Vorshlag S197 Development Thread

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Project Update for August 28, 2013: Been a busy couple of weeks since the last project thread update, with the majority of the new aero work completed on our TT3 Mustang after working long hours every day and night. It was a major thrash to get all of this done in a 2 week period. During that time we also ran an autocross event with Amy driving our 2013 GT (STU) and me in Matt's BRZ (STX), and then track tested the new front aero parts on our TT3 Mustang. We're now in the final week thrash to do all of the "clean up work" to the car before we load up and head 22 hours across country to the NASA Nationals Sept 4-8th, so let's get caught up.

S197 Mustang Coilover Tester Needed in Dallas/Ft. Worth Area

Before we dig into the STU Mustang autocross test results, let's get to the reason why we went to this event out of the way - to test some MCS coilovers on one of our shop employee's cars, a 2013 Subaru BRZ. And this has a bearing on the S197, too. How is the suspension on a BRZ important to a Mustang? Well, they have several things in common: both chassis have McStrut front/shock rear suspensions, both have a factory coilover spring on the struts, and both chassis Vorshlag makes camber plates for. They also both are RWD, and they share almost the same track width (about the only dimension they have in common). So our suspension testing on the BRZ does sort of apply to S197 Mustangs.



We also sell MCS coilovers for the S197 Mustang, and in fact we have the first TT1 set in stock that we had built to our specs. All we lack is a tester to buy this set, then let us photograph, install and measure all of the parameters we like to check on a brand new suspension option like this. We've done installs on MCS RR2 doubles with remotes and TT1 singles on other cars, just have get a Mustang buyer to let us install a set for the S197 chassis.


Fitting the custom built set of MCS TT1 shocks to a tester's BRZ, sans springs, for bump/rebound measurements

We need someone local with an S197 that street drives + tracks or autocrosses their Mustang to sign up as a Vorshlag Tester for this first MCS TT1 set we had built. This would include a discounted install at our shop, a free corner-balance, and hands-on set-up help at a local autocross or track event(s). Go to the recently updated Vorshlag Tester Page, read the Tester Expectations, and if it sounds like a fit, sign up to be a tester via the method shown on that page. Don't call, or shoot me a PM, or send a fax, or wire us a telegram, but instead follow the instructions on that page to sign up. If your criteria line up with ours, we can get the MCS TT1 installation pictures for the S197 chassis. This would be another great monotube offering we can provide for this chassis (to go along with the offerings we have from Bilstein, Moton and AST). The MCS units are a bit unique in that they only have a 2 to 3 week lead time, are modular and can be upgraded to doubles or with remotes, and the have very beefy internals, shafts and housings.

SCCA Autox at Crandall, August 18, 2013 - STX vs STU?

So we decided to enter this autocross after we installed the MCS TT1 coilovers on Matt's 2013 Subaru BRZ. This car has been waiting on proper coilovers for almost a year, and after a few fits and starts we finally got a high end, adjustable monotube coilover on the car that was made to the specs we wanted. Working with MCS has been easy and we've installed and sold a good number of their singles (TT1), internal doubles (TT2) and doubles with remotes (RR2) onto our various customer cars.



You can read more about the BRZ project here, but the plan quickly became to drive this car in its Street Touring class (STX) at the same event as two S197s we brought and ran in STU. Amy drove our 2013 GT (which is still for sale - hello, is this thing on??) and Mark C drove again his 2012 GT in STU class, so we could compare times against each other and against the other STU and STX cars in attendance. There were a number of strong regular competitors in STX cars at this event who ran in other classes for various reasons (mostly time of day choices). Still, it was worth comparing to the top ST cars there, so we will, at the bottom of this post section.

Vorshlag Photo & Video Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...andall-081813/

So Amy Fair, my wife, is a 3 time National Champion autocrosser (STU-L twice and ESP-L last year) was running our 2013 Mustang GT in STU. This car is far from under-prepped, and in fact had a couple of "illegal for STU" mods, but this was a good venue to test those things because they were both items we've been asking the STAC/SEB to include for solid axle STU cars. The main suspension items were a $5000 set of AST remote reservoir double adjustable shocks with 400F/200R coilover spring rates.



The 2013 also has a big adjustable Eibach front swaybar, plenty of front camber (VM plates), upgraded and ducted 14" Brembo brakes, and 295/35/18 (10mm wider than allowed in STU - for now) Nitto NT-05s (200 treadwear) on our Vorshlag/D-Force 18x10" wheels. It also has Whiteline rear control arm Relocation brackets (also not yet allowed) plus a Whiteline Adjustable Panhard bar, to center the axle since it is lowered approx. 2 inches. This car had zero power mods, as it already made 377 whp with the bone stock 5.0L Coyote motor - which is too much for 295mm street tires to deal with on TRACK (see above), much less use in thae "knife fight in a phone booth" which is autocross.



Have I mentioned that this car is for sale? Oh, there, I did it again. Somebody is going to come by and drive this car, realize what an amazing deal this is, and buy it. And then rub it in other peoples' faces.



Mark C is a bit newer to autocross (couple of years) but has a solidly prepped car as well, and was running on fresh RS-3 Hankooks in 285/35/18. These felt like they had a good bit more stick than the year-old 295 Nittos on our car, so the extra 10mm was probably a wash, if that. Mark's Mustang was on AST 4150 coilovers, 550F/250R springs, BMR adjustable panhard bar, the same 18x10" wheels with the aforementioned "200" treadwear RS-3s (they used to be 140 treadwear but Hankook asked the Pope to sprinkle holy water on them and viola! they are now 200). It also has a Torsen T-2R aftermarket diff, 14" Brembos, and some other goodies, but also stock power.



SCCA Event Results: http://texasscca.org/2013_solo_resul..._final.htm#STU

I guess the BRZ was fairly well prepped for STX, too. I figured beforehand that we might give the two STU Mustangs a run for the money, and was hoping just to keep within a second of the fast STX guys that I watch in our region, like Brad Maxcy's BMW 328is and Mark Sipe's RX8.

Mark C (STU 150) and Amy (STU 197) ran their 5.0 Mustangs in the first heat of four for the day - which was both good and bad. It was good because the surface temperatures on this concrete lot were lower, as were ambient temps in the morning runs. This meant the tires wouldn't get overheated as quickly - but we still had to spray tires on both cars after runs 2-4. At least the didn't have co-drivers to add to the tire heat. But it was bad because the course surface for first heat wasn't as clean as it gets later. Texas Region SCCA does a phenomenal job in prepping the course, with multiple backpack air blowers and brooms, but nothing replaces car tires scrubbing the surface clean. And the course was a bit tricky. It was long, with a LOT of slaloms and near-offsets, perfect for narrow cars - more of what I call a "Miata-centric" course, which we see a lot since the course designer drives a Miata (love ya JJ!). It also had three increasingly tight 180° turn-arounds that joined long-ish acceleration zones. This was AWD heaven.

Walking it I could see the two STU Mustangs probably having trouble with corner exit traction compared to the AWD cars in their class, as the exits from each major "slow down element" (the three turn-arounds) were pinched off (aka: decreasing) and not what these cars need to "excel". The tightness of the 180s were also going to be tough to navigate in these big cars, as were the slaloms. But the BRZ on 17x9" wheels and brand new 255/40/18 BFG Rivals was almost as wide, at a measured 71" outer track width. So it might struggle through the slaloms, too.



It turned out to NOT be the case for the BRZ. This car was eating up the slaloms! In the video linked above (which has horrible audio, thanks to a previous gen GoPro HD camera) is my best run in the BRZ. It was a GRIP BUGGY, and at 2700 pounds with 255 Rivals, excellent shocks and great camber, I guess it should be. My first run in the BRZ absolutely obliterated both STU Mustangs. Now I did run in heat 4, so the course surface was cleaner. But it was also 90°F, so it was hotter when a ran, too. And I was co-driving in a 2-driver car with Matt, and we had to do fast driver changes - we barely had time to spray the tires, switch numbers and reset the seat/wheel between runs, and we had help (thanks, Olof and Mark).



So it looked like Matt's BRZ was pretty quick for having zero testing, at its first ever autocross. We basically threw a bunch of parts at this car, took some guesses at set-up, and went out there and drove it. Of course the parts didn't suck... custom spec'd MCS TT1 coilovers, 450#/in springs, Vorshlag plates, Whiteline bars, Enkei 17x9" RPF-1 wheels (15.8 pounds) and brand new 255/40/17 BFG Rivals. It needs a test day to get the bars, spring rates and other adjustments sorted, but we tweaked shock settings and tire pressures during the event and it felt pretty damned good.

This car was hooked UP on this course. At 2700 pounds the BRZ has a huge weight advantage on the 3600 pound S197s in STU, but with 166 whp it lacks a bit in the "go" department. I beat on that car like a rented mule, launching from the Start at 5500 rpms and taking it to redline several times on course; even using 3rd gear on most of my runs. These cars have relatively low power levels, but it just didn't matter. This is autocross, where WEIGHT WINS. In the end the BRZ was 3.6 seconds faster than Mark or Amy in STU and 1.5 sec faster than the winner in STU. That was shocking, and more than a little depressing. I mean, sure, I knew the BRZ could be faster but not THAT much faster than two well prepped STU S197 5.0 cars.

Matt, the car's owner and a 5 year veteran here at Vorshlag, is still a novice autocrosser yet beat the 30 car Novice class handily in the same BRZ. So I guess we had the car set-up well enough from the start. Co-driving the car with him in the last heat of the day made it tight on driver switchover timing, and the car slowed down on my last 2 runs - we think from both tire and brake pad heat (he had on the OEM pads and I was turning them to goo with my hectic Left Foot Braking). We just could not get the tires cooled down on our last 2 runs.


Left: Twin turbo LSx powered 68 Camaro on street tires! Right: 2 liters of naturally aspirated fury pumping out 166 whp. Its no Coyote 5.0.

PAX Results: http://texasscca.org/2013_solo_results/tr13_6_pax.htm

I will be the first to admit that I'm no "momentum" car driver, yet the times still PAX'd 13th out of 121, and won STX class by a 2.5 sec margin. My best run in the BRZ was run #3, still with with a passenger on board (took passengers on runs 1-3, then took runs 4-5 solo), so I know the car had more left in it. I feel that the tires were just a tick too hot, and word is the Rivals do not take extreme heat well - but what does well in Texas summer heat with 2-drivers running back to back? Not a whole lot. Normally you don't want to have a 2-driver car in any class in this kind of heat.


Amy driving the 2013 (at left) in the same 180° corner as Mark in his 2012 (at right).

Looking at the results, the two STU Mustangs were bringing up the tail end of their class. It seems that the Mustangs were very close to each other, and in the end Mark beat Amy by .009 sec, which is no small feat. Sure, Amy was coning runs left and right (3 of 5 runs) but her fastest run was clean and on her 5th and final attempt. Maybe her car's tires were past their due date (NT-05s were never that grippy), but she was hustling around that course and stepping on cone bases, cutting good lines. She's been racing since 1993 and often matches or beats my times, but she's a bit rusty in Solo this year. And in case you are wondering, I might guess that.... I might have put a second on her that day in that car, maybe. I almost never beat her by more than that, and we are often in the same tenth (or she beats me) when we co-drive together.



The image above (click or any other it for larger version, as always) is a "composite results" listing I put together of all of the STX & STU cars. I even dragged in some StreetMod and X class entries, that were really STX or ESP cars (but not the entire X or SM classes). Sometimes the online results disappear over time, so I like to make my own copy. This grouping shows all of the cars that matter to the STU Mustang. As you can see there was a good variety of cars in the STU class, including a 2.5L WRX, an EVO X, an E46 M3 (Gaith's car, which we have worked on several times), and the two Mustangs bringing up the rear. STU should be faster than STX, of course, but it doesn't always work out this way.

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above

It looks like my STX winning time was also good enough to top STU and all of the STX cars at the event but one, as Mark Sipe cleaned up some cone trouble with a hero 5th run (running in Street Mod during heat 3) that put almost 9 tenths on the BRZ. He's a damn fast driver and has been racing that RX8 since about 2006, and it is set up well. Maxcy was fast in his well prepped BMW 328is (running in X class) but also had cone trouble and sat on his 1st run. Since he was in X class and they automatically DSQ the 4th and 5th runs (that class only), and he was a bit closer on his 5th run. Madarash's ESP car was smoking fast, and even with the harder SMod factor he just out-placed me in PAX results. After watching all of my runs on video, there was clearly more time in the BRZ than we saw in this first event, with better driving and a developed set-up. As usual I complained more about power than anything, and there are some proven power mods on these cars out now, too.



In the end I think this event was a better test point for the "S197 in STU" idea than the last autocross where Mark and I drove his 2012 GT in two different heats on differing courses (mid-event course change, ugh). The times we see in these results show another piece of data supporting the request allowing more tire on the Mustangs in STU. Even with 295s and $100 worth of "cheater" rear suspension upgrades, it was still lacking. Both Mustangs would have gotten killed in the old STX class, especially running on the skinnier 265mm tires, so I think STU is still the right move for these cars. Of course everyone can always drive better and Mark will only get faster as he gets more seat time and mods on the car, but Amy isn't new to this sport and neither of them brought an un-prepped STU car.

Since there is still no resolution in sight on the ESP Watts Link rules debacle (delayed until 2015, for no good reason), see I will continue to not build a car of my own around an SCCA class in 2014. This is unusual for me, as I have almost always had a car built around some SCCA Solo class rules since I started autocrossing in the late 80s. Instead I will try to continue to co-drive cars like Matt's STX BRZ or maybe Mark's STU Mustang, at local events through this year and maybe even into next season. Might do the "local" National level events but I won't travel for them. We have been doing 25-30 race weekends a year for the past 7 or 8 years in a row, and it is taking its toll. Amy and I will continue to concentrate our personal cars and efforts on campaigning our 2011 Mustang in NASA TT (as well as another car we are building) next year, which as a club has been a good bit easier to deal with.

We are also on the list for a 2015 Mustang, as soon as they are released, whatever it looks like or weighs. Who knows how the SCCA will class this car, or if it will be heavier than the outgoing chassis? I think that all of the rumors out now of it being lighter than the S197 are wildly optimistic, but I am hopeful that with IRS it might have better corner exit traction. Time will tell. However it turns out we will try to make it better, and track + autocross it to test parts we develop for this new chassis.

More Aero Prep on TT3 Mustang

Now for the stuff most of you have been waiting for - if you even bothered to read the autocross bits above, I thank you. Many of you have been watching the progress of our front aero work from the past two weeks on the Vorshlag Facebook page. But for the rest of you, let's catch up from where we left off in the last update, where we were just starting to get the new aero development underway. Don't forget that almost every picture I post can be clicked for a larger rez version.



One big slab of 6061-T6 x .190 sheet makes up the new splitter, and yes, we probably went too thick and this thing has a sizable amount of heft. Its hard to tell in the small picture above (left) how much bigger the new unit really is. The black one is the Leguna Seca ABS splitter sitting on top of our aluminum BMF splitter. The Leguna piece sticks out past the lower fascia by 5.5". The new unit sticks out front by 10.25", almost double the forward length. It also goes back a couple of feet and is wider by nearly 4" per side, and is mounted 1" lower as well. The extra width is there to better line up with the upcoming tire spats/flares that will cover the front of the 18x12" front wheels. Spinning tires sticking out in the air stream are a big contribution to drag, so we planned to cover the leading edges.



The spacer to lower the splitter was built out of is 1" square aluminum tubing, pie cut on the back side and bent to match the curved contour of the lower fascia. This was then TIG welded back together while held in the fixture shown above, ground smooth, drilled for the existing mounting holes, and bolted between the splitter and fascia it becomes a rigid spacer. Ed cut and shaped this thing one night using his portable band saw, then Ryan (who did 90% of all of the work in this aero mod project) welded and ground it smooth, and it came out looking much nicer than any race part should. If we have ground clearance issues we can remove this 1" spacer and adjust the rear mounting eyes upward to match.



The radiator I talked briefly about in my previous post is shown above. Yes, it is a Mishimoto unit, which is a fabricated, all-aluminum radiator that is much larger than the OEM piece. It bolts in place and has the integral mounts for the A/C condenser, which is still on this car. We were going to buy the Ford Racing Boss-S radiator (M-8005-MGT), but at $750 retail (still $650+ at the lowest shipped price) I just couldn't stomach that. We have had excellent results with Mishimoto radiators in the past on LS1 BMWs (I have one in my new E46 LSx build, one in the Alpha E36 making 490 whp, McCall had one in his Z3 LS1, Matt has one in his E36 LS1, etc). Then we realized... damn, we're a Mishimoto dealer, and they do make an S197 drop-in radiator. We sell this radiator now for $247, which is a steal. I will touch on how it worked in my coverage of the ECR track test, below (excellent).



