chilema
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I've decided to come out of lurking! Hard to believe it's been something like 6 months since my last post on my autocross build thread (which still do plan on updating, once next season starts). Just wanted to throw in a separate post about HPDE which is something completely new to me despite having autocrossed for about 5 years now.
A quick update on the car:
The Mustang finally received some power mods! In addition to the parts list in my signature the car now runs a Boss 302 intake manifold, Lethal Performance off-road H-pipe, and 47lb injectors to run E85 fuel. The car was remotely tuned by Shaun at AED and if healthy should be making about 400-410 whp on pump gas and 420-430whp on E85 (have not taken it to a dyno though).
The Hoosier A6's that I bought on clearance from Hoosier have corded a long time ago and since August I've been doing as many autocross events as I can on the 285/35/18 Hankook RS-3 street tires on clearance from Tirerack that others on this forum have also purchased. I must say it was a great refresher for my smoothness and discipline with the throttle!
Also, in preparation for the track day (and because my HP Plus pads are just about gone anyway), the car received some Carbotech XP10/XP8 pads. Since the track did not sell E85 and it was a good 250 miles away I did swapped the tune back to run on pump gas.
11/29/13 Black Friday track day @ Buttonwillow:
Thanks to some peer pressure a couple of months ago I decided to sign up for a day-after-Thanksgiving track day at Buttonwillow Raceway Park. It was going to be my first time ever on a road course and I was more than a bit nervous about surviving the day unscathed. The biggest concern I had was the downshifting, as I never really have to do so for autocross and I hardly ever try heel-toe downshifts on the street, but seeing as this track was very momentum-friendly there weren't a lot of places where you absolutely HAD to downshift in a Coyote powered Mustang with 3.73 gears and short-ish tires. I could take the whole lap in 4th (and being a total track newbie I did for a while).
We ran the ever-popular CW13 configuration:
In hindsight putting myself in Novice (HPDE 1) group was good from the perspective of learning the track at a pressure-free pace, and the first 2 out of 4 sessions where lead-follow sessions with instructors in their cars. However, I was definitely out-pacing the group to the point that there wasn't a single lap where I did not need a point-by. Here's a video of two relatively clean laps I got. Did a 2:19 on the first one after basically coming to a stop due to another car going off and kicking up a lot of dust, and the second lap where I cooked the brake fluid (ATE super blue, but Base GT brakes are as bad with heat as Terry @ Vorshlag says they are) and overshot the final corner (was on pace for a 2:11 lap).
12/8/13 Buttinwillow track day:
This is probably an itch that every autocrosser just has to scratch...I had a blast on my first track day but not being able to get a clean lap down was gnawing away at me. So I signed up for another track day happening at Buttonwillow the weekend after.
I was unceremoniously tossed into HPDE-3 after blurting out that I run a 2:10-11 lap when asked by registration (optimistic extrapolation on my part). Fortunately I was able to fall into line in HPDE-3 pretty comfortably and managed my 2:11 lap on the first session. The 3 year old Hankook RS-3's did not like the mid-30s temperature that morning so I had a spin on my first corner of lap 1 for two sessions straight. The motor sure loved the cool temperatures though!
I did have a better time finding clear track in HPDE-3 than -1 but my particular group had a pretty large lap time range (2:02s - 2:20) so I did have to drop back and point by for some fast guys quite a few times. However all in all I'm just glad that all the drivers were pretty courteous about letting each other by and safety was not an issue the whole day.
I was pretty happy to knock my time down to a best lap of 2:08 at the end of my second session which was good for top 1/4 of HPDE3 group. I decided to try some heel-toe downshifts (but only on the first and last corners of the lap haha) and it turned out better than expected. I'm sure a lot more time could be found by using 3rd gear more often around the course and being more aggressive but I thought I did okay at focusing on smoothness and rhythm for now. Having autocrossed for 5 years definitely helps in the car-control and mental rhythm perspective!
Here's the 2:08 lap, not spectacular for a car with this much power (even if it was on street tires) but I was told it was pretty good for someone on their second track day. You can laugh but I wasn't about to drive with windows down all day in 30-something degree weather with bare hands, so I paid retail at the track shop for my fabulous Sparco gloves
I plan on doing some more track days after the end of the upcoming autocross season, when it gets cooler again around November. At that point I will probably upgrade to some Brembo package front brakes for the heat capacity, but in the mean time I'd like to keep my puny but lighter stock brakes for autocross.
