Koni & Steeda vs Track pack at local track (NHMS)

[tim]

Here's my opinion and some data after switching over to Koni sports, Steeda ultralites and HP+ pads from stock track pack, stock brembos & stock pads on stock wheels and tires.

In comparing the two dates, the first date was much cooler - about 65 degrees, vs the second date about 90 degrees. I've 4 seasons on this track in another car, but only 2 days in the mustang.

Results:
the stock setup was equal in lap times to the Koni + Steeda + HP+ pads.

Brakes:
Both days, the real problem was brake fade. Brake fade eroded my confidence to push very hard for more than 4-5 laps per session. The HP+ pulled 1.16g stopping force (according to the car's accelerometer). That was about .2g more than on the stock pads (stock pads were pretty worn). They still overheated in about the same number of laps

Suspension:
The stock track pack was ok to me. It rolled alot and dive and lift were bothersome to me, but it was manageable. The Koni's and steedas look alot better and feel great on track, but there was nothing they could give me beyond the stock setup because the tires were the other weak link.

Traction:
The stock tires are way too skinny. They can't handle the car and most of the time it's managing the power to keep the rear-end in check. On day 2, in 90 degree temps, the tires completely gave out after the second session (the 3rd session was about 1:20pm) and there was just nothing in the traction department. My lap times were off by at least 4-5 seconds and frankly, it wasn't very fun driving that far off my normal pace.

In car accelermeter shows left/right @ 1.20g for day 2 and left/right @ 1.19g for day 1. No gain whatsoever.

My next time out there, i will be running vorshlag brake cooling ducts and 285/35 RS3s. Hopefully that will get some gains on the two areas that I feel were hindering lap times (brakes & tires).

 

[Apex50]

Surprising results, would have liked to see more results for $1100 in mods! The konis and steedas make street driving much better though, right? No more looking at the sky when accelerating and ground when braking...

I found tires made the biggest difference in lap times, seconded by harnesses, and marginal improvements for suspension fixes. Of course I was learning, too, so maybe those gains were due to seat time.

You are using high temp brake fluid, I am assuming?

 

[sheizasosay]

I am curious as to how you can pull more than 1 G in breaking. I was under the impression the limit is 1G with the stock ABS.

 

[dontlifttoshift]

I've seen 1.08 on my DL1

 

[Shotokan1509]

Surprising results, would have liked to see more results for $1100 in mods! The konis and steedas make street driving much better though, right? No more looking at the sky when accelerating and ground when braking...

I found tires made the biggest difference in lap times, seconded by harnesses, and marginal improvements for suspension fixes. Of course I was learning, too, so maybe those gains were due to seat time.

You are using high temp brake fluid, I am assuming?

You can throw entire suspension catalog at a car but if it's on donuts it ain't going anywhere. I am also curious about the fluid. I'd bet if first mods were tires & fluid on springs/shocks/struts, there would have been improvement. I think that next round out with better tires/fluid if needed/ducts will be a much bigger ball game.

 

[Sky Render]

I am curious as to how you can pull more than 1 G in breaking. I was under the impression the limit is 1G with the stock ABS.

If you're braking on an uphill section, wouldn't you see more than 1G of deceleration since gravity is also slowing you down?

 

[Apex50]

You can throw entire suspension catalog at a car but if it's on donuts it ain't going anywhere. I am also curious about the fluid. I'd bet if first mods were tires & fluid on springs/shocks/struts, there would have been improvement. I think that next round out with better tires/fluid if needed/ducts will be a much bigger ball game.

So he's got to go back to stock with better tires so I can feel better about my mods? Seems fair to me!

At one point I had figured it was about $1000/second gained. Then I realized I shouldn't think about it anymore, lol.

 

[sheizasosay]

If you're braking on an uphill section, wouldn't you see more than 1G of deceleration since gravity is also slowing you down?

No idea. All the rave for S197 racing is the newer ABS for the racecars (boss') because it moves the threshold from 1.0 to 1.2Gs. OP's sounded pretty high.

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

I am curious as to how you can pull more than 1 G in breaking. I was under the impression the limit is 1G with the stock ABS.

Nope. We've seen up to 1.4 g under braking with the stock ABS on the S197 and many other cars. 1.1-1.3g is more typical, but on most modern cars we tend to see higher sustained gs under braking than in any other vector. The braking g's have more to do with tires than anything else, other than overheating the pads/fluid. Well pad compound plays a part, too. And so does the driver.... crap, its a lot of variables, heh.

