Setting up for weekend fun driving and track

[JediGuy]

I saw another critique my setup thread and thought I’d see what feedback the more experienced here could provide. I have an 06 GT coupe with 130,000 miles (85,000 mine, this was my daily from 2011-2016)...

Installed:
Adjustable panhard bar
LCA and relocation brackets
UCA
Eibach pro-kit springs
Koni Str.t shocks and struts
2012 GT rotors
Nitto somethings on OEM 18”
New jounce bumpers
Exhaust/tune/CAI

Purchased long ago, awaiting install:
Steeda G-trac brace
2012? GT or Boss 302 STB (have both)
Whiteline sway bar endlinks
Boss 302 brake lines
Under engine vent piece from 10-14

Just purchased:
18x10” SVE Drifts
14” GT500 front rotors
Rear caliper relocation bracket (to allow 13-14 GT500 rear rotors)

Immediate planned purchases:
(Genuine) Brembo calipers
Some sort of nice tires (size, brand?)
G-loc front pads (R6/R8?)
OEM rear pads

Future:
Front splitter (carter custom’s GR?)
Rear...spoiler or wing, not sure
Some underbody aero

Where am I wrong, what am I missing, what suggestions?
The big thing I have to stick with presently are the shocks/struts. They’re nearly new still, and though I know there are better things out there, I can’t justify dumping them at this point.

 

[JJ427R]

It looks to me like you are setup fairly well for getting on a track doing HPDE days. Your biggest concerns will be brakes,pads, and tires.
Make sure brake lines are Stainless Steel, will give much firmer pedal. Any braking questions contact Dave Zeckhausen at Zeckhausen Racing.
https://www.zeckhausen.com/
He is a great guy and will answer any questions you may have. He carries Brembo stuff and is also US distributor for StopTech.

As a little reference for you, I have a 2010 Roush with 4 piston StopTech's up front with StopTech SS lines on all 4 corners, stock calipers on rear. Frozen Rotors Cryo Slotted rotors. http://www.frozenrotors.com/
My current pads are Ferodo Racing DS2500 Street/Track pads, I don't change my pads at the track like some do.

I see too many guys who think they need to have full blown race car just to get on the track and run HPDE days, which is not true at all.
I've seen 150hp Mazda Miata's walk all over 600hp Mustangs (including myself and damn I hate being passed by those things) and Porsche 911's. Best thing is learn to drive first. Find a Performance Driving School in your area similar to what is at BIR https://www.birperformance.com/ and get a good instructor to show you the line, braking into corners, acceleration out of corners. That's the best advise I can give at this point.

Best of luck to you, and keep us appraised of your progress!!!

Just a note, I'm Paraplegic and drive one handed with hand controls, here is a little video of me at BIR last fall. Note I passed that damn Miata....

 

[JJ427R]

Though about this a bit more and forgot to mention a 4 or 5 Point harness will make a huge difference as well in holding you in your seat. Then next item for safety is a neck restraint, that is the next item on my list that I currently do not have. Currently I have a Corbeau Harness Bar with Corbeau 4 Point Harness'.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I saw another critique my setup thread and thought I’d see what feedback the more experienced here could provide. I have an 06 GT coupe with 130,000 miles (85,000 mine, this was my daily from 2011-2016)...

Purchased long ago, awaiting install:
Steeda G-trac brace
2012? GT or Boss 302 STB (have both)
Whiteline sway bar endlinks

There's no hurry on installing aftermarket bracing unless your car does not have OE bracing between the rear pickup points of the front control arms.

Boss 302 brake lines

Upgraded brake lines are normally a mod that you do more for improving pedal feel than for any gain in braking performance. That said, I can't argue with replacing those OE lines that already have an eighth of a million miles on them and are almost 14 years old. I went to over a dozen track days before moving up to aftermarket braided steel lines (Vorshlag's).

Just purchased:
18x10” SVE Drifts
14” GT500 front rotors
Rear caliper relocation bracket (to allow 13-14 GT500 rear rotors)

With a stockish 4.6L you're unlikely to need that much rear brake, so I'd put that on the back burner for now. You may want to use higher sets of holes in those relo brackets if the car feels a bit tail-happy in the corners.

18x10's are probably best suited for tire sizes 265/40, 275/40, and 285/35. For tire sizes wider than 285, there will be some This cost in terms of turn-in response and steering precision even if midcorner cornering g's increase, and the first two are of much more value at least in the early stages of your track day habit.

