chilema
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- May 2, 2012
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Hi all, I'm one of those long-time lurkers. Just thought I'd transplant my autocross build thread from Modded Mustangs. Enjoy!
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So I finally decided to make a thread covering my progress with the 5.0 since I started to build it for autocross last year. The intention is to, as much as possible, cover as many events and changes as possible as the season goes on. Just to be clear, even though the car is currently being campaigned in STX, the plan is still to run it in ESP after this year. Let's just call this season a transitional period where I'm trying new things with the suspension setup and getting fully comfortable with the car. In that sense I think running on skinny 265s in STX is actually a great platform to discover all the little nuances that comes with driving a heavy, high powered car.
For most of the events last year I ran the car in FS with a set of Koni Yellows and some throw-away Hoosier A6's. The car was pretty quick but local competition was sparse and the Hoosier's quickly corded from the lack of front camber.
From that point on I decided to throw myself into the local STX fray, which contains multiple national trophy winners and nationally competitive cars, including the 2012 STX winner car and driver. This year the competition is even more fierce and STX has definitely become the healthiest class in the San Francisco region.
Onto the build:
Since moving to STX I have made relatively few changes to the setup.
The Koni Yellows were complemented by some Steeda Sport springs:
I used a Steeda Competition front sway bar for the 2010 and older model. Not sure if it really is much stiffer than the stock FSB since it's about the same diameter, only that it weights more so it probably has thicker tubing or is solid. Middle hole setting felt pretty nice and balanced with the spring/shock setup described above:
A BMR adjustable panhard bar to center the axle after lowering:
And, of course, some decent autocross rubber in the form of 265/40/18 Hankook RS-3's. This was the best choice I could come up with as far as sizing, but the tire is probably still not tall enough since my car came with the optional 3.73 rear end. With the SCT tuner I was able to increase the rev limit to 7500 RPM, but that got the car to top out 2nd at only 65mph.
With the Ford OEM crash bolts and slotted strut hole on the Koni's I was able to get 2.7 degrees camber, far from optimal but pretty good considering the lack of adjustable camber plates:
An Eaton Truetrac was installed earlier this year, before the Evo school, to replace the completely worn out stock clutch diff:
Let me tell ya, if you are thinking about swapping for a T2R or Eaton or another aftermarket diff for autocross or track purposes, DO IT! The Truetrac made a huge difference in the way the car puts down power out of turns, I have to unwind the wheel much sooner now in anticipation of the rotation that the diff provides instead of just pushing and scrubbing away at the exit with the worn out stock diff on right hand turns.
With the car set up as described above I ran the short Fall slush season last year and the first event this year, as well as Phase I and II of the Evo school a month ago. The car was very easy to drive and puts the power down relatively well considering the sub-optimal tire width.
---------- Post added at 12:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 AM ----------
Some details on the Evo school weekend:
I learned a great deal at the school, especially as it pertains to mental focus and discipline with the throttle. As it turns out the biggest gain for me came from being as neat as possible, almost to the point of being extremely boring. As counter-intuitive as it sounds given I drive a 400 hp car, this was the light-bulb moment that made me realize way this car was meant to be driven.
The instructor line-up was SUPERB (I had Heyward Wagner, Bryan Heitkotter, and Mike Maier instruct me, does it get any better than that? ), and by the end of each instruction session I was able to shave 1 to 1.5 seconds off my best time for the initial 3 warm-up. I managed to better the times put down by two of my instructors, but Mike Maier was still quicker than me by 0.4 seconds dirty (albeit with only TWO laps in my car!).
I received a lot of positive feedback on the setup of the car from the instructors as well. Note: this is still the Koni Yellow/Steeda Sport suspension setup, AST 4100s came a few weeks later hehehe... All the instructors though the car was very well balanced and neutral. Mike M. loved the way the car drove and thought it was one of the funnest cars in attendance (not surprising to anybody that knows who he is I guess). As far as STX competitiveness goes, the instructors thought the car could get it done at the national tour level on certain courses, with enough driver and setup development of course. Obviously, huge sweeping corners won't be doing this car any favors, and it's not the easiest car to slalom (though it's surprisingly capable in transition, just that the weight will always delay your moves a bit).
All in all it was a great learning experience, especially since I felt like I didn't know where I could still gain time since before I would always just go out and drive the course as I see fit, come back, be unhappy with the time, and just go out and drive harder. Now I'm approaching the runs with a whole new perspective of focusing on dialing back and focusing on minimizing mistakes:
A few notes I took down for myself from the school, hopefully this is helpful to everyone as well:
1) Focus on hitting all the key points along the course, neat and steady is faster than aggressively attacking an element but making mistakes. Be deliberate with inputs to position the car where you want it to be for the next element on course.
2) You must KNOW what’s coming in order to position the car where it needs to be, to do that you have to LOOK AHEAD. But be careful not to target-lock and end up only focusing on the same element as you come up to it, keep moving your sight up the course.
3) Always backside the slalom, it's more important than you think. If you are slightly behind at the beginning of the slalom, it could add up and by the end of the slalom you're way behind.
4) Many times taking the tighter line to shorten distance traveled will net more time than trying to carry more momentum and going wide
5) Be extremely judicious with throttle application and have patience when applying throttle in the “slow” corners. Modulation is extremely important, what “feels” slow in a 400+ hp car may be all the tires will take, but going over the limit and oversteering doesn’t help you go faster.
6) Autocross is about making the least amount of mistakes, not making NO mistakes – the run is not over until it’s over. Stay focused and continue to execute the next elements
7) THINK about each run taken, focus on fixing the mistakes in the next run but don’t let yourself make mistakes somewhere else.
A few photos from some events in this past season:
Time to sleep! I'll continue with the report on the AST 4100s and this past weekend's racing tomorrow.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I finally decided to make a thread covering my progress with the 5.0 since I started to build it for autocross last year. The intention is to, as much as possible, cover as many events and changes as possible as the season goes on. Just to be clear, even though the car is currently being campaigned in STX, the plan is still to run it in ESP after this year. Let's just call this season a transitional period where I'm trying new things with the suspension setup and getting fully comfortable with the car. In that sense I think running on skinny 265s in STX is actually a great platform to discover all the little nuances that comes with driving a heavy, high powered car.
For most of the events last year I ran the car in FS with a set of Koni Yellows and some throw-away Hoosier A6's. The car was pretty quick but local competition was sparse and the Hoosier's quickly corded from the lack of front camber.
From that point on I decided to throw myself into the local STX fray, which contains multiple national trophy winners and nationally competitive cars, including the 2012 STX winner car and driver. This year the competition is even more fierce and STX has definitely become the healthiest class in the San Francisco region.
Onto the build:
Since moving to STX I have made relatively few changes to the setup.
The Koni Yellows were complemented by some Steeda Sport springs:
I used a Steeda Competition front sway bar for the 2010 and older model. Not sure if it really is much stiffer than the stock FSB since it's about the same diameter, only that it weights more so it probably has thicker tubing or is solid. Middle hole setting felt pretty nice and balanced with the spring/shock setup described above:
A BMR adjustable panhard bar to center the axle after lowering:
And, of course, some decent autocross rubber in the form of 265/40/18 Hankook RS-3's. This was the best choice I could come up with as far as sizing, but the tire is probably still not tall enough since my car came with the optional 3.73 rear end. With the SCT tuner I was able to increase the rev limit to 7500 RPM, but that got the car to top out 2nd at only 65mph.
With the Ford OEM crash bolts and slotted strut hole on the Koni's I was able to get 2.7 degrees camber, far from optimal but pretty good considering the lack of adjustable camber plates:
An Eaton Truetrac was installed earlier this year, before the Evo school, to replace the completely worn out stock clutch diff:
Let me tell ya, if you are thinking about swapping for a T2R or Eaton or another aftermarket diff for autocross or track purposes, DO IT! The Truetrac made a huge difference in the way the car puts down power out of turns, I have to unwind the wheel much sooner now in anticipation of the rotation that the diff provides instead of just pushing and scrubbing away at the exit with the worn out stock diff on right hand turns.
With the car set up as described above I ran the short Fall slush season last year and the first event this year, as well as Phase I and II of the Evo school a month ago. The car was very easy to drive and puts the power down relatively well considering the sub-optimal tire width.
---------- Post added at 12:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 AM ----------
Some details on the Evo school weekend:
I learned a great deal at the school, especially as it pertains to mental focus and discipline with the throttle. As it turns out the biggest gain for me came from being as neat as possible, almost to the point of being extremely boring. As counter-intuitive as it sounds given I drive a 400 hp car, this was the light-bulb moment that made me realize way this car was meant to be driven.
The instructor line-up was SUPERB (I had Heyward Wagner, Bryan Heitkotter, and Mike Maier instruct me, does it get any better than that? ), and by the end of each instruction session I was able to shave 1 to 1.5 seconds off my best time for the initial 3 warm-up. I managed to better the times put down by two of my instructors, but Mike Maier was still quicker than me by 0.4 seconds dirty (albeit with only TWO laps in my car!).
I received a lot of positive feedback on the setup of the car from the instructors as well. Note: this is still the Koni Yellow/Steeda Sport suspension setup, AST 4100s came a few weeks later hehehe... All the instructors though the car was very well balanced and neutral. Mike M. loved the way the car drove and thought it was one of the funnest cars in attendance (not surprising to anybody that knows who he is I guess). As far as STX competitiveness goes, the instructors thought the car could get it done at the national tour level on certain courses, with enough driver and setup development of course. Obviously, huge sweeping corners won't be doing this car any favors, and it's not the easiest car to slalom (though it's surprisingly capable in transition, just that the weight will always delay your moves a bit).
All in all it was a great learning experience, especially since I felt like I didn't know where I could still gain time since before I would always just go out and drive the course as I see fit, come back, be unhappy with the time, and just go out and drive harder. Now I'm approaching the runs with a whole new perspective of focusing on dialing back and focusing on minimizing mistakes:
A few notes I took down for myself from the school, hopefully this is helpful to everyone as well:
1) Focus on hitting all the key points along the course, neat and steady is faster than aggressively attacking an element but making mistakes. Be deliberate with inputs to position the car where you want it to be for the next element on course.
2) You must KNOW what’s coming in order to position the car where it needs to be, to do that you have to LOOK AHEAD. But be careful not to target-lock and end up only focusing on the same element as you come up to it, keep moving your sight up the course.
3) Always backside the slalom, it's more important than you think. If you are slightly behind at the beginning of the slalom, it could add up and by the end of the slalom you're way behind.
4) Many times taking the tighter line to shorten distance traveled will net more time than trying to carry more momentum and going wide
5) Be extremely judicious with throttle application and have patience when applying throttle in the “slow” corners. Modulation is extremely important, what “feels” slow in a 400+ hp car may be all the tires will take, but going over the limit and oversteering doesn’t help you go faster.
6) Autocross is about making the least amount of mistakes, not making NO mistakes – the run is not over until it’s over. Stay focused and continue to execute the next elements
7) THINK about each run taken, focus on fixing the mistakes in the next run but don’t let yourself make mistakes somewhere else.
A few photos from some events in this past season:
Time to sleep! I'll continue with the report on the AST 4100s and this past weekend's racing tomorrow.