The stock S197 ABS is damned good on these cars... so much so that NASA has banned the S197 in CMC class and cripples the S197 (using OEM or Ford Racing ABS modules) with a worse track width and power to weight ratio than any other platform in the American Iron class. The Ford Racing ABS/TC modules work a little bit better than stock, but from what we've seen it mostly fixes traction control issues (faults), if that's a problem you are seeing. We did see a small improvement in threshold braking with the new ABS/TC module on 200 TW street tires, though, at the Optima USCA event.

 

[tim]

Hey folks, thanks for the replies and here's proof, er pics, from the in-car accelerometer from 3 different events in the car.

I have put in Vorshlag's brake duct kit and will be running those on Monday at a different track, i'll have accelerometer data from there, too.

Brake fluid was FoMoCo for event 1, ATE Super Blue for event #2 and #3. I am not used to pedal brake fade, so i took it easy after the fading started.

 

[tim]

Surprising results, would have liked to see more results for $1100 in mods! The konis and steedas make street driving much better though, right? No more looking at the sky when accelerating and ground when braking...

I found tires made the biggest difference in lap times, seconded by harnesses, and marginal improvements for suspension fixes. Of course I was learning, too, so maybe those gains were due to seat time.

You are using high temp brake fluid, I am assuming?

You bet - driving the car on the street is as good on smooth roads, better on corners, and alot better over small bumps. I've changed suspension on a few different cars, but the Mustang, of all of them, I love the look and feel of the suspension. The biggest problem before was under braking, showing the underbelly of the beast - that is completely gone with the koni/steeda setup.

Here's a pic of the drop:

 

[tim]

So he's got to go back to stock with better tires so I can feel better about my mods? Seems fair to me!

At one point I had figured it was about $1000/second gained. Then I realized I shouldn't think about it anymore, lol.

yeah, i keep telling myself that i upgraded suspension because of the looks more than the need, but somewhere inside, i was hoping for lap time gains too.

Hopefully this is a case of the tires being the weakest link on the car. I'll have a good feel for this in a week (after my next event with brake cooling and bigger, better tires) and assuming that's true, i will then start hoping that the koni/steedas will allow me to do alot more than the stock set up would have allowed me to go (iow, the stock suspension would have become the weak link next). I'll never know, cuz i ain't going backwards to stock suspension.

 

[tim]

No idea. All the rave for S197 racing is the newer ABS for the racecars (boss') because it moves the threshold from 1.0 to 1.2Gs. OP's sounded pretty high.

Hey guys, i'll go look at the AIM Solo data and see where on track the 1.16g under braking was coming from. There is a downhill section with heavy braking. to be continued...

 

[tim]

Nope. We've seen up to 1.4 g under braking with the stock ABS on the S197 and many other cars. 1.1-1.3g is more typical, but on most modern cars we tend to see higher sustained gs under braking than in any other vector.

I have seen braking g-forces over 1.0 on the car during several different sessions and different tracks. It's just the in-car accelermeter,maybe some degree of imprecision, but it's still relative, the HP+ stop harder than the stock pads.

The car has your Vorshlag brake cooling ducts on it now, along with the front grill adapters (btw, 3 ft of ducting isn't enough (imho) to zip tie the ducting completely out of the way of the wheels/tires at full lock! i added another 4" or so per side to be sure)

I have high hopes they stay fade-free for a lot more laps so i can concentrate on driving better, not managing brakes and tires.

 

[Arustik]

Just a quick tip: careful with the HP+ pads on track, especially on a high(er) weight car like the S197. The pad compound itself may be the cause of your brake fade. NHMS is awesome, glad to see Mustang guys that are local!

 

[csamsh]

Back to OP's original post- were you on the same tires? I wouldn't expect you to go faster unless you were on better tires or added power....you will love those RS3's.

Some real track pads would help A TON too!!!

 

[sheizasosay]

Nope. We've seen up to 1.4 g under braking with the stock ABS on the S197 and many other cars. 1.1-1.3g is more typical, but on most modern cars we tend to see higher sustained gs under braking than in any other vector. The braking g's have more to do with tires than anything else, other than overheating the pads/fluid. Well pad compound plays a part, too. And so does the driver.... crap, its a lot of variables, heh.

The stock S197 ABS is damned good on these cars... so much so that NASA has banned the S197 in CMC class and cripples the S197 (using OEM or Ford Racing ABS modules) with a worse track width and power to weight ratio than any other platform in the American Iron class. The Ford Racing ABS/TC modules work a little bit better than stock, but from what we've seen it mostly fixes traction control issues (faults), if that's a problem you are seeing. We did see a small improvement in threshold braking with the new ABS/TC module on 200 TW street tires, though, at the Optima USCA event.

I've been looking, but I don't know where that information came from. I usually don't have a problem listing a reference, but I can't find anything. Thanks for correcting it.

EDIT- I think I found it....post 325 http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92238&highlight=Abs&page=17
still off a tad though.

 

[DPE]

I can't believe we made it this far in the thread before Arustik and csamsh pointed out your real problem; Hawk HP+ are not a real track pad. I don't care how much cooling you throw at them, especially now running 285 RS3s you are going to get plenty of brake fade. They are a good pad for aggressive street use (if you don't mind squeaking) and autox or perhaps an entry level track day driver, but in the Hawk line you need to be using something along the lines of a DTC-60 if you want to be able to brake consistently for an entire session. Put in something similar to those or a Carbotech XP12 (or better), and you'll be much better off.

Additionally, ATE is decent fluid, but again, you're selling yourself a little short here. In a 420hp car that weighs not far from 4000lbs with a driver, you need all the help you can get. I'm sure there are some better ones now, and there's always Castrol SRF if you just want to go all in, but Motul RBF600 is notably better than ATE in terms of both heat tolerance and pedal feel (never would have believed pedal feel, but it's just better).

I guess all this to say you've spent a grand on suspension and just dropped something not far from that on those RS3s; spend $200 more in brake pads and $15 more in brake fluid and I think you'll find the results well worth it.

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

I can't believe we made it this far in the thread before Arustik and csamsh pointed out your real problem; Hawk HP+ are not a real track pad. I don't care how much cooling you throw at them, especially now running 285 RS3s you are going to get plenty of brake fade. They are a good pad for aggressive street use (if you don't mind squeaking) and autox or perhaps an entry level track day driver, but in the Hawk line you need to be using something along the lines of a DTC-60 if you want to be able to brake consistently for an entire session. Put in something similar to those or a Carbotech XP12 (or better), and you'll be much better off.

Additionally, ATE is decent fluid, but again, you're selling yourself a little short here. In a 420hp car that weighs not far from 4000lbs with a driver, you need all the help you can get. I'm sure there are some better ones now, and there's always Castrol SRF if you just want to go all in, but Motul RBF600 is notably better than ATE in terms of both heat tolerance and pedal feel (never would have believed pedal feel, but it's just better).

I guess all this to say you've spent a grand on suspension and just dropped something not far from that on those RS3s; spend $200 more in brake pads and $15 more in brake fluid and I think you'll find the results well worth it.

Agreed 100%. We only sell ATE for guys on an extreme budget, and usually only for autocrossing. We always tell track guys to go to at least Motul RBF600, if not 660 (faster/heavier cars). At all of the track day events we go to and support we end up spending the day flushing out low-temp brake fluid from cars that have boiled their brakes. At the last event we did this at we did 22 brake flushes - fully 1/3rd of the field showed up on low temp fluid and lost brakes at some point that day.

I also cannot count how many sets of Hawks I destroyed - they would either melt or crumble and fall apart when they get hot, before they were even 1/2 worn. HP+ is an OK autocross pad but not a track pad. HPS is a street-only pad. We even managed to destroy HP+ pads just autocrossing (that's a set of Hawk's catching on fire at a ProSolo autocross, below).

We went through all of the DTC compounds before switching to Carbotech. Never looked back.

Lots of brands, pad compounds, etc.

I tore up a lot of pads, rotors, and piston seals on the S197 Mustang over the years before we figured out what worked.

Many mistakes made along the way. Learn from my mistakes - go back and read our S197 build thread from the beginning.

Our S197 build thread located on the S197 forum only covers the last 2 years. We have another 2 years of posts, where we learned some good lessons about brake pads/brands/cooling tricks.

So if you are having brake fade and premature pad or rotor wear, go to this link and read the early posts: http://www.vorshlag.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7806

Cheers,

 

[Apex50]

I've never experience fade with HP+ and ATE. (I have CDC brake cooling ducts) They didn't last very long, but they didn't eat my rotors like HT-10, DTC 60's and DTC 70's.

Here's Mr. Hawk, Mike Skeen showing me how it's done with these woefully inadequate pads, haha:

http://youtu.be/MWIpGHLjXJs

Maybe VIR is different in the number of hard braking zones? We've already established I am slow. I went away from these pads for awhile based on the advice from this forum, but got into a pinch and had to put them on for this particular track day.

Certainly these are at the bottom of the Hawk racing compounds, but they are at least on the same page. I guess it depends on the driver, too.