Immediate planned purchases:
Some sort of nice tires (size, brand?)

If you're planning on running even if it rains, its hard to not mention Michelin Pilot Super Sports and Pilot Sport 4S. The PS4S is gradually replacing the PSS. Do your early learning on true street tires, not sub-200 treadwear R-compounds or 200-TW autocross specials (RE-71R, Rival S, etc.). I'm running PSS in 285/35-18, on 18x11 wheels, they have over a dozen track days and 5000 street miles on them, and they'll still pass either track day tech inspection or a state safety inspection with read depth to spare.

(Genuine) Brembo calipers
G-loc front pads (R6/R8?)
OEM rear pads

I'm going to suggest R10 up front and R8 out back. They're even realistically streetable (as track-capable pads go) in terms of rotor wear rates. But they do make good bits of dust and they will talk back at you in easy-braking street driving.

Front splitter (carter custom’s GR?)
Rear...spoiler or wing, not sure
Some underbody aero

Where am I wrong, what am I missing, what suggestions?
The big thing I have to stick with presently are the shocks/struts. They’re nearly new still, and though I know there are better things out there, I can’t justify dumping them at this point.

What JJ said . . . aero mods are way off into the future, and need to be done carefully. It is easily possible to overdo or under-do the aero at one end of the car and make the car either aero-loose (more oversteerish the faster you go - scary) or aero-tight (understeerish and maybe scary because it doesn't want to turn).

Driver mod comes first. Then you'll know better what you and the car really want.


Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

Nice driving, jj. I don't think I could maintain that pace steering one-handed with hand controls for the rest.


Norm

 

[JediGuy]

Thanks for the responses.

I’ll take the recommendation on the rear brakes, and try out the better pads first. And the harness/neck brace is something I had not thought of, but definitely should have.

On the 06 coupes, there was no brace, so Steeda’s G-trac essentially provides what later years had OEM. The STB... I have it, so I’ll probably put on the GT version (I actually powdercoated it a few years ago) and sell the Boss 302.

I’ll have to take a look at what I can do with the LCA brackets. Been a bit since I put those on. Perhaps we’ll see how the rear end feels with the better tires before changing anything there.

With tires... are you saying 265/40 or 275/40 would be better than 285?
Back to brakes... most vendors seem to “not recommend” the R10 pads for street use. But it sounds like it’s good to go, just with annoying sound?

 

[Norm Peterson]

Michelin PSS tires are enough to see you up through intermediate and even into advanced run grouping. My '08 isn't all that heavily modified - struts/shocks/sta-bars/rear LCAs/FRPP cold air & tune/brake pads & fluid being the rest of the list. Alignment is a bit outside the factory range for camber, and I was still running the OE 2-piston front calipers with some DIY ducting.

And in the wet, when the PSS were fairly new but not brand-new.

Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

I saw another critique my setup thread and thought I’d see what feedback the more experienced here could provide. I have an 06 GT coupe with 130,000 miles (85,000 mine, this was my daily from 2011-2016)...

Just a thought about running an early S197 with the 4.6 . . . they're fast enough to have fun in for quite a while without being so fast that you're really taxing what's readily available in the braking department. And they aren't so powerful that you end up having to drive them in "point & shoot" fashion. They aren't true momentum cars (like Miatas and such), but at any given level of cornering & handling tuning they're closer to momentum than the more powerful 5.0L cars and can be tuned to have lighter amounts of understeer.


Norm

 

[JJ427R]

Just a thought about running an early S197 with the 4.6 . . . they're fast enough to have fun in for quite a while without being so fast that you're really taxing what's readily available in the braking department. And they aren't so powerful that you end up having to drive them in "point & shoot" fashion. They aren't true momentum cars (like Miatas and such), but at any given level of cornering & handling tuning they're closer to momentum than the more powerful 5.0L cars and can be tuned to have lighter amounts of understeer.


Norm

I recently got a 2018 GT Coupe PP1, I am very curious to see how different this car is on the track compared to my 2010 Roush with all the mods. I'm going to leave it stock for the first track days I run this year, which are July 4th weekend at Road America. The new car has the 6 piston Brembo's, which from what I can tell so far feel very similar to my 4 piston StopTech's. I'm most curious how the IRS is going to be in the corners, I know that will be a huge difference. The two are close in HP. I'd be curious to weigh the two cars front ends to see which is heavier. Is a stock 5.0 heavier than the 4.6 with the Roushcharger on it?
Also I'll note the difference I feel in tires between my Roush with Mickey Thompson 275/35/20 on all 4 corners and the new car with the 19" PSS4 staggered.