Above left you can see the "waterfall" air deflector that we built for behind the radiator. There are brackets that hold it in place (not shown in these pics yet) and it has rubber edging and cut-outs near any radiator hose. This deflector seals to the bottom of the radiator but is open on the sides. It directs the airflow up towards the hood ducting, but isn't part of a 100% sealed duct system. We talked to other race engineers and they agreed - the small incremental improvements from making a 100% sealed radiator-to-hood duct system is not worth the added work compared to what we have done here. We could get 90-95% of the benefit for 1/3rd the work. The upper right pic shows the first iteration of the rear splitter mounts. These are custom made pin mounts that go into small spherical eyes that can be adjusted up/down for a better fit. We have 3 on there, and the outer 2 have latching pins.



Above left are the fabricated struts that hold the front of the splitter and bolt to the fabricated push bar behind the bumper cover. These are adjustable in length and made from aluminum tubing and steel threaded eye ends. They have been weight tested and also proven on track, don't worry. The above right picture is with the hood ducting cut and some corrugated cardboard stuffed in place, for mock-up. Then Brandon did his photoshop tricks and made the blue hood look red.



Building the hood ducting was done in the method shown above. We looked at other ways, and even attempted to weld on the aluminum sheet that the OEM hood is made of. welding was a major chore so we went with rivets. The aluminum side panels have small angle pieces riveted to them and to the hood, and he structure is actually stronger than before due to the boxed shape of the two ducts.



How big are the ducts, and why didn't we just "buy a Tiger Racing hood!", like so many people suggested? Well, as you can see, a human head will fit through the duct openings, so they are bigger than anything we've seen out there. The drop on the ducting is also very deep, unlike any off the shelf hood we have found for the S197. This drop was only possible by moving the coolant reservoir and factory routing of the cold-air inlet to the middle and going over the radiator support. THIS was why we did all of that work. The TR hood also has the ducts in less than ideal placement, in my humble opinion, moving from a low presure (forward) to high pressure zone back by near the windshield. It is also $1500+ for a composite hood that is prone to cracking, and a real bear to paint (according to a body shop I talked to that has done a half dozen), whereas this is a $300 used aluminum OEM hood with just "some fab hours" into it. It is still light and yet strong enough to work for years without cracking. Mostly it allowed us to make the ducting as deep as we wanted in where we wanted, instead of being stuck with an aftermarket composite hood's shape and layout.



As you can see above, Ryan added some epoxy seam sealer to the edges of the hood openings where the sheets of aluminum met. Again, welding this OEM material proved problematic, so we went with rivets and panel bonding epoxy on everything. It is air tight and STRONG. The ducts are BIG, placed in the correct low pressure areas (in theory), and they drop WAY down and grab air from the now uncovered back of the radiator, with more flow pushed upwards from the waterfall deflector. This hood ducting combined with the massive splitter we fabricated should produce significantly more front downforce than the LS splitter we used before, even at low speeds. In theory. Neither Jason nor I are aero engineers, but our mechanical engineering backgrounds aren't from another planet, either. We also know some smart aero guys who gave us a lot of tips.

Continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above



We never got a good picture with the bumper cover off of the new "Corvette style" air cleaner installed onto the end of our fabricated aluminum intake tube, and now that is all buried under the front end and I don't want to pull it all apart for a pic. Above are a couple of pictures with the clear cellophane still on the air cleaner, but mounted in place. Removing the big, bulky factory bumper beam and foam crash structure and replacing it with the fabricated 1.75" x .120" wall DOM tube allowed a lot of extra SPACE for the rather large air cleaner to sit and draw air from. It is up out of the air stream with just the carbon fiber "lid" visible from the grill opening. It might get a tiny bit of extra airflow from some "ram air" effect, but I doubt it will be noticeable (it wasn't on track). That wasn't the intent of the new intake tube routing and air cleaner location - it was all about making room behind the radiator for the new hood ducting's surface area.



In order to leave as much room behind the radiator for more surface area on the hood, to allow more flow through the ducting, we ditched the OEM electric fan and shroud. Why? The stock fan shroud was VERY THICK (4" or more), and it was also sealed to the entire back surface of the radiator. This is a good thing on a 100% street car with stock grill and stock radiator, as it allows the fan to suck air from the full back surface of the radiator and not just the round area that the fan blade covers. We aren't as concerned about stop and go traffic driving as much now, and once you are up to speed (45 mph or so) on track the "free flow" across the radiator makes the electric fan irrelevant - and in fact, the shroud can restrict free flow at speed. So we added a slim aftermarket 16" diameter electric fan without a shroud. This mounts to the Mishimoto's upper and lower flanges with custom aluminum brackets Olof fabbed up. We have it tied into the factory wiring harness and it functions just like the stock fan (computer controlled). When Ed and I ran the car Friday night to burp the new coolant system (filled with distilled water), the engine idled for about 20 minutes and the fan came on 2 times for about 30 seconds. Trust me, it moves some air. You can feel it sucking in on the front of the radiator and also blowing hard up from the waterfall deflector. We had to wait for the track test to see if the ducting work would pay off with adequate cooling, seeing that we blocked off over half of the grill opening area. We were warned by countless Mustang folks watching the pics on FB that it would overheat and melt the block like the core of the earth, too.



Another area we wanted to improve was the oil / air separator system. We have been using the JLT for over 2 years, and had upgraded their normal kit to have a real mounting bracket (we fabbed) and real metal fittings and lines (the JLT kit comes with plastic bits that eventually crack/leak). It was OK but the kit we had only drew crankcase pressure from one cylinder head - the passenger side. I picked up the can from a Moroso kit a while back and used it in a new system we built. This larger Moroso oil / air separator draws from both valve covers, into the separator, with a vacuum source on the other side of the can. We were pressed for time and simply used 5/8" heater hose for the lines with Norma clamps crimped at each end. We set-up the Moroso can using fittings with hose barb ends that we put together and mounted to the firewall with the included mounting bracket. I hoped the heater hose could take suction without collapsing (it doesn't!), but we had the track test to check that out at.



I'll cover the new flashy bits and we'll move on to the track test. First you will see coil covers are painted red now instead of blue, which I had spray bombed 2 years ago. A recent Vorshlag customer upgraded to some metal Ford Racing units and gave us his painted red ones, which actually match this car's body color so we swapped them out. Meh, it was a freebie, and the blue covers were a bit garish. The other bit of flash is the GOLD foil on the intake tube. This is not just for hard parkers, as it is used on real race cars all the time. This foil is DEI reflective gold foil, which we've used before on other builds, especially when the intake tube is around a source of radiant heat (like this one, which routes right over the top of the radiator and sticks out in the post-radiator air stream). And Brandon just took this shot (above right) of the air cleaner with the bumper on - note how it isn't really in the air stream, but tucked up behind the bumper cover. Un-ram air.



At left above we have the fabricated aluminum grill cover riveted to the factory grill surround. It isn't the final cover I had envisioned (wanted a smoother, more aerodynamic insert), but it was already made and we went with it for the track testing - and might not mess with it for a while. You can also see the tow hook we finally added to the front of the car. Yes, we went 3 years without a tow hook - and luckily never needed one. Whew! Above right I am doing the "200 pound splitter load test". The splitter doesn't bend, instead the front suspension just takes up the extra compression load, as it should.

We had a LOT of late nights over the previous 2 weeks to get the car track ready, and finished up Saturday night and loaded the car into the trailer at around 10 pm. As I was installing 4 temporary hood pins Ryan swapped on new front Centric rotors, new Carbotech XP20 pads, and flushed a little Motul 600 through the lines. The track prep went to just about the last minute. The plan was to test at ECR on Sunday morning at 9 am.

Note: we did not have the flares completed when we went to test, we do understand that some bad aero drag occurs when the tire is visible from the front like this, but they were partially done before the test - just not enough to mount them. Due to some business reasons, we are not showing the manufacturing techniques for our flares. Nothing revolutionary, but I've never seen flares done the way we have in mind - and it could completely flop, so I don't want to show my ass if it does, ya know? There are some teaser shots of the flares in progress, below, from after the track test.

Dyno Tuning at True Street

We have to back up a couple of days to cover the dyno tuning we had done before heading to ECR. On Friday before we went to the track to test we delivered the Mustang pieced together just enough to get it to True Street Motorsports, who does all of our Mustang engine tuning. The bumper cover and splitter weren't attached yet, but that didn't matter for the chassis dyno pulls. We've been using True Street for close to 3 years, and they have re-tuned our car after each major change. Our motor is bone and cooling systems have stayed all stock, never been opened up, and never given a single hiccup, thanks in no small part to their custom tuning. They've been the folks that kept our dyno numbers solid (430 whp back in 2011) yet keep the tune safe enough to beat on for 3 years and 17,000 miles.


Left: Driving to a corner gas station to fill up with 93 octane. Right: loading up to go to the tuner

Any time you make a change to your Mustang (with regards to power parts) it could need a new tune. I am not a believer in "mail order tunes", because without driving the car and/or putting it on a dyno and pulling air:fuel numbers and seeing the power curve and listening for knock, it is an impossible task to do this well. I am, however, a strong supporter of working with a local shop and getting proper dyno tunes done on your car, in person, with no e-mailing of files involved. Also, before you buy a stand-alone tuner (we use the SCT) talk to your local tuner shop and buy the tuner from them. You are always better off patronizing your local tuner with parts orders. Sure, you might spend $10 whole dollars more than the cheapest of the cheapest online parts wh0rehouses, but it will pay off in the long run with one-on-one help from YOUR shop that does YOUR tune, right on their own dyno. If you have a 5.0 Mustang in live in North Dallas, trust me, True Street is the place to get your go-fast goodies and engine tuning from. Come to Vorshlag for your suspension parts/work, for sure, but go to True Street for your power parts and tuning.



Anyway, Ryan and I stopped by and talked about an upcoming event (see below) then we asked Sean to give us a "safe" tune once again. By safe I mean tune it for 93 octane, fix any air:fuel changes induced with our custom intake tube/MAF, keep the timing curve from being on the ragged edge, and make sure the power curve looks smooth. They are very good at this and won't do "hero tunes" to squeeze out that last tenth of a hp while endangering your motor. We also asked for a few small updates, like going back to the OEM throttle map (removing our "street tire autocross" traction control mapping they made for us).




Since we were about to go race at Miller Motorsports Park in SLC, with an elevation of 4000 feet, we asked for a slightly milder spark curve than normal. That coupled with the intense heat that day (100+F in the dyno cell) made for a slightly softer number than before (I'm not sharing until after Nationals, sorry), but the air:fuel numbers were cleaned up and there were no unusual dips in the power or torque curves. We can also pull out a few pounds with this new number (we were at 424 whp and 3770 pounds on DOT tires in TT3). Of course we will stick the car on a dyno at Miller, to make sure everything is copacetic in case we get dyno'd after competition begins (it can happen, as can a scale check). If we need to add or remove ballast based on their dyno numbers, we can before racing starts. We can also tweak the timing, peak RPM and some other factors trackside if we need to adjust for the elevation, available fuel, observed knock, etc. I used to do a little EFI tuning many eons ago, so I understand the basics, and Sean only allowed us access to the most basic of alterations. Again - I'm not looking to add more power, just to be able to keep it safe. We lowered the rev limiter from 7800 to 7200, for sanity's sake (we only had it set that high to avoid 2-3 shifts in autocrosses; power falls off hard above 6500).

Test Day at ECR, August 26, 2013

Brandon and Ryan from Vorshlag and racing buddy Jason McCall met up with me and Amy at our house Sunday morning for the trek out to Eagles Canyon Raceway, which is located about 70 miles from our shop. This is our home track, and where I've got the most track miles since I did the first NASA event there in 2008. Lately we have been out at ECR at least once a month, sometimes 2 or even 3 times in a 4 week period. Long story short - this is where we could put in the most reliable laps without "driver course learning" coming into play.

Vorshlag Photo and Video Gallery for ECR Track Test: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...ay-ECR-082613/



Now the 2.5 mile ECR circuit is far from a high speed test track, as most of the corners are fairly tight with long-ish straights in between (125 mph top speeds). It would not normally have been the ideal location for testing the new aero. And honestly, we didn't think we would put in a full day of data logging and aero testing - this was more of a place to take the new set-up and do basic shake down testing, to make sure nothing fell off or burned up. If we noticed any aero imbalance we figured the semi-fast corners in T1/T2, T4, T9, T10 and T11 might show us. It is also much closer to our shop than any other track, and the folks that run it are very cool and accommodating.



After we got there we had even more folks join us, including Olof from our shop, a Boss302 owner and fellow track junkie Jerry Cecco, and Dave B - who brought his GTS3 BMW our to test with us. We set-up the sunshade and put out chairs while the fluids were topped off and the car was checked out.

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above



Loading and unloading the car from the trailer requires the front splitter to come off, and we've designed the splitter so that it stays attached to the bumper cover and all comes off as a unit. We quickly found that lining the splitter's rear mounting pins up with the mating holes while sitting on the ground is much harder than when on our 4 post lift, even with 3 people shoving it this way and that. After nearly 45 minutes we got the pins lined up and pinned, the front retaining struts bolted on, and the ends of the bumper cover bolted in place. Whew.



Above you can see me standing on the "ankle cutter" again - which always freaks people out. Honestly when you're trying to work on the front of the car you kinda have to stand there. It has been tested to 300 pounds now, too. At right Ryan is strapping on a helmet to take a ride in the Mustang for the first time on a road course. He has driven the car countless times on the street, and even ridden in it at an autocross, just hasn't had a chance to grab a ride on track yet. At most track days he's usually too busy working on other customers' cars or taking temps and measuring data on our own.



We were testing on the newer set of 18x12 Forgestar F14s ($350/each) at all 4 corners mounted with a used set of 315mm Hoosier R6 tires. These wheels and tires were used at NASA @ Hallett on June 22-23 and all day with 2 drivers at the June 29th Five Star Ford ECR track day. So they had some miles, but more importantly they were the same tires we had run at ECR 6 weeks earlier in nearly the same conditions. Any improvements (or slow downs) could at least be nullified from the tires. In the shake down laps Ryan and I did and the car felt LOOSE, but I wasn't really pushing it hard yet, just running some 2:01 laps, checking the gauges (temps looked great all day), looking for any weird deflections in the hood and listening for the splitter rubbing or scraping.


Some external video of when the car was still feeling "a bit loose"

Brandon was shooting pics and video and the whole crew was standing at the pit wall, looking for anything weird, or laughing when I was drifting out of T11 (not on purpose). The splitter did touch on some curbing at the side on a few corners, but it showed no damage afterwards. This thing is TOUGH. One bump under braking into T6 was causing the splitter to barely touch on the front edge, but the old 5.5" Leguna Splitter touched in the same braking zone, so no surprise there. Ryan was very happy with how the car felt, especially the brakes ("WOW, this car really stops"). After a few gentle laps Ryan hopped out and we brought the car in for a thorough look at all systems.



After that look-see went well, we added some fuel then Olof (above) got in to ride shotgun for the next 2 sessions out. Each run was only 3-5 laps, but we were learning a lot as I pushed the car harder each lap. The car was LOOSE AS HELL, especially in the faster corners. So each time we came in we kept adding more angle of attack (AOA) on the rear wing. For sessions 4 and 5 I went out alone, to push the car at the TT3 race weight we would be running. With the final wing change we managed to get the car a bit more neutral and ran the lap below.



That video has some pretty bad driving from me, as usual, and it was still a bit loose. Even with some ridiculously late braking into T1, which turned into a big SLIDE, plus some bobbles in other corners, the car put down a 1:57.6 lap in 95 degree heat on well worn R6s. The best lap I ever have put in at ECR was a 1:56 back in November of last year, when it was 40 degrees cooler and we were on fresh 315 Kumhos, and didn't have these big driving errors. In June the best Amy or I could get out of the car was a 2:00 min lap, wringing it out all day, so we seemingly found 3 seconds on the same set of tires in the same heat. We could have stuck around for more laps and likely chopped off some more time, but it was getting towards 1:30 pm and everyone wanted to go eat and get out of there. Most of us had not taken a day off in weeks and we were all dead tired, too.

The car did make some funky noises all day, only under decel or idle, which we attributed to the vacuum pulling the hoses shut on the oil / air separator system. We are replacing these with proper suction-rated lines tomorrow.

TT3 Work Continues After Track Test

So the car was barely finished enough to take it to the track but we have a lot to wrap up before heading to NASA Nationals. The car is covered in grasshopper guts, half of it is unpainted, and the temporary hood pins we had installed need to be replaced with Aero latches. The flares aren't done, we have a lot of spares to put together, and the general pre-race prep needs to be redone.


Left: Actual look at the track test event. Right: Photoshop rendering in red

We always see a lot of bug hits on the cars raced in Texas when the grass is high, and this test day was no different. To reduce the impact of bug and rock hits on the radiator (actually the A/C condenser) we've got some Kevlar honeycomb grill protector material coming. This will go on the face of the heat exchanger and stay out of the higher pressure airflow at the grill opening. This stuff us used in circle track to take mud and rock hits and can be cleaned out quickly.



Lots of cleaning has to be done before the bumper cover goes to the painter. We have a lot of little paint work to tackle, too - like the raw steel bumper beam, the unpainted splitter needs some semi-flat black, and the grill cover will likely get some black, too.


You merely adopted the downforce, I was born in it.

