strategies:
-I haven't really ran 13CW orientation before (only once in the rain two years ago); it is awesome.
-There is more time left on course. There's an opportunity to shift early after cotton corners (between T6 and T7, see below) and almost flat foot it into Grapevine and let the dip on the left catch the car. It takes some balls though. Mine were growing all weekend, just not fast enough.
-The sweeper (T16) had more grip on the outside on entry and mid corner. I tried to lift to get the front to bite right before it tightens up on corner exit but it would plow more than I'd liked.
-Bus stop kills most people because they apex too soon. It has a big rumble strip that needs to be hopped over to really keep speed up. Anyone who thinks that track wheels won't take as much abuse as street wheels is out of their mind.
-There are a few places with only a few moments in a necessary 5th gear shift. I think 3.31s would be nice on this track. Or an 8000 rpm rev limit
Here are some thoughts on the car:
-The suspension did a good job of managing rumble strips. There are some spots that can save a lot of time if you dive over them, and I didn't feel like much momentum was lost. Good
-Overall the ride was slightly bumpy, but that's the nature of the track. I could have reduced compression a little more but the bumps that I did feel weren't upsetting the car. I'm running softer springs than what I used before (450/240 vs 570/340) and the increased body roll is apparent in pictures; however, it isn't an apples to apples comparison.
-The car pushed, even when I would provoke the front end to bite (lifting throttle, slight brake application). It was more push than I wanted. I didn't have the energy to make changes since I was short on sleep, but I'll try softening the front sway bar and lowering the front ride height a little bit. A little less rear rebound may help too.
-My front control arm came loose on the inner front bolt. This reinforces my fear of trusting anyone to work on my car without checking everything they do. I'll tighten and mark the bolts to make sure they stay put. That could have been bad.
-If you're considering an exhaust that dumps under the car before the axle, buy some ear plugs. It makes concentrating much easier and doesn't give you "noise fatigue." I ran the car with the exhaust uncorked on Saturday. It sounds great in videos, but my head hurt after each session. The exhaust was essentially ARH long tubes, no cats, x-pipe, and magnaflow resonators with turn away tips before the axle. On Sunday I installed the over-axle pipes and rear mufflers. Much better on my head. Check out the sound between the two below. An external microphone was mounted near the license plate.
-The car threw two codes. I forget the numbers, but it was the "your car is too lean" code for both left and right cylinder banks. I had the Bama street tune with AutoX throttle mapping (still too sensitive). I shoved the Airaid MAF sleeve into the intake and put the tune back to stock. I'm not ready for more engine issues. I noticed on my Aeroforce gauge that at WOT, the A/F ratio was around 12.5, however at part throttle it would go up to ~15. Mind you, this is 50%+ throttle, so there was a decent amount of load on the engine.
-Tire wear is significantly more on the driver side tires than passenger side tires. Time to do a Chinese fire (tire??) drill. The car felt much better with 35 psi hot in the pits than the 38 psi I've ran before. The tires have 30 heat cycles on them now, but their performance hasn't completely fallen off. They also sat outside for two weeks of California's version of the polar vortex in sub 20º weather while the Ford tech's weren't getting much fixed on the car, so I don't expect much from them, however they still work okay.
-I switched to Carbotech XP24s in the front on Sunday. My only gripe with them was that there was some sort of odd shimmy in the front end, but that was due to the loose control arm. These things are machines. I dream of having a tire that can withstand the same abuse that the brake pads can. We'll see how they wear. Note: they take longer to get up to temp than XP12s. Balance/braking with XP10s in the rear was fine/non life-threatening
-With the setup as it is, the car has lots of traction on corner exit compared to before
-Roll center on the watts link is on the 2nd hole from the top. The propeller bolt, which is unbelievably close to the watts tower brace, never made contact with anything. No noises, or scratches on the paint or the bolt. I'll keep an eye on it.
-FWIW, during the hottest part of the day (85º) cylinder head temps reached 235º and "coolant" temperatures got to 207º. This is what shows on the Aeroforce. I'll have oil pressure and temperature senders installed on the remote oil filter hub and connected before the next outing.
-The Aim Solo is pretty neat. I have the DL model and my car flipped out (the whole dash lit up) when I plugged in the OBD2 interface, but I'll play with configurations some more. There's a learning curve to uploading, understanding, and acting upon the information. The Dashware overlay is fairly simple, but the first time always takes a while to figure things out.
Neema, thanks for the review!
I really like how the car seems to be controllable as one unit and solid driving too!
Are you considering torque arm too?
Neema, thanks for the review!
I really like how the car seems to be controllable as one unit and solid driving too!
Are you considering torque arm too?
Not really. I like the 3-link design, when I get the time/funds/energy, I'd like to get the spherical bearing BMR upper link w/ their mount. What I should be doing now is figuring out how to get the wheels on.
I think I'm finally starting to understand this. It's only taken a few years. I'm a little hard-headed. Are you still planning on heading up to California for your summer tour??
You got some really good pics. The one wheel in the air is cool. Enjoyed the video too! Started out real good with the passing of a vette. Always a good starting point. That damn mic in the trunk.....you don't need a forward acceleration meter with that mic placement!
Have you got enough feel for the JRis to say how you feel about their damping vs the KWs?
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