A quick update on the car:
The Mustang finally received some power mods! In addition to the parts list in my signature the car now runs a Boss 302 intake manifold, Lethal Performance off-road H-pipe, and 47lb injectors to run E85 fuel. The car was remotely tuned by Shaun at AED and if healthy should be making about 400-410 whp on pump gas and 420-430whp on E85 (have not taken it to a dyno though).
The Hoosier A6's that I bought on clearance from Hoosier have corded a long time ago and since August I've been doing as many autocross events as I can on the 285/35/18 Hankook RS-3 street tires on clearance from Tirerack that others on this forum have also purchased. I must say it was a great refresher for my smoothness and discipline with the throttle!
Also, in preparation for the track day (and because my HP Plus pads are just about gone anyway), the car received some Carbotech XP10/XP8 pads. Since the track did not sell E85 and it was a good 250 miles away I did swapped the tune back to run on pump gas.
11/29/13 Black Friday track day @ Buttonwillow:
Thanks to some peer pressure a couple of months ago I decided to sign up for a day-after-Thanksgiving track day at Buttonwillow Raceway Park. It was going to be my first time ever on a road course and I was more than a bit nervous about surviving the day unscathed. The biggest concern I had was the downshifting, as I never really have to do so for autocross and I hardly ever try heel-toe downshifts on the street, but seeing as this track was very momentum-friendly there weren't a lot of places where you absolutely HAD to downshift in a Coyote powered Mustang with 3.73 gears and short-ish tires. I could take the whole lap in 4th (and being a total track newbie I did for a while).
We ran the ever-popular CW13 configuration:
In hindsight putting myself in Novice (HPDE 1) group was good from the perspective of learning the track at a pressure-free pace, and the first 2 out of 4 sessions where lead-follow sessions with instructors in their cars. However, I was definitely out-pacing the group to the point that there wasn't a single lap where I did not need a point-by. Here's a video of two relatively clean laps I got. Did a 2:19 on the first one after basically coming to a stop due to another car going off and kicking up a lot of dust, and the second lap where I cooked the brake fluid (ATE super blue, but Base GT brakes are as bad with heat as Terry @ Vorshlag says they are) and overshot the final corner (was on pace for a 2:11 lap).
12/8/13 Buttinwillow track day:
This is probably an itch that every autocrosser just has to scratch...I had a blast on my first track day but not being able to get a clean lap down was gnawing away at me. So I signed up for another track day happening at Buttonwillow the weekend after.
I was unceremoniously tossed into HPDE-3 after blurting out that I run a 2:10-11 lap when asked by registration (optimistic extrapolation on my part). Fortunately I was able to fall into line in HPDE-3 pretty comfortably and managed my 2:11 lap on the first session. The 3 year old Hankook RS-3's did not like the mid-30s temperature that morning so I had a spin on my first corner of lap 1 for two sessions straight. The motor sure loved the cool temperatures though!
I did have a better time finding clear track in HPDE-3 than -1 but my particular group had a pretty large lap time range (2:02s - 2:20) so I did have to drop back and point by for some fast guys quite a few times. However all in all I'm just glad that all the drivers were pretty courteous about letting each other by and safety was not an issue the whole day.
I was pretty happy to knock my time down to a best lap of 2:08 at the end of my second session which was good for top 1/4 of HPDE3 group. I decided to try some heel-toe downshifts (but only on the first and last corners of the lap haha) and it turned out better than expected. I'm sure a lot more time could be found by using 3rd gear more often around the course and being more aggressive but I thought I did okay at focusing on smoothness and rhythm for now. Having autocrossed for 5 years definitely helps in the car-control and mental rhythm perspective!
Here's the 2:08 lap, not spectacular for a car with this much power (even if it was on street tires) but I was told it was pretty good for someone on their second track day. You can laugh but I wasn't about to drive with windows down all day in 30-something degree weather with bare hands, so I paid retail at the track shop for my fabulous Sparco gloves
I plan on doing some more track days after the end of the upcoming autocross season, when it gets cooler again around November. At that point I will probably upgrade to some Brembo package front brakes for the heat capacity, but in the mean time I'd like to keep my puny but lighter stock brakes for autocross.
Especially on stock suspension. Big brakes definitely help at the track. Maybe I'll see you out there next year.