 

[JediGuy]

Just a thought about running an early S197 with the 4.6 . . . they're fast enough to have fun in for quite a while without being so fast that you're really taxing what's readily available in the braking department. And they aren't so powerful that you end up having to drive them in "point & shoot" fashion. They aren't true momentum cars (like Miatas and such), but at any given level of cornering & handling tuning they're closer to momentum than the more powerful 5.0L cars and can be tuned to have lighter amounts of understeer.


Norm

I think I understand what your saying here... Basically, it is difficult to overpower the suspension/brakes on a 4.6? I’m not familiar with how you use the term “momentum.”
I appreciate your patience... Though I read through the Vorshlag development thread fully twice over the last couple years, this stuff is still mostly new to me.
Is there an advantage to slight understeer, and is there a specific way I would approach that?

 

[JJ427R]

Back to brakes... most vendors seem to “not recommend” the R10 pads for street use. But it sounds like it’s good to go, just with annoying sound?

You are correct there, I have been highly recommended by Dave Zeckhausen not to run track type pads on the street for several reasons, primarily is a track specific pad needs to be at a proper temperature before it will work properly.
I can't say enough about calling Dave Zeckhausen and speaking with him about which pads to run, he is probably one of the most knowledgeable guys in the country when it comes to brakes, brakes are his business....

It is possible to have too much brake for your tires and vise verse.... call Dave

 

[Norm Peterson]

I think I understand what your saying here... Basically, it is difficult to overpower the suspension/brakes on a 4.6?

Let's say that it's not quite as easy. You won't be hitting the same peak speeds, so the braking load (over time) will be less, with slightly longer cooling periods in between. The earlier cars are a little lighter, which is a good thing for cornering and braking even though it is worth a mph or two at the ends of the straights.

I’m not familiar with how you use the term “momentum.”

"Momentum" can perhaps be described in terms of maintaining speed through the corners as opposed to relying on drag-racing down the straights as the only way of improving lap times.

I appreciate your patience... Though I read through the Vorshlag development thread fully twice over the last couple years, this stuff is still mostly new to me.
Is there an advantage to slight understeer, and is there a specific way I would approach that?

Slight understeer is your friend because it's a more stable driving condition than oversteer. Which goes on to making you more relaxed in the driver seat than if the car keeps showing you tailhappiness that threatens to become a full-blown spin. Situations that make you uneasy do tend to make you drive slower so you don't get into them. Randy Pobst is very clear about preferring light understeer.


Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

With tires... are you saying 265/40 or 275/40 would be better than 285?

Any of those sizes should work well. It's wider than 285 that I wouldn't put on 10" unless I was stuck with no choice. Still, 285's would probably feel a little 'softer' on 10's than either of the narrower sizes. Though you might gain a hundredth or two of a lateral g at peak with the 285s.

Back to brakes... most vendors seem to “not recommend” the R10 pads for street use. But it sounds like it’s good to go, just with annoying sound?

I think they're erring on the side of caution. Which would be the proper thing for a supplier to do.

Part of that is subjective - most people can't stand to have brake noise in their street driving or dust on their street wheels. Can't blame suppliers for not wanting to deal with unhappy customers, never mind returns.

And part of it actually is technical - track pads in general do have a reputation for accelerated rotor wear in street driving and poor-ish bite when cold. Although in my experience the entry-level G-loc and Carbotech pads - I'm talking about R8 and R10 here - aren't any more abrasive than typical street pads and do seem to have enough cold braking power for street use down into the 20's F. I don't know how much colder they're good to, or where you live, so I can't give an unqualified go-ahead. But at least there's the GS-1 street pad that is compound-compatible with the R's so you won't have to swap rotors or sand off pad deposits every time you swap pads.


Norm

 

[ddd4114]

JediGuy, I think there should be plenty of information in here to get you started, but I'll emphasize that aero modifications are not worth it unless you're competing in TT or W2W. If you want them for aesthetic reasons, that's fine, but otherwise I'd put them way on the back burner. Norm is correct that it's easy to make an unbalanced setup, but with most passenger cars, you're likely to have way too much wing and not enough front downforce (thus making high-speed understeer). For a front splitter to be that useful, it needs to be very low and pretty large. This makes the car absolutely impractical to drive around public roads. I've spent the last few years working on aero improvements for my TT car, and I can barely get out of my development with my front splitter on. In the rare case I drive it on public roads, I need to plan the trip very carefully. Also, while aero certainly helps, you're only going to be ~2 mph faster through high-speed turns, and novice or even intermediate drivers will hardly notice that.

 

[Shrek427R]

After taking my stock 2007, 427R to several HPDE days after I bought it new, I opted for the Roush STB, no significant noticeable difference. Then went to Hawk pads, stainless steel lines and cooling ducts, loved the consistent pedal feel after a 4/5 session track day. (I have the Stop Tech 4 piston calipers up front and stock brakes in back). I moved up to HPDE 4 and installed the Cortex torque arm, LCAs and watts link system with Koni Yellows.
I moved from the Bay Area in NorCal about four years ago and just drive HPDE 2 with NASA. The higher levels are more competitive and my HPDE 4 track buddies did not make the move with me to AZ. My track day events went from 12 per year to 2 per year now and feel my track parts investment is wasting away in the garage. When my 2 year old daughter gets older and shows interest, I'll go back to maybe 6 events a year, but feel like have done too much to the car. However it only has 22,000 miles on it, so I drive it occasionally to Cars & Coffee and HPDE track days and have fun, fun, fun doing it. For the amount of time I drive HPDE, I think I would have stopped before the Cortex system install ($6,000 parts, $2,500 labor) and just spent my money on HPDE seat time. My tires are Bridgestone RE-11s, 275/40/18 square. I'm also waiting for the Bondurant School purchase/take over to be complete with new track paving and a new track in Casa Grande to be finished. There is just no elevation like Sears Point, Laguna-Seca and Thunderhill here.

 

[Norm Peterson]

... so I drive it occasionally to Cars & Coffee and HPDE track days and have fun, fun, fun doing it.

I have to ask . . . do the C & C guys have any appreciation for how much you've done to your car? Do they even know what you've done? Or why?


Norm

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Future:
Front splitter (carter custom’s GR?)
Rear...spoiler or wing, not sure
Some underbody aero

With the "budget minded" suspension bits you have, you sure don't need to be thinking about aero or flat bottom panels ANY time soon. Way way down the list of things to do for track events when you are on the cheapest Koni shocks + lowering springs. Sorry.

 

[JJ427R]

I have to ask . . . do the C & C guys have any appreciation for how much you've done to your car? Do they even know what you've done? Or why?


Norm

I will respond to this as well as I also do the cars and coffee as well as local car shows. Car guys are car guys, no matter where you go or what you may be doing, such a c&c or a track day, car guys are impressed with mods. I have a sheet that lists all my mods I display at car shows, and I make sure people know I run it on the track and it's not a garage or trailer queen, and that says a lot. I know it has helped my car win quite a number of trophy's at car shows and I don't mean to brag or anything like that, I don't go to car shows expecting to win, I go to look at the other cars and just show what I've done to mine, but I can damn near win a trophy in any car show I enter my Roush in, and more often than not a 1st place in my class. My Favorite...

 

[Norm Peterson]

I will respond to this as well as I also do the cars and coffee as well as local car shows. Car guys are car guys, no matter where you go or what you may be doing, such a c&c or a track day, car guys are impressed with mods. I have a sheet that lists all my mods I display at car shows, and I make sure people know I run it on the track and it's not a garage or trailer queen, and that says a lot. I know it has helped my car win quite a number of trophy's at car shows and I don't mean to brag or anything like that, I don't go to car shows expecting to win, I go to look at the other cars and just show what I've done to mine, but I can damn near win a trophy in any car show I enter my Roush in, and more often than not a 1st place in my class. My Favorite...

Congratulations . . . and I'm glad for you that the car show/C&C folks out your way are apparently able to appreciate cars with a road-racing flavor. Even if you have to do a little arm-twisting.


Norm

 

[JJ427R]

Congratulations . . . and I'm glad for you that the car show/C&C folks out your way are apparently able to appreciate cars with a road-racing flavor. Even if you have to do a little arm-twisting.


Norm

No arm twisting involved in this one, I was working the gate at this show as I was a club member, never even spoke with anyone about my car that day. Also the club members do not vote, only show participants... that is why I this is about my favorite trophy, that and beating a bunch of Shelby's
with a Roush at a Shelby Club show, doesn't get much better than that.
Used to attend quite a few shows, but have only taken my car to 2 shows in the last 3 years...