Some guys on a fb car page made the Bane connection, above. Strangely that's the 4th Bane reference picture so far (and the funniest). I don't like to name cars, though, and we just call it "the Red Mustang" around here.



The flare mock-ups are shown above, with some photoshop work to cover up a few things. The final flares will look pretty similar to this, and they are open on the back for better air evacuation. Hopefully we have time to post up some pictures right before we load up on Monday Sept 2nd, with a painted car, new graphics applied, and at Nationals we will have another set of 18x12" wheels in a different color installed. A sticker set of Hoosier A6s are inbound, other bits and pieces will be here today, and the hood is already bodyworked and primed. I have to stop here and go finish some more flare work tonight.

Upcoming Events

NASA Nationals< Miller Motorsports Park, Sept 4-8th. Will post up about that probably a few days after we get back. But there are several other events we will be at right after Nats.

Five Star Ford track event at ECR, September 7th. - This is an event we would normally be attending in our Mustang, but most of us will be at the NASA Nationals. Matt is taking his BRZ out that day, and if I can find someone to drive it out there, our 2013 GT will be there for showing. These track events are fairly informal but well run, includes instructors for novice drivers, lunch is provided, and they have great SCCA corner workers present. $150 to sign up and you can see more details here.

NASA @ TWS, September 20-22nd. We will be competing at this event at Texas World Speedway, the 2nd time this event is run on the NASA schedule this year (different direction). They will have HPDE, Time Trials, Racing, and an Enduro. Here is a link to the event sign-up page.

Camaro VS Mustang: The Ultimate Battle - October 5th, Texas Motorplex in Ennis, TX. This is a multi-motorsports event being run by True Street Motorsports. This event is billed as a Camaro and Mustang event but is open to all GM and Ford powered vehicles. Events include drag racing and autocrossing; Vorshlag is joining forces with the Texas Region SCCA folks to set-up and run the autocross event. Vorshlag will have cash prizes for the fastest autocross times from both street tire (140+ treadwear) and race tire (DOT R-compounds or slicks) entries. The entry fee is very cheap ($45!) and the sign-up page is here.

There are more events, but that's all I am going to put out there right now. Gotta get to work...

Cheers,

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Pre-Nationals Update, Sept 2nd, 2013: It has been a very long week and we have been working hard on our Mustang every day since the test. A lot of things have been finished and cleaned up, and the crew is loading the car into the trailer now, at 10 pm the night before we drive to Miller. I will show a few pictures that are uploaded, but will do a better "catch up " post when we get back from the NASA Nationals...



The picture above shows the Kevlar honeycomb grill guard material and the air cleaner, in front of the radiator. If this honeycomb is damaged it can be quickly removed. It is a sacrificial material. A mesh grill out at the opening (high pressure area) would cause more airflow restriction than this stuff right at the radiator surface.



That's the front end all painted and ready for graphics. The guys at Heritage Collision Center in Sherman, TX did a fantastic job for such a short window, and over a 3-day holiday weekend at that. There is some clean-up work to do, as they ran out of color and couldn't get anyone to open their stores to make more, so don't over-analyze the paint just yet. We will bring the car back after Nationals, sans stripes, and they will re-shoot the hood. For the insane time frame we gave them, however it looks fantastic!

Ryan has been working damn near around the clock getting all of the little fab work done. Jason, Ryan and I worked with the flares and they came out "pretty good" for our first time vacuum forming ABS. We will show more pics of the flares when we get back. We learned a lot with this set, and will apply this knowledge and tweak our forming equipment to get a cleaner looking set of flares soon.



Amy and Jason did the stripes in about an hour, and they look excellent. They look like the old graphics but are indeed all new on the fenders and hood. The stripes dive down into the hood ducts and look slick. Big NASA decals adorn the car front and back.



That's the crew, with me on the left, Amy, then Jason and Ryan (with his eyes closed!). Brandon is on a ladder getting the shot. The rest of our guys are at home, asleep, on this Monday Labor Day holiday. Ed was here earlier helping with the build, as usual, but this time sporting a busted knee. We're loading the trailer and Amy and I leave for our 22 hour tow in about 6 hours. Sleep? Not part of the plan.

We hope to have fun at this, our first NASA Nationals. I want to thank everyone at Vorshlag that helped with this 3 week "new aero thrash" and flares prototype work. The final results are beyond my expectations and I hope it all works as good at Miller as they did at our ECR test. I also I can put in some good laps and don't embarrass everyone! Fingers crossed.

More soon,

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Project Update for Sept 17, 2013: Lots to cover in this update - the final pre-Nationals aero prep, paint, new wheels, coverage of NASA Nationals, the trip up and back, and plans for 2014. So much to cover that I'm going to break it up over several days. Otherwise it will be a mega update, then the eyes on the Short Attention Span kids will just glaze over and they will skip ahead just to see the pretty pictures. And believe me, there will be a lot of pretty pictures. Brandon went with us to Miller and shot hundreds of pics of dozens of cars, and Ryan worked on the car and helped me find 6 seconds of improvement over the 4 days we were racing at Miller.

Don't forget that virtually every picture in my forum posts can be clicked for a larger resolution image. Some of these pics are from my camera phone (GS4), but the ones Brandon took with his high end SLR gear are obvious and worth the effort to see the higher rez versions.

Pre-Nationals Prep

After our ECR test session we had one more week to do work on the car, and that included painting the entire front of the car. As you can imagine it was a nearly round-the-clock thrash to get the car finished, pretty, and loaded into the trailer. Most of this thrash was done by Ryan, Jason, me and Olof, with some help from Ed (who blew out his knee, yet still stopped by to pitch in).

So over the past three years of owning, racing and developing this 2011 Mustang GT we have learned one thing that has held true on every wheel and tire iteration: BIGGER IS BETTER. This big, heavy car has a lot of power and a lot of mass, and each time we went to a wider tire the car got faster, without exception. We have not found any limit to this rule yet, and even 345/35/18 Hoosier A6 tires were still easy to spin at autocross speeds, as seen below.



And while it looks like those 345mm tires fit the Mustang under stock fenders, they DON'T. They rubbed everywhere inboard, like mad, and wouldn't even bolt on the car without major changes to the rear swaybar (Whiteline style), a Watts Link, and more. It would still take a large amount of chassis fab work to make these fit - cutting the fenders and adding big flares would do it. Unfortunately Amy never allowed this, and even in the final months of ownership (more on this below) she is sticking to this limitation. Without flares the widest we can fit under the stock S197 fenders at the front or back is 315mm - anything wider rubs inboard or sticks past the fenders (and rubs under cornering if you run the ride height low enough). 315mm tires are not very big when you are talking about a 3500+ pound car making close to 500 hp. I looked at a lot of ST1/ST2/SIX cars at the recent NASA Nationals and all too many were on 345mm rears.



In my Sept 20th, 2012 thread update I mentioned that that we were working on solving this tire width limitation by making some bolt-on flares, inspired partly by the AIX Mustang shown above (the flares shown above are not for sale). We had planed on doing this to our 2013 GT, which I bought with the intent of cutting up and building a dedicated ESP classed autocross car. After the SCCA rules SNAFU we changed our plans, so we didn't get to do the chassis cutting needed to develop the S197 rear flares. There aren't any proper flares out there for this chassis (and yes, we know all about the RTR and Shelby versions, and all the rest); by proper I mean flares that can fit REALLY big tires, with a decent aero signature, and that don't cost $6000+. When we bought some extra front fenders, Amy gave us the green light to cut and flare the front. Which we did a week before Nationals...



What we had in mind was something a bit more modern and sleeker than the "cover the top of the tire" flares shown on the black AIX Mustang. Leaving the leading edge of a spinning tire in the airstream creates lots of drag; for lower drag and better evacuation from the fenderwell/undercar areas you want the back side of the flare OPEN, and even curve the trailing edge of the fender opening in if you can. We took some aero cues from several existing race cars and melded that with a little styling from the hard parking ("rough") crowd's flares and made these.



Now I will be the first to admit that these flares are far from perfect; these are very functional prototypes, with which we learned many lessons. I'd say they are a 6 out of 10 cosmetically, but we will make prettier versions. We have learned a lot and have more yet to learn with thermal formed plastic flares - making the bucks/molds, tweaking our heater, improving our vacuum table, and experimenting with more materials. We made all of our own vacuum forming equipment (which I'm not showing on purpose - sorry) and this is about version 1.2 of the flares. We still have several more iterations and technique improvements in store before we make something worth selling. And honestly, most people will want the "more looks/less aero" version with a little more styling (something more akin to this), which we plan to do. And we will make the rear flares, just not going to cut on this car's chassis due to Amy's restrictions on her car. Someone will bring us an S197 we can cut on a little, and we will make the rears around a 345mm wide tire at that time. The fronts clear 335mm wide tires.


The honking oil catch can system

The oil catch can and hoses were upgraded from the old JLT kit we had added (then heavily modified). I talked about this before the ECR test, but in short the new system has a larger catch can (from Moroso) and mounts to the firewall. We thought we routed it the same way as the Boss 302-S race cars, but not quite. Instead of the JLT system that was pulling from just one cylinder head, we pulled air from both, with the lines T-'d together on the right side of the catch can. On the left of the can is a line that pulls from a vacuum source in the intake manifold. So theoretically the engine vacuum from the intake manifold pulls through the catch can, and grabs oil/vapor/air from the top of the motor from both valve covers, and the oil separates out into droplets inside the metal mesh filter inside the can. Once it falls out of suspension it pools in the bottom of the catch can, which can be drained between race weekends. In theory only air goes back into the intake manifold, not "oily air". Burning oil can cause detonation, of course.



So we showed a version of this system before the ECR test and the heater hose we used there was collapsing badly under deceleration/high vacuum - so much so that it made this loud "honking" noise that sounded like a dying goose (see video linked above), even at idle. Pinching off the vacuum source made the noise go away. So we replaced the heater hoses used at the ECR test with suction rated hoses. And it still collapsed on one side. Bruce from Ford Racing looked at the routing and immediately saw the issue - we sill have the PCV valve in the passenger side valve cover. Duh. So that valve closes under load, which puts that hose under extreme vacuum on that side. The fix is to get a driver's side valve for both sides - which deletes the PCV valve, suitable for a race car. We will try this before the next event (NASA @ TWS) and see how it does.



The hood latches/pins were a bit of a bear to install. I bought some "flush under mount" Aerolatches (but I meant to get the top mount) and was hoping to install them before the ECR test. Well we ran out of time and instead temporarily installed some simpler Sparco style hood pins for that track test. That took a couple of hours, whereas the Aerolatches took another 4+ hours to do correctly before we went to Nationals. Total PITA, but well worth it in the long run.



As you can see, they are much more aerodynamic, with considerably less drag when installed than the old school hood pin "posts" that protrude above the hood and have a separate securing pin that hooks through the hole in the post. The latches come with templates to use for marking and cutting the tapered oval openings and drilled holes for securing bolts. A very fiddly installation, so take your time and don't rush this. Aerolatches are not something you want to do the night before a race, trust me. It might take you an entire day to do 4 of them, if it is your first time.



The up/down alignment of the posts is critical, as is the angle of the post through the hood/into the latch, as is the latch alignment to the post. But once you have them installed and adjusted correctly (don't be afraid to use a light touch with a sledge hammer to persuade them during alignment) they mount flush, and when open the latches are very visibly so. Some folks paint the top of the latch a bright and contrasting color, so they are even more visible when open. But the black plastic stands out well against the red hood, so we left them unpainted. We used 4 across the hood to hold them down - some folks use only 2, but on an S197 there are 4 rubber "hood bumpers" that make for great spots to mount the pins/latches.



The hood struts we added to this car are nice, but everything has limits. As some of you may remember, one of these struts popped loose last May in some 30+ mph wind gusts, and the hood went crashing into the windshield. This was when the car was parked in the grid, facing into the wind, during an SCCA National Tour event in Nebraska. We had to finish the weekend with a destroyed windshield, and the hood was damaged every so slightly at the rear corners. It broke one hood hinge, too, which we replaced. So we don't trust the hood struts completely, and have been using these + the OEM hood prop to hold the hood from opening completely whenever there is even the slightest breeze in grid or paddock.



But having these self-raising hood struts is convenient, and now that the 3" diameter intake tubing is passing right over the top of the radiator, the hood prop no longer fits with the hood down. With the new hood we had just been using a broom handle to hold the hood up in paddock and the shop after we added the hood ducting and intake tube - but after the stick was bumped, it fell off and the hood bonked into my noggin, I went ahead and grabbed the hood-side mounts off of the old hood and reinstalled the hood struts. Two holes to drill on the hood and everything transferred over. Well except the bottom end of one hood strut was smashed in the previous "paddock incident" (the plastic end cup is broken), so I spent half an hour looking through all of the OEM replacement hood struts at the local parts store, found one that kind of fit, and it worked enough for careful use at Nationals. With some zip ties holding it together. Just use some common sense when pointed into the wind, or you could face the same consequences we did (new windshield + new hood hinge + damaged hood). Called RedlineTuning and they are sending us the plastic replacement end for the strut, free of charge - thanks.

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above



On Saturday before we were to leave Ryan had the calipers off to make new brake ducting backing plates for our car. We've been making these for customers in small batches, and will add them to our website in the next week or so, as front brake ducting kits for the 14" Brembo cars. During the reinstall of the calipers one of the M12 bolts stripped out the threaded hole in the aluminum caliper - which figures, because Ryan asked for new calipers 2 months ago, and I had said "Nah, these are fine..." We figured these holes have been screwed and unscrewed close to 150 times, so it was time to replace them. We couldn't get a replacement caliper on the 3-day Labor Day weekend and were set to leave early Tuesday morning, so I picked up a heli-coil kit at a local NAPA and Ryan fixed that on Monday.



Our previous set of backing plates (our first set we made about 2 years ago) were as bad as most out there, having had the cooling hose pointed mostly at the rotor face. The new ducts our guys built have the inlet moved inboard, to blow air inside the rotor's friction ring and at the hub. This lets the vanes of the rotor pull the air through the inside of the rotor and out, and also cools the front hubs. Our plates have the correct tubing size to fit inside a 3" brake duct hose without having to remove the reinforcing metal ring winding in the brake duct hose, unlike all of the other brake cooling kits we have installed before (including the Ford Racing kit). It isn't that hard to do it right, but nobody else seems to. Our plates are made from new OEM backing plates, trimmed down with a piece left in place to shield the tie rod from rotor heat, yet leaving the rotor face open. We bead blast them to raw metal, cut to fit the round tubing, TIG weld it all together, then have them powder coated black. More on these as soon as we get a batch back from the powder coater and added to our website.

Since we didn't want to get any grief from NASA's "50/50" rule (the car has to look good from 50 feet at 50 mph), we had to pull the car apart for paint before heading to Nationals. We sent the fenders on Wednesday night, and we got them the hood and bumper cover by Friday on the Labor Day weekend. They had it all painted by Sunday, and it came out great. We rushed the heck out of them and the hood wasn't cut and buffed, but we were out of time and picked it up anyway.



Once the front body panels were picked up we started to quickly reassemble the front of the car. This happened on Monday - Labor Day - and we spent the entire day getting it all put together. The splitter and lower fascia had to go back onto the bumper cover, the fenders had to go on and be aligned, the hood had to go back on and be aligned, and the Aerolatches had to be reinstalled.



Once the fenders and front bumper cover were on we could finally install the flares, which we built while the fenders were being painted. The flares turned out pretty well for a first effort, but we will definitely make some improvements. We added a cut at the bumper cover to fender parting line, so we can pull the front bumper cover and splitter off to make it easier to roll the car into the trailer.



You can see the side mirror block off plates that Olof built, for both door mirrors. This was "the drag racer" Ed's idea, to reduce drag on the higher speed Miller track; I'll talk about how fun it is to drive the car with huge blind spots, down in my event write-up. Once the flares were trimmed and bolted on Amy and Jason started on graphics, while Ryan was corner weighing the car (came in the first time at a 49.8% cross - good enough!).



We went ahead and kept the quickly built aluminum grill block off plate, which I degreased, taped off and painted semi-flat black. Then the sticker crew added a white Vorshlag graphic, the NASA graphics, and fresh rear flank Vorshlag graphics.



The white wheels had some scrub A6 tires mounted, as the sticker set we had ordered a week before was delayed by UPS. I was freaking out, but luckily our friends from Maxcyspeed were able to swing by and grab the 4 new tires as well as two new front calipers after we had left, then trucked them 25 hours across country and brought them to us in Salt Lake City. Whew!



You can see the hood stripes in many pictures from the event, which are similar to the previous version. These go down into hood duct openings so they are a bit wider in some areas, and we capped the front with a big NASA decal we made. There are also new decals for Whiteline, Maxcyspeed, MagnaFlow, Hoosier and others that were on the front half of the car. We added more contingency decals at the NASA Miller event for GoPro, MCS, Royal Purple and the required NASA Nationals event decals.



These two pictures above, from the Miller event, show how the entire splitter, bumper cover and grill come off as a unit. This makes it easy to load and unload the car from the trailer. It takes about six minutes to remove and 15 minutes to install the front of the car, with various bolted fasteners and the splitter support struts.



Other than some new rear pads we installed after ECR (the same rear Carbotechs have been on there for many months of abuse - since before NOLA in May) that is the extent of the pre-Nationals prep on the Mustang. We finished up working on the car and loading it and all of our spares and tools and tires into the trailer at about 11:30 pm Labor Day, we were home by midnight and packing our gear for the trip, and we rolled out the next morning at about 7:30 am...

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above

The Epic 25 hour Tow

The tow from Dallas to Salt Lake City was brutal, no way to sugar coat it. Longest tow we've done, and matched the mileage, windshield time and brutality of the tow to Buttonwillow in California in 2008. Google says 1440 miles, and we added about 3400 miles to the truck with the round trip + trips into SLC during the 4 days we were there. At least this time I wasn't using a gas powered 3/4 ton truck and an open trailer to go over the Rocky Mountains (never again). Amy and I made the trip to SLC by ourselves, and she chose the longer "all Interstate" route that went North out of Dallas on I-35, through Oklahoma to Salina, Kansas, then west to Denver on I-70. That leg is about 15 hours. North out of Denver on I-25 to Cheyene, Wyoming, then west on I-80 a-l-l-l-l-l the way across Wyoming and into Salt Lake City, Utah. The 2nd leg is about 10 hours, and has some mountainous climbs. This "around the bend" route is almost 150 miles farther than the shortest route (through New Mexico), but... we go around the worst climbs and descents of the Rocky Mountains and it is all Interstate. Highest elevation we saw was 8500 feet, and the steepest grade was 8%.



The trip up started Tuesday and ended on Wednesday afternoon, with very little sleep on Tuesday night in Denver. The 2013 F-350 (aka: Clifford the Big Red Truck) pulled up and down mountains like a boss, and was 100% worry free. But our trip wasn't without some adventure - our first trailer tire blowout happened just an hour from home, as we crossed the line into Oklahoma. Thanks Oklahoma! Amy was cruising at 75 mph in nearly 100 degree heat when that first one went, so apparently the BFG load range E tires didn't like that speed and temp. Because we blew another one on the way back, in similar ambient temps in Kansas, but this time I was driving and only going 70 mph.



After that first blowout I dropped our max speed to 70 mph, and re-checked the tire pressures; all 4 were at or near 80 psi, as per the load rating. These tires were only 15 months old, the trailer was loaded properly, and I was frustrated beyond belief that we had two nearly new, perfect looking tires go "BOOM!" Luckily we had two mounted spares, but after the 2nd one went on us during the return trip we stopped at a Firestone and bought one more tire. Now we're going to carry a 3rd spare tire, unmounted. Both tires that blew came apart violently and damaged the fender flares, knocked the side mounted sunshade loose, and slapped rubber all over the side of the trailer. Both blowouts were from the same side. I've lost confidence in this tire and will be replacing all 4 with a different brand.



The trip back was easier, as we had Ryan and Brandon with us (they flew into SLC), so between 3 drivers we each drove less. And with more hands we got the 2nd blowout and spare changed in even less time (10 minutes vs 15). Strangely, two other Texas racers that went to Miller also had 2 blowouts each - it was the hip thing to do, I guess.

Ryan flew in to SLC with a chest cold and Amy got sick on the way back, so the return trip involved lots of Dayquil and Kleenex, but at least Brandon and I didn't catch it. Truck averaged 11.5 mpg on the tow up and 10.8 mpg on the way back, with a MASSIVE headwind from Kansas to Texas. For many reasons I hate truck stops but do love towing with a real turbo diesel 1 ton and the 36' enclosed trailer, so they are a necessary evil. Some of these stretches of driving are incredibly boring, like Oklahoma and Kansas, but Wyoming was pretty cool and Utah had some good views as well. I am not a fan of 25 hour tows and it will take some serious contemplation before we make a long haul like this again. Losing 4 days driving to and from an event is hard to swallow when you run a business and normally work 7 days a week. :/

It felt SO good seeing those flags at the gate entering Miller. OK, so we're there... let's talk about the event!

...in my next post. This thing is growing out of control, so I better break it up. More soon!

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Project Update for Sept 18, 2013: This is a continuation of our NASA Nationals event write-up (part 2 of 3?). In the previous installment I covered the final week of work, after our ECR test, showing the things we did in the closing moments before NASA Nationals. One thing I forgot to mention (again): it is always a bad idea to make major changes right before a key event. But in this case, I guess it didn't completely blow up in my face? Sure, the car was loose at higher speeds, which made it a real handful to drive at the FAST 3 mile Outer Loop at Miller, but it had a lot more front grip than it ever did before. We just overshot the set-up a bit, which we are rectifying now with a new, 4" shorter splitter.

New 18x11" S197 Wheel Set-up From Vorshlag

Gotta take care of of this first, since a lot of you guys have been asking us for this 11" wide wheel set-up. Vorshlag has been working on various wheel packages for the S197 chassis ever since we bought one back in 2010. We now have a good set-up for using 18x11" wheels at all four corners that we've measured, tested, and perfected. This took a few iterations to get right, with various sets of wheels purchased and used on our TT3 Mustang. There is no magic formula for stuffing maximum wheel widths under any given car - it takes patient measurements, some testing, and carries a risk of buying wheels that might not fit. Like with our 18x10 wheels we made 2.5 years ago (with D-Force) - we had to buck up, spend the money, and just do it.



After a few "well, that almost worked perfectly" iterations we nailed it and have made this product entry for the four wheel 18x11" Forgestar F14 set-up located here. These wheels cannot be rotated front to rear, as they have vastly different offsets on each axle. That's just the way it works out on an S197 once you go past 10" wheel widths.



Last week we tested and verified the fit of the final iteration of 18x11s on our 2013 GT (which is still for sale if that page says so) with a set of Kumho V710 R-compound tires in 315/35/18, purchased for use by one of our S197 testers, Mark Council. These Kumho 315s are some big muthas! Our black '13 shown here is lowered 2.5" on AST coilovers, has an adjustable WL panhard rod to re-center the axle housing, plus some additional negative camber up front using our camber plates. To go any wider in the rear you need a reverse mounted swaybar (Whiteline) and probably a Watts Link to be safe (we stuffed an 18x12" on the back of our TT3 car this way, very carefully; we have perfected this 18x12" rear wheel set-up for racers as well, after several iterations on our car). To go any wider than an 11" up front you will need a Sawzall. The 18x12" fronts on our TT3 car have had the fenders cut and flared to fit, but the 18x11" works if you get the offset right.

As you can see in these pictures, the 18x11 wheels are close to the edges of the fenders at both ends, but these do fit, even with fat 315mm tires. This set-up has adequate inboard clearance up front and plenty of inboard room out back. It would also work with 295s, 305s or even 285s. We now offer these in our online store.



These are built to order and take from 4-6 weeks, and are perfect for autocross and track use, and maybe even street use if you are so inclined. We have made these in the mesh 14-spoke F14 versions but they would likely also work in their CF5 5-spoke version as well (just a tick heavier). Give us a shout if you are interested.

Prep Work During NASA Nationals

OK, so I got that out of the way. Let's talk about NASA Nationals! In this section I will cover the work we did to the car in the paddock all week. The car was dead nuts reliable, but we still had to do some wrenching over the 5 days we were at Miller, mostly having to do with the 3 sets of tires we used. And we were among the poorer of the TT drivers, with only one set of brand new "sticker" tires used all week. Other folks used 2, 3 and even 4 sets of stickers in TT. Hey, if you've got the money, why not? As we learned the conditions could change at any moment and you might be stuck with a time from an earlier session.


My favorite picture of the Mustang taken at Miller. Brandon did his magic on this one, right after it rained...

First, I have to talk about the track: Miller Motorsports Park is the most amazing facility I've ever raced at (not counting COTA, where we only "hooned around in Cadillacs"). Sorry, NOLA, you guys have an amazing track and grounds, too, but this one has mountains. Literally, every direction you look is filled with picturesque views.



You couldn't TAKE a bad picture here if you tried. Did you see that "wet paddock" picture above? Click it for a super-sized version - Brandon shot some amazing stuff all week. Like the owners at NOLA, the folks at Miller didn't just build a great track, they have amazing buildings and garages, a massive clubhouse, cafes and shops, plus they house and run the Ford Racing school here. There is a kart track, zip line, 900 acre off road park with 90 miles of course, a rock climbing course, a motocross and stadium truck course, and a museum. In one word: Epic


We parked at the far end of the West Paddock. This facility is huge and sits on over 500 acres!

We arrived at the track on Wednesday afternoon at around 4 pm and headed straight to the front office (outside of the gates) to check in. Many folks got there on Monday or even Tuesday to do some testing - we just couldn't afford the extra time away, but probably should have been there to learn this track. Signed a bunch of waivers, got our event shirt and hat, checked in, bought paddock passes for the extra crew we were flying in, and they then promptly sent us on a wild goose chase to the "South Gate" entrance, which was chained and locked. All week. Then I backed the trailer and truck up a very narrow 1/4 mile long entrance road, 3-pointed the rig, then headed to the North gate, which every sane person was entering into the facility.

Vorshlag NASA Nationals Photo and Video Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...als-at-Miller/

Once inside (everyone was super nice, btw) we drove the entire length of Miller's paddock looking for an open spot to park... apparently you could reserve a closer parking space or garage for a fee, which we had neglected to do. And the place was packed already, anyway. The small amount of unreserved parking was at the far end of the paddock, where we found a space right next to the grid but still a good distance from all of the buildings, bathrooms and garages. Good thing we brought our bikes - we learned that from going to many SCCA Solo Nationals, where you walk a mile going here and a mile going there, many times a day.



As we pulled up I was in a bit of a panic, as my NASA TT3 classing sheets were a mess and I needed a fresh blank copy to re-calculate and finish my classing, and we needed to download and print our dyno certification sheet that we had True Street fill out for us. Amy went to find a printer and I went to Tech to see what I needed to do. See I am still used to the SCCA way, where they insist on Teching the car at every single event, so I figured I needed to do the same here. Once at the Tech garage and scales I met Alan Blaine of Blaine Fabrication face to face for the first time (we've purchased his products and cage kits before), as he works tech at many NASA events on the west coast. He said the scales were open until 5 pm, so I sprinted back to the trailer 47 miles away to unload the car and try to get the front end and splitter installed by myself, while Amy was looking for that printer. I didn't ask him if I needed to tech the car... he assumed I knew, which I should have.


Left: My TT classing sheet was all jacked up when we arrived (but I fixed it). Right: These guys were doing it right - garage, air jacks, GT3

Got the car out of the trailer (without side mirrors and a dead battery - ever try to push a car out of a trailer with one hand, while sitting in the seat and steering backwards, blind, then bump starting the motor in reverse, coming down the 12 feet of ramps??) and started by myself, somehow. Left it running to charge the battery (it sat for 2 days in the trailer with something left on), then I crawled up to the forward part of the trailer and made a hole to get to the front bumper cover/splitter assembly. Once I dragged it back to the "cliff" of the front of the trailer, I tried... but it was just too heavy lift up over the generator, compressor and other junk on the floor that were in the way. There was nobody at my end of the paddock - it was a ghost town. I had the front end perched on my back like a donkey and tried to drag it out, but there was no way to get to the side door on my own without dropping it. Nothing replaces an extra set of hands. Time ticked away and some expletives may have snuck out. Right when I'm about to wrench my back doing some stupid contortions to get this massive splitter assembly out, Amy rolls up and we together we got the front end out of the trailer without scratching the fresh paint, and started the front end installation and alignment.



This should only take 15 minutes, but that's assuming everything goes smoothly. My side bolted together fine but Amy ran into problems from the beginning. She stripped not one but two bolts during the bolt-up assembly, and that blew our 5 pm "tech deadline". Once I finally got the front end bolted together properly I finally drove the car to tech at 5:20 pm, and it was all locked up. Crap! How did we plan this - to drive 25 hours across the country and miss Tech closing by 20 minutes??

Then I found out from Facebook NASA TT friends, who were more familiar with NASA Nationals, that we didn't need to go to Tech at all. Our NASA Annual tech + logbook was good enough. Tech was only there for people with new cars and/or no annual tech. Sweet! I cracked a beer and calmed down considerably, talked to a few friends we ran into at the far end of the paddock, then we both rode the 21 miles across the paddock and got to the 6 pm welcome dinner that NASA held in the Clubhouse. Decent meal, cash bar, lots of event specific chatter from the higher ups, and there were hundreds of people there. There was a moment of silence for the recently departed Roger Miller, who was part owner of the track and the NASA Utah region director. Tragic loss, with a family and 9 kids. The dinner broke up after the opening talks and we met with our race group leaders, where TT was told simply to "be at the 8:30 am meeting Thursday morning". Good enough for me.



As we left the dinner the rain started rolling in. WTF - I thought this was the desert?! We buttoned up the car as best we could (it wasn't going back into the trailer until we left on Sunday, because doing so would require the front end to come off - and we weren't about to start wrestling with it!) and put a big plastic trash bag under the hood ducting and over the motor, then headed to our hotel in nearby Toele, Utah. Amy and I stayed at a little Hampton Inn in Tooele, less than 10 minutes from the track, for the first 2 nights - which was a big mistake. See, the folks in Tooele know when there's a race at Miller and they jack the hotel rates WAY up. Also, this town has very few restaurants, with Applebee's being the number one rated place to eat. Great...



We got to the track early Thursday morning and I went and weighed the car, just to make sure our scales matched up with their scales. They warned me, "Every weight is official". Luckily our scales matched and the car came in plenty heavy at 3853 lbs, with nearly a full tank of 93 octane from back in good ole Texas. This track (and state) had only 91 octane for their premium pump gas, but luckily the track had racing fuel in 98 unleaded, 100 unleaded and 110 leaded. The rest of the week I would fill up with a 50-50% mix of 100 (at $9.22/gallon) + 91 (at $4.44/gal), using roughly 3-4 gallons per session. And we ran 9 sessions that week, so there were a lot of fuel top-offs.

Continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above

I went to the first TT meeting and Greg Greenbaum laid out the rules and procedures. Greg was stern but his rulings made sense, and he actually explained the reasoning behind every Supplemental TT Rule for the event. NASA is the exact opposite of other club's which "rule by committee", as one person sets the rules for TT/ST, and can make an adjustment quickly and decisively. They also use this thing called "logic", which was refreshing. We had great TT meetings all week. Anyway... We turned in our TT paperwork and dyno sheets, which they reviewed over the next 24 hours, and helped us fix on Friday's meeting - where the complexities of TT classing were finally explained to me coherently. Honestly, the ST rules wording explains the power-to-weight classing formulas better than the TT rules, with which it shares the same basic premise. This wording from Page 8 of the Super Touring rules explains it best:

Note: If one knows the competition weight of the vehicle, a simple reverse calculation will yield the maximum horsepower allowed for that vehicle. Begin by adding/subtracting all of the Modification Factors for the vehicle as listed above. Then use either the 5.50, 8.00, or 9.0 ratio (depending on which class the car is being prepared for), and subtract that number from the ratio to get the vehicle’s actual target wt/hp ratio. Divide the competition weight by this number to obtain the horsepower target.

I've had this argument with several folks, but now I know that the way we had been doing it (reverse calculate peak power from weight, using your modified power-to-weight number with all of the handicaps and bonuses added in) is right. I just wish they would state it the same way in the TT rules.

In our meetings we talked about not passing on the outlap AND not passing on the first hot lap without a point by, which was a new procedure to me (but apparently is in the TT rules). I talked to a few folks that were gridded higher but slower than me on the first lap, and eventually arranged point-bys and schemes so we could stay out of each other's way during our sessions. After I switched to A6s I was the one giving point-bys and getting the heck out of people's way on Laps 3 or 4, too.



During the week we ended up doing a good bit of set-up work and even a few small repairs to the car. Ryan and Brandon were set to fly in EARLY on Friday morning and Amy would go get them in SLC, and be back in time for the first TT1/2/3 session on Friday. Well, that didn't work out, as they missed their 6:40 am flight out of DFW airport. Here's a tip: don't EVER fly Frontier airlines. They close the boarding counter a full hour before the flight leaves, and the same personnel help load luggage and stuff onto the airplane. Less people, less service - that is the Frontier motto. They got there 1.5 hours early but were held up in security and then got stuck in the line at Frontier for a long time, as they only had one counter person and all of their self-serve check-in kiosk terminals were broken. Then, when they were 2 people back from getting to the lone counter lady, she says "That's all, folks - you will have to take the next flight!". Total BS, and this was the first and list time we will use this crappy airline. Anyway...

Since Amy and I were the only crew there for all day Thursday and Friday, we ended up doing some tire changes and tweaks on our own. And since some dingleberry forgot the key to the generator, we had no electrical or air power all week. And without a cordless impact (who needs it when you have a big air compressor and air tools?!) that meant doing tire changes with hand tools, with extremely long wheel studs. As prepared as we were, this small thing hung us up.


Left: The "keyless" generator made me less than happy. Right: Only thing I managed to break in 9 sessions on track was this bleeder

After my 1st Thursday session I noticed a brake bleeder that was leaking fluid, so I cleaned it off and kept an eye on it. We had calipers delivered Thursday morning by the folks at Maxcyspeed, who wanted to come watch the races for a couple of days, and swung by Vorshlag to grab everything we forgot on the way. Thanks again, Stuart and Doug! We're working with these guys on some new shock development work, too. By Friday morning I couldn't ignore the bleeder any more - the bleeder or the whole caliper needed to be replaced. Well, damned if I cold find the 1/8" punch needed to swap over the pads (forgot it), and I didn't want to fight the new helicoil repair on that caliper (same one!), so I just swapped in an extra bleeder we had in our extensive and well marked spares boxes. We also brought a spare splitter, driveshaft, radiator, hoses, belts, pads, rotors, calipers (eventually), fluids, wheels, tires, lug nuts, and a lot of nut and bolt hardware.



We started off the week knowing we had 4 days worth of sessions to get a good time in, and I figured that I would need some time to learn the track (I was still learning it on the 9th and final session Sunday). The first tires I planned for Day 1 and Day 2 were some well worn Hoosier R6 tires on the grey 18x12s; these were the same tires we used to learn the track at NOLA, Hallett, and two previous ECR days - they were pretty well shot, but had enough usable rubber that should have allowed me 2 days worth of sessions to learn this tricky track. We also thought the weather would be more consistent in the desert, but the opposite proved be to be the case.


Left: Grey wheels = R6. We ran these from Thursday thru Friday mid-day. Photo from Head-On photos. Right: White wheels = A6 tires (which we ran Friday afternoon-Sunday)

By Friday afternoon my times were not getting any better running on these R6s, and they were hammered, so we switched to the used A6 "scrubs" we had brought mounted to the white 18x12" set. These tires had also seen use at NOLA, two autocrosses, and another track day, but had what looked to be good rubber. Tedious tire changeover with a mistake made on the rear (forgot that this original set of 18x12" rears needed a spacer), but with some help from Jack Hidley of Maximum Motorsports we got the rear wheels fitted just in time for my last TT session on Friday. The car was a TOTAL MESS on these tires, and I put 2 wheels off of the exit of T1, after braking from 150+ mph. Loose, scary loose, and no faster.

Once Ryan and Brandon were there (Friday evening), Amy and I could focus the rest of the week more on talking to racers, customers and vendors, plus driving, and spent less time on the car prep. Ryan worked his butt off for 2 days and fixed the stripped bolts on the RF flare mounting plate, changed the car over to our only set of sticker A6 tires on Saturday morning, and noticed a swaybar setting I had forgotten about (it was set at full soft, and part of why the car was so loose). He also made some more wing changes, which we kept adjusting on nearly every session Saturday and Sunday, kept the car fueled, and kept me from forgetting something in our procedures (turn on transponder, check tire pressures, turn on AIM and vidcam, get belted in, turn off traction control, etc). I drive better when I know that I have good track support crew with us, too.



Brandon did his picture thing all week and got hundreds of amazing pictures, and even some external videos, of our car and many others. He was hustling around the track, going from corner to corner to get several views and angles. We also did a "garage crawl" on Saturday afternoon where he followed Ryan and me, oogling over race cars and pointing, "Shoot this!" and "Get a picture of that!". I felt like a kid in a candy store. We looked at a lot of trick aero ideas, too.




The weather we saw at Miller over those 5 days is hard to describe, other than tho say it was psychotic. It would be calm and beautiful one minute, with white puffy clouds and amazing blue skies... then some storm cell would roll in over the mountains and all hell would break loose. It rained on no less than 3 of the 5 days we were there, which shot my "Tire Strategy" plans full of holes. We saw some HOT sessions (96°F), some very WINDY sessions (40 mph wind gusts, which blew apart all manner of EZ-up tents and we ALMOST lost our roll out sunshade), then some sessions where it was 70° and calm, and some that were raining. Going to the airport Friday afternoon to pick up Ryan and Brandon we drove through a sand storm. Like, a bad one - I was "looking for the Worms on planet Dune" bad. We saw it all that week, I tell ya.



We met and talked to a lot of new folks that week. NASA's Todd Covini brought Mark Wilson and Bruce Smith from Ford Racing by our paddock to meet us and look at the car. Bruce immediately pointed out the issue we had with our oil separator lines (PCV valve - thanks, Bruce!) - nothing gets by these engineers. I tried to grill them for hints on the 2015 Mustang, but they played it cool "Wait, there's a new Mustang next year?". Haha, two funny guys. I also got to finally meet people face-to-face such as Lex Carson of Motion Control Suspension, Jack of Maximum Motorsports, Paul and Brian Faessler of Paul's Automotive Engineering (a father and son team who campaign the amazing AIX/STR1 Mustang below), and many others. Met a ton of racers and competitors in various classes, too.



Our lodging situation at this track was a learning experience, too. If you ever go to race at Miller, don't stay in Tooele. Like I said, the town has too few hotel rooms and they jack the rates up when racers come in. We eventually found one good place to eat (a new place called The Brewhouse, where we dined with the Maxcys), but other than that it was down to "Taco Time" or some other skeevy looking fast food joint. The track had an outdoor cafe (meh) but better food at the Clubhouse, which overlooked the track. We watched some races and ate lunch up there twice, and the food was pretty darned good for track fare.



Amy had booked us at 2 different hotels for the week, and I thought she was nuts - but it turns out I'm glad she did. Since the little hotel in Tooele was sold out of "double queen" rooms (for when Ryan and Brandon arrived) and the prices were insane anyway, she had booked our last 2 nights at an Embassy Suites in SLC, near the airport. It was a solid 25 miles away from the track (instead of 5), but it was well worth the drive. These nights cost HALF what the dumpy hotel in Tooele did, but the rooms there were immense (suites with a living room, bathroom, bedroom) and better appointed than my own home; they made omelets and other items to order at breakfast; and there was an open bar with hors d'oeuvres every day from 5-7 pm. Which we made use of both nights we stayed there - four rum and cokes will "calm the nerves" if you happen to be 5 seconds back from the leaders in your class. If we ever go back to Miller, we're booking at the Embassy again. Brandon did his foodie thing and found 2 great restaurants in SLC for us to eat dinner at, both nights they were in town: Red Ginger Bistro (Japanese) on Friday night and The Red Iguana (Mexican) on Saturday night. Mmm, MMM! Both of these places had long waits but for good reason - they were excellent. Who knew SLC had such a diverse selection of good food? And to have great Mexican food - in Utah!? This joint had 9 different mole sauces... Nine. Never would have believed it if I did not see it first hand.

Vorshlag Losing Employee #1

So as I wrap up this post I need to give a shout out to an employee who is leaving us. Back in 2008 we hired our very first employee, an E36 LS1 kit customer named Matt. He was a college student at the time and wanted to work for us part time answering phones and such. We put him to work and he eventually became phone support, an order builder, our IT guru, then our Operations Manager, Meanwhile he graduated college and stuck with us for several more years after that.



After 5 years of service, Matt is leaving the Vorshlag family at the end of this week. He has a great opportunity at a new start-up company and we wish him well, but he will be sorely missed. Matt had 4 different cars we used for here for Vorshlag, AST and MCS product development over the years, including a Golf GTI SMG, a 350Z, a 95 M3 LS1 and a '13 BRZ. He will still be a tester for us on those last two cars, too. Adios, amigo!

Matt wore a lot of hats during his stint as Ops Manager here and we're splitting his old position into two new jobs. The Vorshlag Jobs page on our website had those two openings listed, but we already filled one of them (who starts tomorrow). If hard work in the automotive aftermarket, constant deadlines and low pay seem appealing to you, go to that link and apply.

Until Next Time

Yep, I'm running a bit long in my post again, so let's call it a day (well, each of these posts takes me about 2 days to write). As usual, a lot of these things I wrote are our observations and shouldn't be taken gospel. Like the notes on places to stay and eat in Tooele - we have only been there once, and could be missing a gold mine of options hidden behind the mountain of crappy fast food joints. If you have better suggestions for us about anything, feel free to chime in. But for the car/prep/aero stuff... we're still working out some kinks and know that the splitter was too long, the flares look a little goofy, the car is too heavy, and that it is silly to bring a street car to a National championship race. We will learn these lessons eventually. Its still a work in progress, too.

My next post will finally cover the racing action we saw on the 4 days of competition at the 2013 NASA Nationals, during which Time Trial ran 9 timed sessions. Only one fast lap is needed to win, and we had a lot of chances to get that - and many of us put in our best laps on that last session! I will also talk about a few race groups we watched, such as GTS, AI/CMC, and some others. Then I will cover what we have in store next for our TT3 car, for future S197 development, and the new car(s) we are moving to for the 2014 season. What?! No more red 2011 GT? Well, it depends on a few factors and is currently a solid "maybe"... but I think you folks will like the potential replacement.

More soon,

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Project Update for Sept 23, 2013: When I started to finally write this last piece of the Miller event coverage, on Monday Sept 23rd, we had just gotten back from yet another NASA event (TWS), so I was already 2 weeks behind. And it took me a week to get all of this written down, after looking at results sheets and watching the in-car videos from 9 sessions I drove over the 4 days. In this installment I will talk about our actual racing experience that week at NASA Nationals... finally! I will start with how they do things at NASA's "big show" event, which differed ever so slightly from the dozens of regional NASA events I've done in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and California over the past six years. For the most part it was a bit more serious, but no less fun.

Impound Is Important

I'm going to talk about Nationals impound, as it had a bearing on my final finish placing. The way NASA runs their all of their road racing and Time Trial classes is pretty unique compared to other clubs, but I really like The NASA Way and I have said so many times. Sure, there are some quirks, but I learned a lot at this event and understand the various classes better than before.

One of the biggest differences in NASA is their proclivity to measure not just chassis weights but to also measure horsepower output in most cars & classes, with an actual chassis dyno. I have written letters to other clubs asking them to MEASURE HORSEPOWER instead of relying on some quaint "gentleman's agreement not to cheat" nonsense, and not rely on poorly written rules or very outdated displacement-to-weight formulas - that have been proven to be ineffective for 40+ years. Still, even with continuous dyno testing and weight checks, NASA is always investigating new ways to keep racers honest. Now they are even looking at GPS based data loggers going onto race cars - looking for spikes in acceleration past what the car can physically do at a given power and weight. They were testing a new black box data logger on a few cars which we've started to see in Professional Racing circles. Look for this to go into some of their race groups in the next season or two, hopefully. I totally support this type of active policing in racing... 'cause racers naturally will try to push the boundaries. This isn't the NSA or Big Brother, this is "let's keep everyone honest" type of thing. Good stuff.

Anyway, NASA's current techniques to police classing include 2 main components: weight checks on scales (virtually ALL classes) after qualifying and race sessions, and measuring horsepower on a chassis dyno for most classes. So many classes within NASA have some "power-to-weight" component that checking the cars on a dyno is common practice, and at Miller they didn't hold back. They must have checked hundreds of cars on the dyno that week. Qualifying races, random TT sessions, and the top 3 in almost every racing class got checked at least once. There were 3 dynos on site that week getting a steady stream of business (it was a constant background noise), but one "official" dyno was used for all NASA Impound checks (a trailer mounted DynoJet). The others were being used for tuning and verification before the final Championship races began. Most of the W2W classes had a big final race on Saturday or Sunday that determined the Champions, whereas raced over 4 days to get our one best lap (which was unique).



It seems like common sense to me; if you want to keep cars competitive and legal, you weigh them and dyno them often. NASA officials even had racers at this event put evidence tape on OBD and other computer ports or "any aftermarket switches within reach of the driver" to show that they haven't been tampering with power levels or tunes while on track, too. And for TT this is extra important, because we raced over FOUR DAYS and 9 sessions that counted (+ one Warm Up practice session on Thursday morning, used just for gridding purposes). We could make changes to chassis and aero set-up all week, but if we wanted to make computer/tuning changes we had to go to Tech and the TT Director to ask permission, first. I brought an SCT tuner with the ability to alter timing and RPM on our car but I never messed with it.

On the first day, I heard that 3 or 4 American Iron cars were popped for blowing dyno tests, and a few people were whining. But they warned us, every race group, that they would be dyno testing a lot of cars, and they did. And I'm GLAD they did. I wish this happened at more Regional TT events, too (I have seen race groups have the top 3 finishers dyno'd at a few NASA Texas Region events, just not ever in TT). Sure, dyno testing is a logistical hassle, especially for AWD cars, but it is a necessary tool to help keep everyone on a level playing field. The future black box real time monitoring could be even easier, when the technology gets good enough (and cheap enough).


BMW E46 M3s are becoming increasingly popular in TT3/ST3/GTS3 classes

So this isn't the official racing procedure verbatim, but what I observed on how this worked in the Time Trial group. First, we had to be on grid in your assigned spot before the first car went out on track. Late to grid? Too bad, you lost that session. Why? They didn't want people popping out of the hot pits into the fastest part of the track and messing up other people's laps. NASA Texas has started to do this, too, and it is a welcomed change. Next, if you came off track before the end of the session, you went to Impound. Period. No tweaking the car on the hot pits, no going back out to finish the session, nope. Same reasons as above - coming back out on track during a hot session was dangerous and interrupted the flow of the racers, who are gridded in the order of their lap times (fastest to slowest). Also, they split the large TT contingent into two race groups that never shared the track at the same time: The "Letter Classes" (TTB-TTE) ran in Race Group C and The "Numbered Classes" (TTU/1/2/3) ran in Race Group H. It was nice for the faster TT guys to not have to worry about catching the E cars on lap 2, which can happen when all of the TT classes run at once.

Once TT racers came off track we were held in Impound until a TT Director released us, usually not until the session was over and everyone was in. We couldn't jack with the cars in Impound AT ALL. The driver could stay in his car and have ONE helper CHECK tire pressures and tire temps -or- he could exit the vehicle and do it himself. That was it. No dropping tire pressures, fiddling under the hood, or any funny business. And if you wanted to check tire pressures you had to ask a NASA official first, and they observed. Why? We were told because some folks have gamed the system in the past and dumped tire pressures in Impound down to 10 psi or less, then if they were dyno'd... yep, the numbers would be much lower than normal. So if you were caught dropping tire pressures in Impound then they gave you a dyno chit, aired your drive tires up to 40 psi, and off to the dyno you go. Automatic dyno check. Another sensible measure and fewer chances for shenanigans.


"A dozen ways to skin a cat" - here are two very different approaches to a TT2/ST2 build

Over the week my car was weighed 5 times, which was about average, but never was quick enough to warrant a dyno check. I was sweating it all week, as was everyone. Many of the faster TT guys' cars saw the dyno 1, 2 or even 3 times that week. How they dyno'd TT cars was simple. First, a TT director called down to Impound with a list of cars to by dyno'd and/or weighed ("If you drop a lot of time and move up to the front of the pack, prepare to be dyno'd"). If you were called out to be Dyno'd you got a "chit". Every car getting dyno'd was weighed first, which was recorded, and if it was not greater than your stated weight you got a session DQ. Same for anyone just getting a weight check. The closest to minimum I got was 21 pounds (3791 lbs with driver on a 3770 lb stated minimum) but I was often 50-60 pounds over, depending on fuel load. I saw some competitors get within 1-2 pounds, and several go under. We all were issued a decal that had to be posted on the side of the car with our declared minimum weight, max torque and max hp numbers, as shown below. Many of us made changes to this after we talked with TT officials, too.


Left: After conferring with TT officials, instead of assuming my car would dyno low at altitude, I revised it to the latest tested number

So if you got a dyno chit, you went straight from the scales to the dyno, 50 feet away. Nobody could touch the car but the driver, and you couldn't open the hood or do anything else. Once it was your turn the dyno operators took the car from you, used an elaborate series of ramps to get it up onto their mobile Dynojet trailer, strapped it to the rollers, and got some fans going on the radiator and opened the hood. Once the engine was up to speed in the 1:1 transmission gear they asked about redline RPMs or rev limiters, then did three back-to-back dyno pulls. Vrooom.... vroom.... vroom. Didn't take 60 seconds. Then if your car made more than your claimed dyno number ("popped dyno" or "blew dyno"), even by 1 a hp, you got a session DQ. Then the NASA TT directors would calculate your latest dyno and weight number, and if that ratio was over your class minimum, ALL of your previous sessions times back to your last successful dyno/weight check were thrown out. This matters for later, so keep this in mind.

Now that I know how this works I would have ASKED for a dyno earlier in the week. Because a successful dyno/weight check means your times up to that point are SAFE. Just like when we come in from a TT session early, to "bank" our times. Why? Because if you have a 4-off or a spin during a TT session, you lose ALL of your times in that session (session DQ). It has happened to me twice in the past 6 years (spin or off during TT), and it sucks. So when you know you have a good lap time in the books (from watching your onboard lap timer), most of us come the hell in! Again, this matters for later.

They had similar procedures for virtually every NASA race group, but I'm sure there were small differences I don't know about. In any Championship W2W race, for instance, if a driver blew minimum weight or blew the dyno, they were DQ'd and everyone moves up a space in the standings. So everyone was watching the dyno all week. And yes, even at 4500 feet of elevation, they use an SAE correction factor to correct for that. And it was huge, close to a 20% correction! I'm used to seeing 0-2% corrections here in Texas, sometimes even negative 1-2% for SAE. So you couldn't just rely on "the elevation will soften my numbers", no sir. You have to factor that in. I was a FOOL for not getting a dyno check before the event started and for not ASKING for a dyno during the event. I got lucky, I guess, but if you were in the top 3 during the week you saw the dyno, trust me. I wasn't in the top three until.... well, the very end. I'll get to that.

Race Coverage - Day By Day

I don't know if I mentioned this earlier but the course being run for the week of Nationals for ALL race groups was the 3.0 mile "Outer Loop" CCW, and there were no HPDE groups running at Nationals. This 3 mile course is the fastest configuration of the 4 possible track layouts at Miller, and has many high speed turns and a LONG 3500' front straight. There is some elevation change in a couple of corners, but for the most part it was like most other desert tracks I've run: flat and with few visual markers. This meant many corners looked identical, which confused me a bit. I have never run this track before and struggled all week, learning the layout. And we fought all week to find balance with the set-up...



Like we do for every NASA TT event, we made our own maps in case they didn't hand any out. They had great maps, though

I will break up my "race coverage" into the 4 days we had to get our best lap time. Every session from all 4 days of Nationals counted for TT, and you only had to bag one fast lap in one of the 9 official sessions (the Warm-up session was the first of 10, really, but it didn't count towards times). Some days we had 3 sessions and some days we had 2, which I will explain below.

Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/NASA_National_Championships/ (TT3 was in Group H)

I missed one session due to rain and another where we had to work on the car, but ran every other one and thankfully had no DSQs (a spin or 4 off will net you a DSQ). I had some close calls, and came in early to "bank" a good lap time when I noted a decent time on my AIM Solo display (which was extremely accurate all week, matching the official transponder times usually to the hundredth place).

Day 1 - Thursday

TT had our first mandatory meeting of the week at 8:30 am this day (one of 9 meetings we had that week), where we went over the basics, then TT1/2/3/U (Group H) had our first "Warm Up" session at 10:30 am (TTB-TTF ran in a separate run group all week - Group C). I went out in this session on those well worn R6 tires we brought on the grey wheels and fumbled my way around the track. Car was LOOSE at speed! Aero balance felt terrible, and any corners over 80 mph the car wanted to be sideways. The slow speed corners felt fine, but it was a complete handful everywhere else. I thought we had this sorted at our ECR test, but that track's fastest corners are probably sub-65 mph. Some of the corners here at Miller I was entering at 100-150+ mph. Scary fast, and I was working on my lines and my "testicular fortitude" in every session. I stayed out in the Warm Up for the entire time and had a best lap of 2:10.804 on Lap 5, and a 2:10.9 on the lap before, neither of which was fast. The quickest TT3 car in this session was a red E36 325is, which had an S54 3.2L M3 engine swap and good aero, driven by an old autocross buddy Chris Mayfield. He ran a 2:06.448, so he was fast right out of the gate. Ken Smith in the yellow ST3/TT3 C5 Z06 ran a 2:09.306 in that session (and was broken down on the side of the front straight, then came on the hook), with two faster TT3 cars between him and Mayfield. The Miller track crew did an excellent job and was doing "hot tows" all week (towing cars in with rolling local yellows, while keeping the racers going). I was only 5th fastest out of the 11 cars running in the TT3 class (at this point - we saw 12 different TT3 cars by week's end), and well over 5 seconds back... yikes. TT3 was the largest TT class of the event, by a good margin over any other (here's group C).


Print-outs showing results from Day 1's 3 TT sessions: The TT Warm up, TT Session 1 and TT session 2

In that Thursday Warm-Up session I ran so many consecutive hot laps that I saw some warmer than anticipated engine temps on lap 6, even with the lowest ambient temps of the day (high 70s). On Lap 6 the temp gauge shot up to maybe 3/4 of the range from "C" to "H", which is warmer than we ever see in this car. It was not that warm outside yet, so I chalked it up to the thin air here at 4500 feet of altitude and maybe still having an air bubble passing through the newly set-up cooling system (I added some distilled water in the pits after this). Talking to other drivers they were seeing the occasional warm temp readings, too, and I was told by many "high altitude racers" to be on the watch for this at Miller. I took a cool down lap and stayed well out of people's way while coming in, and with a 3 mile course the cool down laps can take a while. Within 30 seconds the engine temps came back to the "middle" of the range. This happened two more times during the week, saw a warm temp after too many hot laps that was corrected in the first cool down lap..



Navigating the "Attitudes", 3 S-curves right in a row with some wide, tall and nasty curbing

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above

So, as with all NASA TT events, the times from this first "Warm Up" session on the first day only count towards our grid positions for the first "official" TT session, session 1. We checked air pressures hot and they were WAY higher than I thought they'd get up to, so we bled off 8-10 psi from each tire, from hot. We had an 11:10 am TT meeting where we did roll calls and listened to Greg give us the latest session DQs for spins, offs, weights or dyno (which were not printed on the individual session time sheets, strangely enough). Someone in the group also asked "what is a 4 off here", as there are some rather WIDE curbs at Miller - in some places more than 25 feet of paved but painted curbing. The biggest section of track in question was the "Attitudes", Turns 8/9/10, which are S-curves in rapid succession that also fall down a hill. Apparently this section was a bit controversial, and some race groups were seeing a handful of drivers really pounding over the curbs, some catching 4 wheels in the air and short cutting Turn 9 altogether (just going straight over the curbs/gravel and leaving the track). After some discussion it was ruled that the white painted line was to be considered the edge of the track and as long as 2 wheels were still "touching the paint", that was allowed. Tons of latitude but no more "cutting a corner". If we were 4 wheels over the paint it would be a "4 off" and a session DQ.


Above photos by Brian Smyer

I was staying off the curbing in almost all corners, as the bumps were making the already very loose car even more twitchy. Like the picture above, where my car is already sideways after just touching two outside wheels on the paint, is what would happen. So I stayed off the curbs on almost every lap. I tried to take a bit more on the last day, with some negative consequences (video of that in a lower section). Other drivers were a lot more liberal with their curbing, though. And it likely helped their times - I just couldn't see jumping them like that and doing the "4 wheels in the air" thing. I would have ripped the splitter off and done all sorts of damage to our car. In the AI circles I heard one driver admit that cutting Turn 9 was worth a full second on his lap times, and there were a few of those guys really getting a lot of time using the curbs. Amy was there and if I would have broken the car on the curbing she would have KILLED me!

Just watched my TT session 1 video, which began on Thursday at 2 pm, and it was 20 degrees hotter than the TT Warm Up. At least this time we were gridded better, but I still had to deal with several passes, and the car was SUPER loose in the first 2 laps. I was finally figuring out where to shift, what gear to be in for each corner, pushing some still-early braking points, and just beginning to get a feel for where I was and where the apexes should be. I took a good number of laps in this session and dropped down to a 2:09.039, with my fastest lap on Lap 1. I spent the rest of the session trying different lines, braking points, etc. In Session 1 Ken Smith really picked up the pace and moved into the lead with a 2:05.099, with Mayfield right on his tail at a 2:05.753 time. Steve Nagel found a lot of time and dropped to a 2:07.284 and 3rd place in his white E36 M3 with aero and a claimed 310 whp, nearly 2 seconds quicker than my times.



The third and final TT session for Thrusday was TT session 2, we started at about 5:30 pm (about 30 minutes behind schedule) and ambient temps were up to 94 °F when we started. It was so delayed and so hot that attendance was pretty sparse by the time we finally got released from grid. After 2 false starts for this session we finally heard the reason for problem - Mark Baer had a pretty bad crash in his GTS BMW going into The Tooele Turn, T11, and they had to air flight him to the hospital for observation, tow the car in, and do some quick repairs to the armco.


Smith (left) and Mayfield (right) traded the TT3 lead all week, but nobody else could seem to catch them

As I recalled after watching my video of this session, I was still pretty lost on 2nd half of the track after Turn 7, where I was confusing Turn 11 with Turn 13, and I still couldn't get the entry speeds up into Turn 7 (Witchcraft) or my line right into Turns 8/9/10. Really struggling to grasp this track layout, and there was a lot of gravel on the track from people going off and on at various corners. In my video I noted that the car was using about 5 gallons per session, and I was seeing "155 mph" on the speedo (probably more like 150mph) as I was braking into Turn 1. The car was still a loose mess at speed, and Amy and I were running out of things to change (tire pressures, wing angle, and some other things). I nearly looped the car going into Turn 3 on my 2nd hot lap, so took a cool-down lap and then another hot lap on the now well worn R6s. Just touching one of these monster curbs was setting the car into bump-steer convulsions. My best lap was again my 1st lap out, and nearly matched my previous session at a 2:09.054. Mayfield slowed down to a 2:05.574 and Ken Smith was in the 2:05.927 range, with Nagel slowing down to a 2:10.5. The higher ambient temps were hurting everyone and I was 4.5 seconds back from the class leader, not making up any ground.

My outlook was pretty bleak that night, but we had our lone good meal in Tooele (The Brewhouse) with Doug and Stuart Maxcy of Maxcyspeed. I drank away my sorrows and dreamed all night about turns like Witchcraft and the Attitudes, that were straight up kicking my ass.


Day 2 - Friday

After some dismal driving on Thursday I had planned on doing some work early Friday morning to the car and going out on the R6s again in the first session with some set-up improvements. Then Ryan and Brandon missed their very early flight, so it was just me and Amy again, and with too much to fix we skipped the first TT session of the day. During that time we replaced a leaking caliper bleed screw, dialed in 2 degrees more angle of attack on the rear wing, re-tightened the splitter mounting screws (several had loosened up), reset air pressures, and went out in session 2. Turns out we neglected to add enough fuel, so I was worried about fuel starvation. The left side tires were more abused than the right, which surprised me as there are more left hand turns than rights... but a lot of the high speed turns are right handers, and those tore up the appropriate side.


Left: Grey wheels = old R6s. Right: The fastest AI car was a World Challenge Boss 302R, which ran a 2:07.860 in the final race

At this point we had been weighed twice. 3791 lbs was the lightest and as high as 3836 lbs with a lot of fuel. Brakes looked good - the Carbotechs were wearing very well for the abuse I was throwing at them. I have never braked this car this hard, from these speeds, this many times in a row. Some say our upgraded GT500 14" rear brakes "are worthless" compared to the stock 11.5" rear discs, but I disagree strongly. This car was the heaviest in the TT3 class, had one of the highest terminal speeds into Turn 1, yet I could brake as late or later than anyone else. In some cases I was braking nearly 100 feet later than some TT2 and TT3 cars. The brakes just flat worked, flawlessly, all week.

Just watched my TT session 4 video and I was pushing hard yet only managed another 1/2 second gain, down to a best of 2:08.537. Heavy cross winds made for major buffeting in the car on the higher speed sections, and the high ambient heat (2 pm, high 90s again) baked the track, overheated tires, and made for generally slower lap times. Only five TT3 cars went out this time, with Mayfield and Smith skipping the session entirely. Nagel went out in the white E36 and put in a best of 2:08.324, which was over a second slower than his best time from the first official TT session on Thursday. I was within 2 tenths of Nagel, everyone was slower, but I had found another half second, so that was at least a little encouraging. The R6s felt really awful and the car was still very loose at speed, and once the tires got hot after my 1st lap it was loose everywhere. I pounded out 5 laps (3 hot laps + 2 cool downs), well after almost everyone else had come in, and saw another 2:08.8 lap in the closing lap, but my first lap was again my fastest.



TT session 3, Session 4 and session 5 time sheets from Friday

For the Friday's final TT session (TT session 5) we we removed the Grey Forgestar 18x12's with the well worn R6s and slapped on the white Forgestar set with the the used set of Hoosier A6 tires. Clouds were rolling in, temperatures were dropping, and at the beginning of this late afternoon session it was down to 88°F. Amy and I had to swap wheels without any power tools, so it took a while and we barely made it to grid in time. Then we had another long delay on grid, as had been the case several times previously.




During this grid delay Brian Smyer shot the pictures above, as well as several others that he put into his blog post. "I fell in love with this mustang from Vorshlag so thought I would share a few images from Miller Motorsports Park" Brian also got some great images out on track, which I have scattered through this post (anything without the Vorshlag watermark was taken by him). Good stuff. After he took the above two pics the clouds rolled in and it started to look like rain again. Winds picked up, and many of the cars went out on sticker tires in this session, thinking it might be one of our last dry times for a bit (storms were predicted to roll in hard for Friday night/Saturday).

I left a gap to the rest of the field on the out lap, because I had been catching several cars gridded higher than me on the 1st and 2nd laps out, time and again. This session looked like the best conditions we had seen all week, and I had what I thought would be faster tires and some clear track ahead. I got a good run out of the last turn and pushed the revs in 5th gear down the front straight. With the higher AoA on the wing I only saw an indicated 150 mph into the braking zone (down from 155), but it seemed to stop fine. As I'm rolling into the throttle exiting Turn 1... the rear tires washed out, lots of counter steer, no help. I put 2 wheels off on the exit of T1 at 100+ mph and blew the lap. Took a cool down lap and tried to set up to try again.

After my 2 off I had let about 6 cars that were behind me go by, after I had gathered it up. So my next hot laps involved getting held up by virtually all of these cars as I re-passed them. The tires quickly felt greasy and the car was oversteering more than it had all week. My 2nd lap was only a 2:09.031, on the A6 tires. I knew I was in trouble and took another cool down lap, where I let a few of the same cars back around me, trying not to impede their laps. Started another hot lap, it was looking better on predictive timing, then exiting Turn 6 and I got blocked by two of the SAME cars that I had pointed by on my cool down, including one of the same cars that had blocked me on my previous hot lap. Very frustrating, my session was blown, the A6 tires were now overheated, so I threw in the towel and came into the pits. In that session Mayfield was 1.5 seconds quicker than his previous best, down to a blistering 2:04.170. Nagel ran a 2:07.808 as well, so it was a good session to get a fast lap in. My 2 off and subsequent blocked laps blew the session for me, but the tires never felt very good anyways.

After this session we buttoned up the trailer, left the Mustang out in the rain, and headed to the airport through a sandstorm to pick up Ryan and Brandon, who finally made it to SLC by about 4:30 pm. This was the night we switched hotels and the better accommodations, free drinks at the bar, and a good meal in SLC raised our spirits.

Day 3 - Saturday

We arrived at the track at 7 am and got to work on the car. We had a new game plan - don't wait until Sunday to put the sticker tires on, as the weather was too unpredictable and any of the next 4 sessions might be our last chance at a dry track. So Ryan and Brandon had the scrub A6 tires dismounted and the lone set of brand new "sticker" 315/30/18 A6 tires went on ($130 mounting charge from the Hoosier guys, ouch). Ryan tweaked the front swaybar, dialed some wing back DOWN, and I went out on track. It was 71 degrees, still very windy, but sunny and dry. Track was green from rains the night before, but I went out and pushed it hard anyway.

I was gridded behind Nagel and gapped him hugely on the out lap, so I wouldn't catch him on the first lap. Since he was running Yokohama slicks that took several laps to heat up he was a good bit slower for the first 3-4 laps in every session, and I still caught him by Turn 6 on the first hot lap. Got a little held up into T6 but took the pass on the exit. What freaked me out was his brake lights didn't work almost the entire week (they were operational by Sunday), so I had to gauge at when he got on the brakes, which was a bit earlier than me into T5 and T6. After I got around him it put me on a bad trajectory into T7 (Whitchcraft) and I got a little bit of curb into T8, and again into T11, which really caused the car to bumpsteer hard. I knew the pass and both subsequent curb touches had cost me some time, but I still managed a 2:06.6 on my first hot lap with the new A6 tires. Dropped two full seconds on my first lap on stickers, with tons of mistakes and delays... man, I was regretting only bringing that one set of new tires! The previous 2 days felt like a big waste of time, now.



Time Trial Results for TT session 6 and 7 on Saturday

On my second hot lap in this session I was on a flyer when my foot slipped off the brake pedal downshifitng and braking into T6, and I almost had an off. I managed to gather it up, with the left front tire getting way out onto the outside curbing mid-corner, and of course that lap was blown. At that point I wanted to "bank" the first 2:06 lap and started a cool down to then come into the pits... but I changed my mind at the last second and went ahead and took a 3rd hot lap. I had already turned off the video so I don't have details but apparently I got fairly clean track and managed to drop 3 more tenths and put in a 2:06.356. Considering that these were A6 tires, with which I almost always put in my best laps on the 1st lap and they fall off a cliff after that, I knew the car had more in it. After that 2nd 2:06 lap I came in to bank it. This new time briefly pushed me into 3rd place in TT3, ahead of Nagel. Most everyone was faster in that session and Nagel dropped a good bit of time on his 5th lap, and jumped back ahead of me back into 3rd with a 2:05.562. Mayfield dropped another 9 tenths to a 2:03.170 and finally jumped ahead of Ken Smith (who had a 2:03.3 from TT session 3) for the TT3 lead. In this session Smith had put in a 2:04.110, with the rest of the class was 2 seconds behind me in 4th position. The two tight battles in TT3 were between Mayfield and Smith for 1st in the 2:03s and Nagel and me for 3rd in the 2:05-2:06 range.

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above



That picture above is from the grid before Saturday's final TT run group, session 7, which began at 3:45 pm. As you can see the bad weather really rolled in and the rain was eminent, and we even felt a sprinkle or two in grid. I had no windshield wipers (pulled them for less drag!) so I applied two coats of RainX to the windshield prior to going out. I was hoping to drop another 2 seconds, to maybe "get in the hunt", but that was a bit optimistic. I had watched some previous in-car videos and noted several of my driving mistakes, so I tried to clean up my lines, and again - my first lap was going to be the most crucial.

I dropped back a bit on the out lap and tried to gap Nagel, but I caught and passed him again in the braking to Turn 1 on the first hot lap, which threw my line off for this high speed corner, and my entries into T2 and T3 were slower. Rest of the lap was relatively clear and was a 2:06.6, with a pass and several compromised corners. I went ahead and took a 2nd hot lap, where I caught and passed a TT1 Corvette on the main front straight, then got held up a little by a TT2 Subaru early braking into T1 (so many cars brake early there). He pulled ahead in Turns 2-4 but I caught him a bit in the heavy braking into Turn 6. For the rest of this lap he stayed ahead and pulled away on the main straight. Hot lap 2 was a 2:06.111. I had a little more gap to the TT2 Subie so I took a 3rd hot lap in the row.

Braked a little late into T1 (155 mph) and got a little sloppy, then borked the high speed Turn 4 a bit, too. Felt like the rear tires were getting greasy, and they were. I watched the predictive timing off and on through the lap, and and it was only showing a 2:06.3-2:06.4 towards the latter 1/4 of the lap. The rear tires were really overheating by Turn 12, car was getting too loose, so I bailed on this hot lap right before Pit In and came into Impound. The 2 tenths improvement was at least something but I was still a 1/2 second behind Nagel's previous 2:05.5 (he ran a 2:11.3 in this session).

I guess because of the weird weather, higher winds and darker visibility only 2 cars dropped time in our class - I ran a couple of tenths quicker at a 2:06.111 on my 2nd lap and Bezard dropped from the 2:08s down to a to a 2:07.5 in his E46 M3 to close up behind me in 5th place. Smith was slower at a 2:03.9 and Mayfield was a second slower at a 2:04.1. So on only my 2nd session on "sticker A6" tires I was still dropping time, but I still felt there was more left to drop still.


Click above and skip to 5:57, where they spend a minute on our Mustang

One difference from this year's NASA Nationals was the "SpeedcastTV" coverage. There were cameras up on man lifts at a number of corners around the track and they were showing video live online at www.speedcasttv.com/nasa. There were also two announcers giving color commentary on the live video feed. They had a director who would tell the cameramen to switch from car to car and they'd stay with them for 30 seconds or up to a minute. The linked video above shows some footage from TT session 7, and at the 5:57 mark they cover me driving the red Mustang. One of the announcers was even a follower of this very forum thread and a fan of the car (thanks!). They talked about the car for a minute, which was cool.

Saturday night was a lot more upbeat, as I was at least within a 3 seconds of the 2 drivers who were trading the class lead (closest I had been all week) and I was only 1/2 second out of a podium position. We had 2 more sessions to go on Sunday and anything was possible. But it started to rain as the sun fell and it rained pretty much all night. We knew this meant another green track (no rubber down) for Sunday, so it might all be over for fast laps in TT. We had no more tuning tricks left up our sleeves so it was all down to the track/weather conditions and my driving on Sunday. Great...

Day 4 - Sunday



It rained all Saturday night so we were treated to a wet first session on Sunday, with drops still coming down. Only 7 drivers from the entire H group of Time Trial racers took to the track, but they got some extra SpeedcastTV time, so kudos to them. I skipped that session, as I didn't bring any rains and didn't see a point, with 8 other dry session's worth of times to fall back on. Don't need to stuff the car off track, either. So we waited for the 9th and final TT session, which began at 2:45 pm, and it was the last race group to run the entire week of the 2013 NASA Nationals. The track was green but dry, temperatures were down to 79° after the rains had blown through, there was a good wind again (which dried off the track quickly), and it looked pretty much like the best conditions of the week.

In the last TT meeting before this session we were told by the TT Director, "If you go faster in this last session, be prepared to be dyno'd". The top 2 in TT3 had already been dyno tested more than once this week, but almost nobody else in our class had, including me. We had all been weighed many times, and as far as I know there were no under-weights. We were told if we weighed under, or dyno'd higher than our claimed numbers, we'd get a session DQ. They would then take our weight and divide by the power test number, and if our ratio was under what the class allowed, ALL times prior to that would be thrown out, back to our last legal dyno/weight check from this event.


Final two Time Trial sessions were run on Sunday. Session 8 (at left) was raining but Session 9 (right) was dry and fast...

I went out on the same fresh-ish Hoosier A6 tires that we installed on Saturday morning (I saw more new sticker sets in this last Sunday session than in most others), with several heat cycles now acquired on them. I was sitting in 4th place out of 12 in class, 6 tenths behind Nagel in 3rd, with the two of us gridded side by side. We talked before going out and agreed to a point-by on lap 1 if I was closing down on him, like we had been doing most of the week, since he doesn't get tire heat until lap 4 or 5. He knew I was close to his times and was pushing to pick up some time cushion, too. He had a sizable crew with him including spotters with 2-way radios to communicate his and my times during the session. I really wished we had radios at this point, because I would have no way of knowing if he went faster. Amy and Ryan told me to STAY OUT THE ENTIRE SESSION, to make sure I got the most out of the car, but I knew my best lap would likely be my first. We fueled up heavy to give a bit more range and out I went.

Last TT SpeedcastTV video: http://www.speedcasttv.com/nasa/#/races/358

If you watch the above video it gives you some good action in TTU and TT3 during this session. The Godzilla GTR in TTU dropped 2 seconds in this final session and leaped into the lead by nearly 2 seconds over the Subaru powered Radical. That car's 1:55 lap times for a full bodied car were amazing. In the 9th TT session Nagel had dropped another tenth down to a 2:05.454, but spun it on course and on camera, late in the session - at approximately 21:20 on this 2nd linked Speedcast video, you can see him sitting crossed up and stopped on track. So that spin caused a session DQ and his new 0.1 second faster time was thrown out. So we have to look back at his previous best of a 2:05.562 from TT session 6 on Saturday. That was the mark I was looking for... mid 2:05s. So when I ran the lap below, I didn't know if I had beat him or not.


In-car video from the final TT group, Session 9, where I ran my best lap of the week!

My best lap was my first hot lap, once again, with a 2:05.579 - or 17 thousandths of a second back from Nagel! I stayed out and ran 3 hot laps in a row, which you can see bits and pieces of in the Speedcast video or in my in-car video, above. Nagel gave me the point right before the start-finish and I got a mostly clear track ahead of me for my first lap. I caught the TT2 Subaru again in Turn 4, T5 and was maybe held up a tick braking into T6, but he started pulling away from me after Turn 7. Watching my lap I was talking to myself and yelling at the car the whole time, might have left a few tenths out there, but I was on the ragged edge and tracking out to the curbing on most corners. When my lap timer said 2:05.59 after my first hot lap it was too close to call. So I went out in lap 2 looking for a tenth. I keep saying that on the video, "I just need a tenth... I just need a tenth!"

Exiting Witchcraft I pushed it a bit too hard and took the S-curves (attitudes) with a bit more curb than the car could handle and got it very crossed up. Kept it on track, barely, then cooled down for a couple of corners and went straight into hot lap 3. Tires were getting greasy and loose at the high speed corners in T2/T3/T4. Predictive timing was only showing low 2:06s and I was getting very, very frustrated. I needed to push it hard to find that tenth but could not afford to have an off. After 3 hot laps, where I noticed lap times slowing on each successive attempt, I packed it in, assuming I was probably only hundreds of a second slower than 3rd place.

We all got into Impound and they started weighing and dyno'ing a selection of cars. I was eventually weighed and was still 40 pounds heavy. Before they could finish with all of us, were told to leave our cars and head to the trophy ceremony.




NASA did a great job and each podium finisher in every racing class got champagne, a trophy, pictures with the Toyo Girls, and many of the contingency winnings were handed out right there. GoPro 3 Black edition cameras (just for running stickers), cases of Royal Purple, driving suits, and on and on. Time Trial had some of the more lucrative payouts, surprisingly. Mayfield had arm fulls of goodies and he had a smile a mile wide. Big congrats to him for the win and TT3 track record at Miller in his first time to NASA Nationals. It was close, with his final TT session 9 time dropping to a 2:03.052, and Smith in second only 3 tenths back at a 2:03.328 from earlier in the week. Nagel rounded out the podium in 3rd.


Left: The Official TT Final Results. Right: Nagels car sitting in Impound awaiting a ruling, after blowing the dyno. Twice.

But the fat lady hadn't sung her song just yet. After the trophy ceremony we headed back to Impound and the cars awaiting dyno runs and weight checks stuck around until our cars were released. Mayfield's BMW dyno'd clean and went to load up. Nagel's white M3 got weighed and dyno'd since he was in the top 3, which was apparently that car's first trip onto the rollers all week. But it blew the claimed maximum power number on the dyno by nearly 10 whp. They did the 3 pulls and then his team argued about the shape of the dyno graph on one of the first pulls. So they pulled it around in line, got it up on the trailer, strapped it down and dyno'd it again, 3 more pulls. Ryan watched the second set of pulls and it failed again. Meanwhile I'm drinking a few beers and just hanging out at Impound, awaiting the outcome. Several TT directors met, they checked his most recent weight and dyno numbers, recalculated his class ratio, and it was also over the limit. Hmm....

The National TT Director Greg Greenbaum was busy with a protest and an appeal from another class entry (Super Touring Corvette) that took over an hour. After that was decided (it went all the way to an Executive Appeal and a NASA Board of Directors), he came to decide what to do with Nagel's dyno issues. Apparently since it blew both the dyno and ratio, all times back to a previous good dyno were to be thrown out. And since he didn't volunteer or have another a clean dyno earlier in the week, there was nothing to fall back on that was legal, so all of his times were tossed. If the ratio had still been good (power to weight) it would have just been a session DQ, which was already a DQ for the spin anyway, and he would have held onto 3rd. Greenbaum said "yep, he's DQ'd for the entire week, you are now 3rd place". Yep, just like that.

I talked to Nagel, and he was rather cool about it "Hey, I don't tune it, I just drive it". We shook hands, he congratulated me, then he went and got the 3rd place trophy out of his trailer and handed it to me. Man, that was rough - I felt so bad for him.... but not bad enough that I didn't take that trophy! Does an inherited win feel as good? Heck yes, when the cars were thousandths of a second apart and the other car didn't make dyno. We worked our asses off all year, and built a heck of a good TT3 car, that was both quick and legal. It was also a street legal car, with A/C, emissions, tags, interior, NAV/radio, the works. Weren't too many (any?) of those on the podium that week in any TT class. Probably for a reason!


Left: One of the TT Directors congratulates me on 3rd place. Right: It wasn't a podium ceremony, but I'll take it,

While I was awaiting the Impound ruling, Amy, Ryan and Brandon had pulled the front end off, loaded up the car, got the 21 tires with only a qualifying run I scavenged from Hoosier's trash pile secured, and we rolled out for our 2 day/25 hour return trip around 6 pm, with Ryan and Brandon with us for the return trip. These Hoosier scrubs will keep us in R compounds for HPDE and test laps for months to come!



Wanted to give a shout out to our paddock mates from Minnesota. These guys are part of a ChumpCar team that were at Nationals to support one of their driver's, who ran some World Challenge races in the past and was now running a Honda Challenge Civic in PTC (should have been PTD - long story). These guys have been friends for years and were having a lot of fun. Photographer Brian Smyer was hanging around with this crew, too.


At right is the Best Team Photo.. EVAR!

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above

What Did We Learn At Nationals?

Reflecting back on this Nationals week, heck, this last year of running TT in NASA, we have learned a lot of lessons, and I'm sure we have many more to still learn. The experience of going to NASA Nationals was both informative and fun for our entire crew - and even the guys at the shop who didn't join us there. Coming home with a trophy was a good feeling, especially after starting the week off so slow and so far back (the car got 5.3 seconds faster from Thursday to Sunday).



Here are some of the little bits of wisdom that I humbly share with you after this Nationals experience:

• The power to weight ratios in TT's numbered classes are better explained in the ST rules. Most people were cheating themselves, running too much weight or too little power until the TT directors got us straightened out. Yes, even at Nationals, mistakes were often made on classing sheets.
• Don't run 40-60 pounds heavy for your class then complain if you lose by .017 seconds. In NASA, the power and weight matter a lot.
• Don't fear the dyno - get a dyno test done AT Nationals on the OFFICIAL dyno early in the week. Ask for a weight check early and often, too. You will want to have a good "tested legal" date to fall back on, in case a later test is blown.
• High altitude tracks can produce funky dyno numbers - be prepared to have to de-tune or add weight when the conditions are very different from your home track.
• There is no substitute for fresh race tires. Ever. The normal tire strategies we use at Regional NASA events (R6s for most of the laps, A6 for a single session and faster hot lap) can work well, but at Nationals we needed more sticker sets. Showing up on used or worn tires was a big mistake, as we were partially tuning around bad tires. Neal Roberts had taught us this. Economics got the better of us.
• Making huge changes to the car or set-up right before Nationals is a bad idea. Pick a time period a month or two before Nationals and LOCK DOWN YOUR SET-UP. Don't count on the 4 days of TT sessions to help fine tune the set-up, either.
• Don't skimp on your trailer tires. On an enclosed 2 or 3 axle trailer, bring two mounted spares plus at least a third unmounted spare trailer tire. Keep one spare + the axle lift ramp + a proper lug wrench right next to the trailer side door for easy access.
• Towing over the Rocky Mountains is the suck, no matter what vehicle you are using. Going "around" the mountains is easier than going over the worst passes. Plan your route accordingly. On the return trip we heard of some folks seeing ice on the roads on the difficult passes.
• If you are going to Nationals and have never run the track before, get there at least a day early to practice. Budget for this with time and tires.
• If you have doubts about fuel availability or quality at the track, bring your own fuel. We spent a small fortune on 100 octane race fuel to mix with the 91 octane "Premium" they use in Utah.
• When it comes to numbered TT classes (TTU/1/2/3), don't skimp on the aero. EVERY SINGLE top TT3 car had excellent wings, splitters, and low drag tricks. Nobody in TT3 used the "better" 9:1 optional ratio for using stock aero... every fast car took the weight hit to use aftermarket aero.
• Too much front downforce can be a bad thing (we've since made a 2nd splitter that is 4" shorter - see my next event write-up on how that worked).
• Don't do your aero set-up testing at a track that only has low speed corners (duh).
• High speed tracks require SERIOUS braking systems. Don't skimp, and "bigger is better" applies.
• Don't bring a street car to run in the top TT classes at Nationals and expect to win. It might work at a Region level, and it might have worked at Nationals in the past, but the top guys show up to Nationals in serious race cars.

I hope our mistakes and experiences can help you make the right choices for your TT build, if and when you decide to try your hand at this sport. And I hope reading our posts encourages that goal for most HPDE folks. Why? Because after a while just "running a DE" can get boring. There are not rules, times, or competition to drive you. Just "driving around a track" doesn't teach you much, once you have gone through instruction and are Solo'd. We've seen a lot of HPDE drivers moving towards TT, and I think that is great. But don't assume you have to go W2W racing after you get to TT. Many of us don't want or need the added risks, costs and damage potential that W2W racing has. If you can afford to write off your car after some asshat punts you off track and destroys your car, and that won't upset you too badly, then by all means... go right ahead. Because that can and does happen in W2W, but not in TT.


Hard Choices - Selling BOTH Mustangs?

Unfortunately we still need to sell the 2013 GT, and it has taken so long now that I'm forced to put the 2011 GT up for sale now, too. I know, that sucks - trust me, I don't want to do this. We had planned on selling the 2011 at the end of this year or in the Spring of 2014, to make room for the all new 2015 Mustang we want to buy, prep and race in 2014. That is still happening, but with so much $$$ tied up in both Mustangs, I need to move them sooner rather than later. We had hoped we could keep the red car for a while longer, but expanding the business needs cash right now and both of our S197 projects are going on the auction block. Look for an updated ad for the 2013 GT and a new for sale ad for the 2011 GT soon.



Since nobody made a serious offer on it, our black 2013 GT is getting taken back to stock very soon and will likely be sold on CraigsList to some random schmuck, as the "track ready" set-up didn't get me any legit buyers (just a couple of fast talking con men and a few low ball pranksters). Our red 2011 GT will be posted up as it sits in TT3 trim now, with the aero front end and one set of 18x12" wheels and tires. If that is a bust we'll put it back to nearly stock and sell it that way, too. Don't PM me about parts off of either car just yet, as I will ignore those straight off. When/if these cars have parts pulled off they will go for sale all at once and I'll post an ad here.


What's Next?

There are still a lot of events we might be able to squeeze in with the red 2011 GT. And who knows? Maybe the 2013 GT will sell and some other things will fall into place and we won't have to sell the red GT right away, and I can make all of these events (fingers crossed!). Here's what is on the race schedule for the next few weeks.

• NASA @ TWS on Sept 21-22 - we've completed this event and I will have the write-up shortly.
• Camaro Vs Mustang Battle on Oct 5 @ Texas Motorplex - sign up here. Vorshlag is putting together the autocross portion, so if you have a GM or Ford powered vehicle, please come out and join us. Only $45 to both autocross and drag race, and we will make sure it is going to be fun!
• Goodguys Lone Star Nationals Oct 4-6th @ TMS - We will go to this on Sunday Oct 6th for the Autocross (the last Optima Qualifier for 2013) in the red car on whatever street tires we can scrounge up. Any American built or American powered vehicle is eligible.
• SCCA Autocross @ TMS Road Course Oct 13 - if we still have the red Mustang by then we will run this event in that car. This is their once-a-year "road course" event, with the infield road course at Texas Motor Speedway lined with some cones and packed with a bunch of autocrossers. Walls beware!
• NASA @ ECR Nov 2-3 - Again, assuming we still have a TT3 car to race by then, we will be there trying to finish out the NASA Texas calendar with a 100% track record sweep in TT3 for 2013. We're 7 for 7 so far....

2015 Mustang for 2014 in... TT2?

So to recap a few of our 2014 plans, we plan on buying one of the all-new 2015 Mustang GT's as soon as it is available. From talking to a few key people that have sources at Ford, we think the new S550 chassis is going to be at least 100 pounds lighter. The Coyote 5.0 engine choice is assumed to carry over, and if it is like previous "chassis changes" it will likely have a small power bump, too. We will get the V8, manual transmission, and likely red again - but that's it. I'm not letting Amy pimp this one out with a bunch of options. So this means it will be even lighter and more powerful than the 2011 GT which we have been playing with in TT3, so we'd have to cork up the engine and/or slap on a bunch of extra weight to stay within the 9.5:1 pounds per hp ratio of TT3 class "with aero".

The next class up the Time Trials ladder is TT2, which has an 8:1 ratio. We have extrapolated that this S550 will likely end up there, once we upgrade the suspension, wheels/tires, and aero like we have the 2011 (and that will happen quickly). So TT2 is what we are shooting to run next year, again with a goal of developing new parts for this new Mustang chassis (S550), and hopefully racking up a few more NASA TT track records along the way. We haven't found a better venue to test new products for a car than the competition that NASA Time Trial provides. Unfortunately the NASA Texas the season starts in January, and the new car might not be out until April or May... and we had the TT3 regional championship for 2013 wrapped up by May of this year, so we can't wait that long to get a race car built.



Some of you may already know that Vorshlag is a lot more than just a "Mustang suspension shop". One of the many series of products we have developed over the years is our LS1 V8 swaps into various BMW chassis. We've done E30, E36, E46, Z3 BMW swaps and have kits for most of those, plus a V8 Miata kit that is under development. Our service shop has been cranking out a lot of BMW V8 swaps of late and I have a couple of E36 donor chassis at my house right now, without a clear purpose. So....

Vorshlag TT2/ST2 E36 Build Thread: http://www.vorshlag.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8254

Over the winter we will be building a TT2/ST2 BMW E36 LS1. The chassis is a white 1992 325is "E36 Coupe", with a tired motor and interior. This will be stripped down, caged, flared, painted and built into a W2W race car. We might briefly run it in TT2 before we sell it, too - that's my goal if we do end up selling the red 2011 GT before the new 2015 GT arrives.


Above: Our TT2/ST2 build is already underway with the BMW E36 chassis being stripped and readied for a cage

I know, its not a Mustang, but it will allow us to at least get in the class with something while we await the S550's introduction. We will also be building our E46 LS1 Alpha car with a 5.7L motor around TT1 class rules, also over the winter, which we plan to race and develop that kit with as well. The Alpha LS1 Miata that is moving forward (customer car), among other builds in our shop.

Don't worry - we're not done developing S197 parts, not hardly. Lots of S197 Mustang race prep, development and upgrades are still going on at Vorshlag on a daily basis. And we might be able to hang onto the red GT for a while, or if it is sold in "near stock form" I will look for a front damaged '11-14 GT as soon as we can and transfer over the front sheet metal and aero updates from this car, as well as some new shock and suspension options we are working on for this chassis.



So I hope this last series of posts wasn't too long and boring, and I apologize that my "Nationals Event Coverage" spanned so many days and too many words. I've already started my write-up for the TWS event on Sept 21-22nd, where the car again did very well. There was a host of updates done to the car before we took it to Texas World Speedway for this NASA race weekend, including a new "shorter" splitter which balanced out the aero imbalance we had at Miller. Our painter also reworked the hood and it looks top notch, but we lost the vinyl stripes in the process. I'll get that update posted shortly. Until next time...

Thanks for reading,

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Project Update for Oct 10th, 2013: In this update we will pick up coverage of the TT3 Mustang's preparations and updates after we returned from the 2013 NASA Nationals, at Miller Motorsport Park. That work started about Sept 10th. Then I will cover the NASA event at TWS Sept 21-22 and what we have coming up next.

Pre-TWS Updates and Prep

There was less than 2 weeks between our return from Miller (Sept 10th) to the next NASA event (Sept 21st), and I wasn't about to go back to another track with high speed corners with this aero imbalance. So we made a list of changes to make and got to work on them quickly, between customer service and race prep jobs. And the shop was BUSY for those 2 weeks, and the work came down to the wire.

We started by leaving the Mustang in the trailer from the return trip from Miller and taking it straight to the painter. The guys at Heritage Collision wanted a little more time to finish the detail work, as we rushed them picking up the car before they had a chance to wet sand and buff the hood. They removed the vinyl stripes and decals and got to work. When we picked it up on Thursday the hood looked as perfect as the painted front bumper cover and fenders, but we never got around to re-striping the hood before the NASA event (ran out of time). Never rush your painter with an insane deadline, BTW.



After we got the trailer back to Vorshlag's shop we played musical chairs, moving cars back and forth from my home shop to Vorshlag. Mustang came out and stayed, our white Alpha E46 LS1 BMW went to my house for a few weeks while the "ST2/TT2 Build" E36 LS1 BMW came to the shop for its turn at some race prep work (it is now stripped down to the bare chassis and squeaky clean). Then another car was picked up at Heritage and delivered for one of my employees. Man, we need a bigger shop, and a bigger trailer. Growth problems.



When the car was back from the painter the custom made front bumper beam (which I personally weighed at almost exactly 10 pounds) was removed, the ends were capped and welded, and a few more stitch welds were added to the ducting tabs. Then it was scuffed, cleaned and painted. We spray bombed it the same Race Red as the exterior... just because. I hate leaving anything unpainted in bare steel, even on a "race car". And I knew we might be selling this car soon, so it was a loose end to wrap up.

Next up was something that has been on my "to do list" for a long time. We finally did the rear "bump-stop-bracket-ectimy". See, there is a little angled bracket spot welded to the body which has an integral hook slot for (I guess) transatlantic tie-downs (?) and that also has a flat spot above the axle-mounted bump stop to whack into. Well we removed that axle-mounted bump stop ages ago, and with a 12" wide wheel mounted the T-slot is completely inaccessible. This bracket serves no purpose for us now. It does, however, get in the way of the inside barrel when the 12" wide wheels are put down at full suspension droop. We've been doing this crazy multi-step wheel removal process every time it goes up in the air on our 2-post lift or for wheel removal at the track.



First, we drive the rear wheels up on some wood blocks or ramps, so we can then slide a long floor jack way under the axle pumpkin. Next we can jack up the rear of the car (to put the rear suspension loaded in bump direction), then we can remove the wheels, THEN we can allow the car to be raised on the lift and the rear suspension can go to full droop without letting the inner barrels of the rear wheels hang up on this useless bracket. Whew... it is a lot of words to describe, and it is an even bigger hassle to do each time the car goes on the lift. This is one of those special restrictions that go along with a 12" wide rear wheel (but not 10" or even 11" wheels - they are well clear of this bracket). You can work around the brackets with 12s, like we have for 2 seasons... or you can remove the damned things and no longer worry about the wheel hanging up on the bracket at max droop. This never once is an issue in any sort of driving, on the street or on the track track, but only comes int play at EXTREME droop (aka: only when the car is going on a 2-post body lift or being jacked up at the rear NOT by the axle).



It is even more fun to put the car up in the air for inspections or work track-side, as you have to either put jackstands under the axle tubes (as shown above) or yank the wheels first before it goes up onto jackstands. Nine spot welds later, the brackets fall off. If you use a spot weld cutter properly you only cut through the bracket itself (and not the tub). Then clean and paint the part of the inner fender area behind the bracket (otherwise it will be that green-grey primer) in a matching color you will never be able to tell it was ever there. Olof painted this area but we didn't get a picture of it all matching and pretty this time, oh well.



What idiot suggested making a set of race wheels and having them powder coated in white?! Oh, yea... that was me. Err... Oops. Looked cool in the very first pictures, but they were stained worse in each successive session at Miller. We tried cleaning them between sessions but it was hopeless. I showed my powder coater what they looked like after we got back and he suggested some polish. We tried that, and it worked OK in some small spots, but it just wouldn't cut the brake dust everywhere. We broke out the Mothers Power Ball and all kinds of waxes, cleaner wax, paint polish, aluminum polish... burned an hour... no help. They sort of almost tried to clean up, but these will have to be stripped (glass bead blasted) and recoated in grey or black if we use them in the future. They look bad.



I guess these big, powerful, heavy cars can just get the brakes too dang hot and the harsh XP20 Carbotech pad material we are using is embedding itself into the top layer of the clear coat on these wheels. Wouldn't be a problem on a street car or with most street compound brake pads, but this is the reason why so many race cars use grey, black or silver wheels. Live and learn... race wheels need to be some shade of "brake dust color", just to be safe. The other "flat grey" set of 18x12's we have looks excellent and has seen much more track time, of course.



So the lower grill opening got yet another screen, this time back in the stainless 1/4" spacing mesh we used before. Ryan and I talked about the Kevlar radiator screen and the few hotter than normal sessions we saw at Miller (and once at ECR) with that installed, so he fabricated another mesh screen surround frame & insert for the CS Lower Fascia. It was something to test again, we verified to be better at TWS, but there were other restrictions that happen when you "mow the grass" off track. I'll talk about that in my TWS race write-up, heh. We would have put the old screen back in but a customer with a 2012 Boss really wanted to buy that first screen from us, so it was sold off about a month ago. This now "screens" all incoming air to the radiator and air filter, since the upper grill is blocked off.


We made a new splitter for testing and use TWS (at left) that was approx. 4" shorter than the splitter we used at Miller (at right)

The big job I asked our fab crew to tackle before TWS was MAKE ME A NEW SPLITTER! Yes, it seems like a lot of work, and it was, but it paid off with a balanced car at speed (more on that below). The 10.25" splitter we used at Miller was a big too aggressive, and too much of a good thing (front downforce) turned into a loose car at speed. I'm really more surprised than anything that this worked... because "all of the textbooks" say that a splitter stalls past 6" in length. Well, this one sure didn't, and the 10.25" length unit just kept on pushing down on the front wheels. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we ducted the hood, added the waterfall deflector, and blocked the upper grill, but the "long" splitter was overpowering the rear downforce. Ideally I would have liked to keep the long version and tried a wider 2D wing element with a longer chord (and possibly a more efficient design with more downforce at a lower AoA) on the rear, but the budget for a new wing just wasn't there, either in time or money.



Luckily we had made 2 identical water jet aluminum splitter elements before we went to Nationals, so Ryan and the crew cut down the "spare" unit by 4" in length and made a 2nd full splitter. Still the same width, and still much larger than the surface area of the '12 Leguna splitter, and much stiffer. Since we might want to test this original 10 incher again later (on this car or another S197), I had them keep the old splitter intact and make a completely new unit from the spare piece. The new 6" unit has a new 1" square tube lower spacer, new strut mounting tabs welded in place (closer to the leading edge), new pin mounts at the back, everything. And we painted this one black, too.



Of course we learned some lessons from building the last splitter and this version one went a lot faster, and mounts faster/easier/better, too. Subtle tweaks here and there. And even though this 6" long unit is as low as the 10" long splitter before, the shorter front length makes it able to load the car into the trailer with the front end attached again. We still have to use a lot of ramps, but it works without scraping. Much. Huge time and hassle savings, though.



Now that we have a fully functional, remote controlled winch we can pull it in or out of the trailer with ease. And as you can see in the picture above, we have re-installed the OEM side view mirrors. Why? Well it can't really be called a street car without these. We pulled these off for the high speed track at Miller, as we were looking for every way to reduce drag. For that one event, where there wasn't any "leaving/returning" to a hot track, it almost made sense. At any other Time Trial or HPDE, where there is more passing.... not so much. If it was a pure race car we would install a multi-element rearview mirror at the top of the windshield (like a Wink mirror) plus a "school bus" convex side mirror on the driver's side, mounted to a roll cage just inside the car.



Another upgrade we did to our TT3 Mustang before Miller but finally got around to getting pictures of was an improved set of front brake backing plates for cooling air ducting. These finally match what we've been making for our customers for months and replaced the first versions we made 2 years ago. The original set for this car was a bit compromised and we have since made about a dozen sets for customers using the 14" front Brembos. Now we're finally making a production batch and will have them for sale soon in our Mustang S197 Brakes section of the Vorshlag website.



We did a lot of suspension, safety and other track prep work to another Boss 302 Leguna Seca last week (shown here) and Brandon got some good pics of the improved ducting plates we made for his car, too (check out the ghosted composite image, above). We also added a Whiteline Watts, rear control arms and brackets, Vorshlag/Bilstein StreetPro suspension, 5300-K springs, and more before he heads off to do the Big Bend Open Road high speed event.



These latest Vorshlag backing plates are somewhat unique in that they have the best aspects from several aftermarket designs we've seen - but they are made from OEM backing plates, so they fit tighter to the rotor face than other brands. Instead of starting with a (less costly) flat laser cut sheet, we use the OEM stamped/formed backing plates, which allow for these closer tolerances. We cut away most of the outer ring section that normally covers the rotor face (blocking the rotor from rain but also holding in heat) but we leave the section near the tie rod end (to protect the ball joint from rotor heat). Then we add the properly sized tubing to fit inside a 3" ducting hose (virtually every kit we've seen uses 3" diameter, which is too large to fit inside 3" hose). The tube is then cut to fit and TIG welded in place so that it pushes air inside the rotor face. This way the ducted air can be sucked through the vanes of the rotor, like an air pump. Nothing revolutionary, but just has the best features from all of the best kits we've seen and installed.



This Leguna also received a Corbeau bolt-in S197 harness bar (we are a Corbeau dealer now - with a demo seat in our lobby) and a set of the 6-point Schroth Profi ii harnesses. Submarine straps were special ordered to work with his Boss Recaro seats, since there is no lower harness hole in the bottom of those OEM seats. You can see these and many more options in the Mustang Seats and Safety section. A lot of people don't know we are dealers for many of the brands we have added in 2013.

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above


These red painted marks are there to see when a bolt has loosened up, on future inspections (this is the Whiteline Watts on David' H's Leguna)

The rest of the pre-TWS prep work to our TT3 Mustang was pretty basic - A set of well used R6s (from the Miller Hoosier trash pile) were mounted to the grey wheels, for use in early sessions on Saturday. Some fluids were changed and some Motul RBF600 was pushed through the brake system. We did or normal "NASA Track Inspection) and checked all of the suspension hardware paint marks to make sure nothing had moved. I cleaned the rubber marks off of the body, from the tons of klag hits we took at Miller. The Carbotech brake pads installed before Miller still look great, even after 4 days of abuse at the highest speed track we've seen all year. The guys loaded everything up into the trailer and Amy and I left for the 3 hour tow from Dallas to College Station at Friday around 5 pm. Nice timing - now we hit all sorts of Friday rush hour traffic, yay.

We arrived at the track around 8:30 pm, paid $5 at the gate for the track's "maintenance fund", came in and scoped out a spot to drop the trailer. Showing up on a Friday also incurs a "$35 trailer drop fee". If we would have showed up Saturday or Sunday, no fee for that. Saw some NASA racer buddies and said hi, and then we rolled out in the F-350 to head to our friend, Costas' place. Most of the hotel rooms in College Station were booked, as it was a home football game weekend - Beat the Hella Outta SMU! (and we did). NASA Texas set their race schedule then A&M moved their game weekend, poof, it was the perfect storm for hotel hell. Anyway.... Johnny Football! