Cone 502 Racing - 2015 Mustang GT/PP Build

[Whiskey11]

Time to open up a new chapter in Cone 502 Racing's book. As some of you know, the 2015 Mustang GT arrived on the 18th of August and this last weekend (22nd and 23rd) there was a pre-nationals Test'n'Tune and the Solo Points 6 event. The car was by no means "prepped" but it was necessary to get the seat time in the car even. The pre-event scramble to get things done for the car began on Wednesday. I contacted the folks I trust to mount and balance tires and attempted to get my RE71R's off the SVE Drifts they were on and have them mounted to the stock wheels. That didn't work out. I didn't do the camber mod in time because of work and there were no parts for the 2015 waiting to be installed. BMR's swaybars were not expected until after Nationals so no use worrying about that!

​

The Test'n'Tune
The T'n'T course was pretty basic. Some sweepers, some slaloms, some eyebrows, pretty basic course but plenty of necessary practice on elements I need work on. The first run showed exactly what I figured the car was going to do. It pushed. With tire pressures at 32 psi all around this was going to be an inevitability but I opted to leave the pressures the same for the next run for a number of reasons. The biggest of which was the previous run was THE FIRST run on those tires. The only miles on the tires were the 2 days prior to the event I drove them on the street and the drive to the event the morning of. The first run also exposed just how short the second gear on these cars really is. It's short.... like shift to third in some places... short. There were two places on this T'n'T course where 3rd was not only faster but a necessity. The shift back down to second was was relatively easy.

The second run on the Test'n'Tune course was much like the same... until the end. The very end was an increasing radius sweeper that mandated a shift to third. Well I shifted to third... the back end stepped out and I carried the drift through the timing lights, past the finish cones and then promptly spun the car, not once, but twice around. No harm, no foul, car didn't even stall!

The rest of the test'n'tune involved bleeding front tire pressure down to 30 PSI and letting the rears climb to wherever they went. The car's handling balance still involved a push but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. I would end up running about 20 runs in the car to get used to it and it's quirks. Note, still no front camber... front tires would show their hate for this type of driving by the end of the day.

Here is a list of observations about the chassis:
1.) Overall, car balance is a hair to the pushy side in tight stuff and in faster stuff.
2.) Cars with real power are not forgiving of abusive relationships with the throttle pedal.
3.) Brake pedal works, although the initial bite is large, the middle of the pedal is kind of soft which makes modulation easy.
4.) Dat body roll.... it exists, but is overall quite controllable.
5.) Corner-to-Corner porpoising sucks and the GT/PP needs better dampers. Overall though, compared to the 2009 stock... no comparison, the 2015 is flat out better.
6.) When people say the car "drives" narrower than it is, they would be speaking the truth!
7.) Track Apps is a lot of fun to play with. Max lateral G today was 1.16, max braking was 1.01, max acceleration was .76
8.) The car could use an aftermarket rear swaybar... BMR bars incoming with a slight possibility of showing up before Nationals.
9.) Grip + Speed + Shifting = Need for Harness... harnesses ordered already!
10.) Overall speed: This car is fast and runs good times!

Solo Points #6
The event was held on a more complex course than the Test'n'Tune and looked to be very fast. Lots of VERY fast transitions mixed with some tighter turns. I really felt like the course was an absolute riot to drive. The high speed stuff did exacerbate some of the pushyness of the car but overall I didn't think there was a huge issue with the way the car handled in relation to the course design when driving the correct line. Like I said above, the car's brakes work and a brief brush of the brake pedal allowed the car to really take a bite into the corner. Transitionally, the car is slow to transition. While the stock shocks are tolerable, I miss the quick transitions of my 2009 on coilovers.

My first run actually came in with some ridiculously high time. This was due to a timing error from cars finishing too close together. A re-run was granted and I took every bit of an advantage from that. A free look at the course never hurt anyone!

Anyway, run #1, I left the car's tire pressure where they were at from the previous day which was probably a touch low. That's ok. The tires were starting to wear in and feel better. First run of the course was mildly timid. I had no idea where the shift points would be, if there were going to be any. In the first run I didn't find the rev limiter so no issues there. That said, it wasn't as fast as it could have or should have been. The first run was a 53.921 which was .3 slower than the other 2015 Mustang GT/PP on site but still good enough to be in 3rd or 4th of ten.

​

Run #2 set forth little in the way of changes to anything but driving. The run found .15 seconds to drop the time to 53.750 but the other competition was improving faster than I was. By this time the tires were hot, like properly hot.

​

Run #3, I bled the air pressure down to where they were for the test'n'tune. This course was open enough that those tire pressures were working. Still pushy, but not so bad that it couldn't be driven around. The fronts were most certainly hotter than the rears which is not a surprise given the car's balance. I knew that changes in tire pressure were not going to be a permanent fix to this problem as it was a far larger handling adjustment needed than tire pressures could allow. Of course, lazyness doesn't help either and I was that! This run dropped some time and ended with a 53.417. I was not getting fast enough to take over first place but I was dicing around the first 3 slots in F-Street up to this point. The other 2015 GT was running just a few tenths faster in the 53.3XX range and I new I needed to beat that.

​

Run #4 was more of the same from the previous run. I new there were places out there to make up time out there so I went out there and tried my damndest to find it. It didn't pay off as I lost time through some rather big mistakes. Go figure right? Get a little bit of red mist going and that's all she wrote! Final time was a 53.652.

​

Run #5 started off with the news that the other 2015 GT/PP had dropped time down into the 52's with a 52.906 run. I was hell bent on finding the 52 that I knew was out there. Big driving line mistakes in the previous run showed a few places to really push harder as I was underdriving. The left hand sweeper going into the back offset slaloms was one area and the quick "kink" after the long right hander before the finish as I was slowing down too much. This was an area at Spring Nationals at the T'n'T course where I found some good time. It paid off, at least partially. Aggressiveness where due really shaved some time off. I think that had I had one more run on the course I would have dropped a little more time. The final run came in at a 52.904. That is .002 faster than the GT/PP in the lead at the time of my run.

​

So that was good enough for the win right? I sure thought so! Then I found out that our local Shelby GT driver and frequent attendee of Nationals ran a smoking 52 flat time. Well that just sucks the wind right out of the sails doesn't it! Still, second place in an under prepped car against prepped competitors wasn't a bad place to be. I finished 14th overall, which given the talent pool of the rest of the people wasn't too bad either.

You can view the full results here:
http://nrscca.com/files/results/1150413754SoloPoints6Results.pdf

And the PAX results here:
http://nrscca.com/files/results/1717828943SoloPoints6PAXResults.pdf

So what happens now? Last night I did the F-Street legal slotting of the stock struts. I also pulled the lateral link of the front lower control arm out and pushed the strut tops in to take out any tolerances there. Preliminary measurements indicate that this gave me approximately -2.3º of camber. Yesterday I also had the wheels and tires swapped over so I'm F-S legal for Nationals. An official alignment is coming on Monday to give real numbers. I think I'll tweak the rear camber out a half degree and even it out side to side. Zero out the toe. If the BMR bars show up, I'll throw the rear bar on and we'll go from there.

Scrothe Rallye 3, DOT approved 4 point Harnesses are also on the way from Solo Performance Shop and will be here before Nationals too!

Stay tuned for that update after labor day! Thanks for reading and watching!

 

[Norm Peterson]

Not much load on that inside front tire, so it must be mostly on the outside front. No wonder dropping the front tire pressure helped.


Norm

 

[Whiskey11]

Not much load on that inside front tire, so it must be mostly on the outside front. No wonder dropping the front tire pressure helped.


Norm

Yeaaah.... and to think that the guy that was going to Co-Drive with me at Nats wanted me to drill out the front bar stiffer... pretty sure that isn't going to fix that issue and any improvement in front end grip is going to come at the expense of corner exit and steady state.

Inside rear isn't exactly a whole lot better but at least the car would be better balanced. Worst case, if neither bar shows up before nats, I'll just run the alignment changes and pray it is enough!

 

[claudermilk]

Hey, it's all learning curve right now. That's not a bad result for the first time out and basically no prep. All that Coyote power is nice, innit?

 

[Whiskey11]

Hey, it's all learning curve right now. That's not a bad result for the first time out and basically no prep. All that Coyote power is nice, innit?

The power and the corner exit in this car is frighteningly addicting. It just hauls out of corners like a bat out of hell! I just need the front end to work like that and tolerate a little bit of Apex Dive Bombing and this car is going to be an absolute hoot!

FWIW, my Schroth Rally3 Harnesses and pads arrived today. Got them installed for autocross use anyway. Of special note, the rear seat upper belt attachment point isn't an attachment point so much as a redirect. The actual belt reel is down along the base of the seat and as such it does not work as an attachment point for the Rallye 3 Harnesses. I opted to install the belt in the lower outside seatbelt points which violates the 45º angle mounting rule. The lap belt attachment points were attached to the rear seat anchor points as the lower outside mounting point for the factory 3 point is buried under plastic coverings that would have required extensive modification to work correctly.

If a harness bar ever exists for this car, it'd be worth the install to save headache.

 

[Whiskey11]

Well, official alignment is done and here are the final numbers:
Front Camber: -1.9 and -1.7
Front Toe: Zero
Front Caster: +7.8 and +7.2
Rear Camber: -2.2 and -2.2
Rear Toe: Zero

Not sure how all the rest of you F-Street guys got into the -2.0 and more negative range but I guess you are the lucky ones and the factory stamped your struts differently!

Factory alignment was pretty far out of whack with regards to rear toe... total toe was fine (.22 in) but the split was absurd (.03 on the driver side and .19 on the passenger side)Issue resolved and zero thrust angle so the IRS is at least square to the chassis.

Here is the before and after:


Ohh yeah! Also these:

 

[kdaly1]

Did you install a harness bar?

 

[Whiskey11]

Did you install a harness bar?

Nope, none that exist at the moment. The Schroth Rallye Harnesses can be installed in the lower rear seat belt positions... I don't suggest daily driving with them that way as it puts enough of an angle on the belts to make me uncomfortable with what would happen in an accident. Good enough for autocross duty though and that is where they'll be used.

 

[kdaly1]

Nope, none that exist at the moment. The Schroth Rallye Harnesses can be installed in the lower rear seat belt positions... I don't suggest daily driving with them that way as it puts enough of an angle on the belts to make me uncomfortable with what would happen in an accident. Good enough for autocross duty though and that is where they'll be used.

10-4 I need harnesses for my car, but I dont want a cage and everyone states the harness bar is more dangerous then helpful. I am using my stock seatbelts with aftermarket seats. I was interested in what you had done to see if I could do something similar.

 

[Whiskey11]

For autocross or track days? If autocross, there is nothing wrong with what I did in my car. For track days, I wouldn't put a harness in the car until you have some form of rollover protection.

I also wouldn't recommend wearing the harnesses on the street from the standpoint of, even though the ones I have are DOT approved, they are not designed to work with the specific airbag configuration in the car or the seat or really any of the safety stuff in the car. That's why you improve the safety of the car with them for track days.

 

[Norm Peterson]

For autocross I eventually started using a chest strap . . . basically just an old seat belt I had laying around doing nothing useful with the anchor ends bolted together.

Once I started running out on the big tracks I made up a better version to use as a non-slacking secondary lap belt that also helps keep the OE belting from going slack. Made two of them, in case of an instructor or other ride-along.

Neither version has ever been questioned at tech or otherwise.


Norm

 

[kdaly1]

For autocross or track days? If autocross, there is nothing wrong with what I did in my car. For track days, I wouldn't put a harness in the car until you have some form of rollover protection.

I also wouldn't recommend wearing the harnesses on the street from the standpoint of, even though the ones I have are DOT approved, they are not designed to work with the specific airbag configuration in the car or the seat or really any of the safety stuff in the car. That's why you improve the safety of the car with them for track days.

At this point I havent done either. Just finished getting the car this way and I'll do track day eventually but I have no concrete plans as of yet.

So as of now it would be to use when I'm driving it. BTW its not my DD. I guess I can just use the stock seat belts, but its not ideal. I wish the harness bar was a better piece.

 

[white86hatch]

So how'd it go at nationals?

 

[Whiskey11]

So how'd it go at nationals?

Finished 28th of 46 (47 if you count someone who didn't show up). I'll have more details later in the full on write up so be patient. I have two days of work then I'm off again and will have time to sift through all the videos, pictures and all that stuff to get a post up.

 

[Whiskey11]

2015 Solo Nationals update time! As you all already know, the 2015 Solo Nationals has come and sadly has gone. For those that have never been, you really need to go to understand what it is about and I hope to see you in 2016! Nationals is one of the times in the year that I get to see my friends that I only see once, maybe twice, a year. It is like one giant party on the great concrete beach. You don't go to Nationals JUST to compete... you go because it is a damn good time.

Anyway, enough harping on “good time this and that!” On to the meat and potatoes! My 2015 Solo Nationals started on Sunday when I showed up on site to get the stickers I'd need to pass tech on Monday. This car was “virgin” so it needed them all. The TireRack banner, SCCA wheel, Nationals sticker, Bridgestone stickers, and the Grassroots Motorsports stickers were all applied. The only other sticker on the car is the in-transits!

Monday morning I woke up and drove back to Lincoln. There is no running on Monday, just tech, check in, and the Test'n'Tune course. After checking in, I drove to tech and got the car teched. I don't know who was working tech but one of the guys made comment about the car still having in-transits on it. The tone of his voice was pretty condescending and judgmental but I figure if shit isn't broken in by the time I got to the first event at 250 miles, they WONT be broken in, ever, they'll just be broken. At this point the car had just over 1,000 miles on the odometer.

​

I went up to the T'n'T course to see if Mark Walker needed any help up there or doing anything else. If you've ever spoken with Walker at Nationals, you'd know that he has a laundry list of things that need to get done that adds stress. I also knew that the T'n'T was packed full for all the run times so I thought maybe I could bribe work for T'n'T runs! Turns out there was help needed which I gladly gave. I spent the next 4 hours shagging cones on the T'n'T course in the rain and shine while folks ran! At lunch time, the Rebels Auto Club out of Lincoln was looking for people to give rides to some of their members after the T'n'T shut down for the night. I was asked and gladly accepted the offer as it would provide me with some much needed seat time with the recent changes to the alignment of the car.

So the only things that I changed going into this event was the alignment, and tire pressures. The alignment change was discussed in a previous post but the front struts were slotted the 2mm allowance which produced -1.9º of camber on one side, -1.7º on the other side. The rear suspension was set to -2.2º of camber. Toe was zeroed out all around. The rear alignment drew A LOT of criticism and comments about the car not needing it and it making the car handling worse because of it. I set tire pressures at 38 all around.

Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. By the end of the T'n'T run times all the Rebels club wanted to do is go home. No one wanted runs and the Lincoln Air Park's concrete patching crew was hell bent on fixing some of the damaged concrete on the T'n'T course. That's all good! I can use the exercise and don't mind helping out.

F-Street was slotted to run on Tuesday/Wednesday starting on the East Course and finishing on the West Course. The weather was predicted to be raining earlier in the morning but it was supposed to stop before we ran.

The East Course

Click for East Course Map

Well... the weather in Nebraska is rarely accurate... and.... well it was accurate. The rain had began at o-dark thirty in the morning and stopped just prior to my departure for the site at 0600hrs. I arrived on site and promptly began cleaning the water spots off the car. Rule #1 you know... if you can't beat them, at least look better than them! I then went and walked the course. You see, on Monday I walked the west course three times thinking it was the east course. Thankfully the east course was not overly complex. There were a few places where line choice was critical to doing well but it wasn't like the course was a mess of transitions where you could get lost on course easy. While the rain had basically stopped, the sun was not fully up and the pavement was no where near dry. By the time runs started the course was STILL wet.

As you can see, lots of sweepers, lots of power and some pretty healthy digs. Transitions were not as complex. This course would be a course for the Mustangs... except... that... the course was wet. The moisture would complicate things drastically and the fact that it wasn't raining still meant the conditions would be changing throughout the runs. The whole event was going to be determined by the final runs as the course dried out.

Boy would that hold true...

Run #1:
2015 Mustang GT/PP - 2015 SCCA Solo Nationals - #23 F-Street - Day 1 Run 1 - YouTube

There is always a level of caution on the first run and then there is added caution from it being wet. I literally have no seat time in the wet with this car so this would be a first for me. I also had no seat time with the recent changes so that too would complicate things some. The gas pedal was next to useless at anything resembling WOT. Had the course been dry I KNOW I would have been in third in multiple places on the course but because it was wet there was some speed changes as I felt the car's grip out. Front end traction was fine, transitions were tolerable but rear end traction was non-existent. I'd come in with a 65.112. This run would put me just outside the trophies (about 15th place IIRC) after everyone was done with their runs.

Run #2:
2015 Mustang GT/PP - 2015 SCCA Solo Nationals - #23 F-Street - Day 1 Run 2 - YouTube

I bled down the rear tire pressure 2 PSI in an attempt to bring the rear end under control. The car felt balanced and could carry speed in the sweepers but power down was still an issue. The course dried out a little bit but was still properly wet. Conditions were changing and people were getting faster. On course the rear end calmed down but it was still very loose. Throttle application was touch and go depending on the location on course and the finish was still a very sloppy and wet mess. After I came in on this run I was supposedly in fourth place. With the drying conditions I knew it wouldn't last but it felt good to know that I was at least in the hunt. Time was a 63.293.

Run #3:
2015 Mustang GT/PP - 2015 SCCA Solo Nationals - #23 F-Street - Day 1 Run 3 - YouTube

I bled the rear pressures down another 4 PSI (to 32 PSI) in an attempt to utilize what power I had. The front end of the car was still really hooked up but on the previous run the power down was actually pretty solid. Better than I remember it being at the first event. The rear alignment didn't seem to really make the car push bad and I knew there was plenty of time on course for me to find. The run initially felt good. A combination of the dryer conditions (driest of all three runs) and pressure changes made the car feel good. I could use the power and it seemed to rotate fine off power. The problem came after the first big turn around. I'm not sure if the rear tires just got more grip or the fronts lost theirs but the car started to push, badly, mid corner. I ended up clipping two cones on this run and my raw time without the cones actually slowed down. How annoying! This dropped me from 18th place (where I was prior to 3rd runs) down to 29th. Time was a 67.608 with the two cones (63.608 scratch).

Day 1 ended kind of bitter sweet. I knew that in the dry I could hold my own as that is where all the seat time I had in the car was and where I knew the car would actually be able to utilize the power it had. The problem is the Day 2 course was transition heavy and not exactly booming with power spots. Lots of speed maintenance and transitions... I was HOPING for a better Day 1 finish to go into Day 2 in better positioning but reality didn't work out. Turns out I wasn't the only one having troubles. Eschantra and his co-driver in the #24/#124 car were not having the best day either. Truthfully it turned out very few of my friends were having good day 1's!

The weather definitely helped the lower powered cars out. The M3's benefited the most and Heitkotter put on a good school for the rest of us. Knowing the west course would favor the M3's more than any other car in the class, I anticipated a large number of M3's in the trophies. That wouldn't be wrong.

The West Course

Click for West Course Map

The west course was a transition heavy course that was just flat out busy from inside the car. So busy that I think if we run it locally, I may encourage the event master to pull some of the cones out to open it up slightly. It was an incredibly fun course even though it was busy and mildly frustrating. There was really one corner that I felt was the most important. That'd be the Teddie's Ring of Hell Fire into the finish. Why? If you didn't get the offsets at “Pants'd in the Hallway” right you were behind for the entire rest of the course. I worked corner 4 and watched so many people get Pants'd wrong and end up over slowing to make it through the 414-424 cone complex and then ending up trying to make the time up at the exit and not making it into the “Wet Willy” correctly.

Going into the West Course I knew that in the dry, which the weather folk said it would be, the car was going to need some help with rotation. I set the front tire pressures at 34 PSI and the rears at 38 PSI. This is because the rear swaybar wasn't here from BMR yet and neither was the front bar. I did try and modify the rear bar over the course of the night between Day 1 and Day 2 but ran out of drill battery to do so and only got one side done. I opted to leave the front swaybar alone rather than running that staggered setup.

Run #1
2015 Mustang GT/PP - 2015 SCCA Solo Nationals - #23 F-Street - Day 2 Run 1 - YouTube

The car felt surprisingly good on Run #1. If anything, maybe a touch of high speed push but nothing that wasn't manageable with driving changes. The car was putting down power exceptionally well but the lack of damping in the stock PP shocks and struts made this a difficult course to drive fast. Simply put, the stock dampers are not up to the task on a transition heavy course like this. The weight just takes too long to transfer from side to side to really attack the transitions. It doesn't help that I'm always a tad timid with the go and woah pedal on the first run and I forgot to really backside all the cones on course. This is most evident in corner four where I over slowed for the 414-424 cone section because I didn't backside the cone enough. This run was a 69.518 which was slower than it should have been by about three seconds. Only consolation prize on this was that I did run a faster time than Heitkotter did on his first run (he ran a 74.051, I think he spun or something).

Run #2
2015 Mustang GT/PP - 2015 SCCA Solo Nationals - #23 F-Street - Day 2 Run 2 - YouTube

For tire pressures I kept them at where they were for the first run. Solid choice and it worked well enough the first time and this time both. The high speed push through the Ring of Hell Fire slowed the car down some but the car was otherwise balanced in steady state. Given the rear alignment change I really thought the car would be more pushy. One thing the car WAS doing well was putting down power. When the car stepped out it was silly how controllable it was compared to my 2009. There were a couple of “unexpected” cones where I damn near ran over them but saw them just in time to avoid them and I cleaned up the 414-424 cone section some and found time. This dropped my time down to a 67.770 and put me in 28th overall.

Run #3
2015 Mustang GT/PP - 2015 SCCA Solo Nationals - #23 F-Street - Day 2 Run 3 - YouTube

I dropped the front tire pressure down 2 psi and took my run. Car felt great through the opening part but I clipped a cone in the opening transitions. By the time I had gotten through corner 3 I was getting flagged down by a corner worker. I stopped on course as instructed and would be given a re-run. The driver in front of me took out some cones and I think spun. I hustled back to the grid and the clock began. For those who aren't familiar with Nationals, re-runs are given at EXACTLY 5 minutes after returning to your spot. They don't care where they are in the run order, if you are getting a re-run, a guy is standing at the hood of your car with a stop watch giving you each minute and then telling you to go. When it was my turn to get my re-run I went out there with the intent to find time and to clean up the run. My free look at the course's opening section told me that there was PLENTY of time to be found and had in the opening transitions. I decided to get aggressive with them and really attack all the transitions. I lost some time in the first transition as the back of the car stepped out slightly but it worked out in the end. I found some time out there and improved on my final run and kept it clean. With a 67.584, I solidified my 28th position out of 46 drivers in attendance.

And that run concluded my Nationals runs. At the end of day 2 I knew exactly where I stood. I knew that my runs were solid midpack runs but a rainy and bad third run on day one really brought the final placement down from where it should have been. I am not at all disappointed with the car's performance or my own driving and think that 28th isn't a bad place to be given how little seat time in the car I have and how far from prepped it is. There were some big names that finished behind me and some not far ahead of me and that feels good.

So at the end of it all I've learned more about myself and my car and had a good time. I know the pace is there even with my hack driving to be a solid mid pack finisher. I identified one key area where I need to improve (back siding cones) and a few other more minor areas to improve (throttle application and braking points). I know that the car is in dire need of a new set of dampers and a swaybar (no surprises there!) among the need for more wet run seat time. By this time next year I am going to get myself deep into those trophies in a prepped car!

Speaking of: Tom Reynolds (third place 2015 GT/PP) was kind enough to put his video on the Tube of You's so I pulled it down and made a side by side comparing our fastest runs on the West course. You can see I lose a lot of time right after the second turn on the course in the fast transitions. Every transition after that seems to lose a few tenths in all the major elements. Scary thought how fast time disappears when you don't backside cones or aren't aggressive enough with the throttle or brakes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVGFqEGNB0g

So what next? Well, next is getting the car prepped as best I can for Spring Nats next year! Swaybars are already on the way and I need to test both the front and rear bars and figure out which one it really needs. Pictures say rear as the inside front is damn near off the ground at corner exit on the power but more than a few people whom I trust with car setup advice are saying front bar is still the way to go. I plan on testing both to see which I like more. I know why both will work and I'm not afraid to test them since both bars are on the way anyway.

Dampers are a big question mark right now. There are no available front struts that I'd trust or that don't require extensive modification and Koni has listed the new Mustang as a priority. I'm sure that means sometime in the near future, but we'll see. I also need to figure out the front alignment issue and see if there is anything else I can do to get more negative camber within the rules. There is probably a burr holding the bolt up from it's full sweep in the strut ear.

​

Outside of that, I don't think the alignment needs tweaked any further. The rear camber could probably use a little more negative camber in a world where both bars were open but for now I think we'll leave it as is.

Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you to see some of you next year at Spring Nationals and Nationals. We have one more event for this year on the 20th of September so expect at least one more event after action report this year before winter sets in!

​

 

[SlowJim]

Are the sidewalls on those tires really soft? 38 seems really high to me. I run my NT05's at 36/32 hot. Apples to oranges obviously but I always thought it was ideal to run air pressure consistent with the weight on that axle.

I got to ride in a stock S550 yesterday and it was a revelation compared to my car. So much more grip and power. Just as fast as my car which has stiff springs, sway bars, 3 degrees of camber, bilstiens, and 295 width tires. Pretty damn impressive.

 

[Whiskey11]

Are the sidewalls on those tires really soft? 38 seems really high to me. I run my NT05's at 36/32 hot. Apples to oranges obviously but I always thought it was ideal to run air pressure consistent with the weight on that axle.

I got to ride in a stock S550 yesterday and it was a revelation compared to my car. So much more grip and power. Was a full 8/10ths faster than my car on a 45-sec course. Although a ringer drove my car and matched the S550's time. Pretty impressive considering I run 3 degrees of camber, bilstiens, and 295 width tires.

It isn't that the tires are that soft, that's just the pressure I ran them at as a baseline because that's what the factory tires get run up to. I haven't had a whole lot of time to test pressures but the lower pressures I ran (32ish) caused a lot of tire wear at the first event. The high rear pressure was to get the car to rotate since none of the car setup changes I made loosened the car up any (well except maybe rear toe to zero).

 

[Pentalab]

How much can you adjust the REAR toe and camber on the S-550 ? Can you adjust the front camber on an oem S-550 ? What's the consensus using any amount of rear camber ?

 

[Whiskey11]

How much can you adjust the REAR toe and camber on the S-550 ? Can you adjust the front camber on an oem S-550 ? What's the consensus using any amount of rear camber ?

Rear Camber sweeps from -1.2ish to -3.5 with no modifications, just loosening the bolt and pushing. No idea on rear toe but I'm 99% sure the range is outside that of the factory alignment specs. There is a lot of eccentricity in the toe bolts.

Front camber has no factory adjustment except there is the provision in the factory service manual to slot the upper strut to spindle bolt hole 2mm.

I'm 99% sure that I was the only person at Nationals that messed with the rear camber setting. Everyone else stuck to just the front end and left the rears as is. Me personally, I take the view point of "make the tires happy, then adjust balance using a bar" and if that doesn't work, take away grip from that tire. At -2.2 I was able to power out of a corner harder than I did at the factory -1.8 and didn't notice any more push in steady state (probably because I'm countering it with a reverse staggered tire pressure). Launch grip still sucks but the actual launch RPM didn't change before the car just spun the tires to hell.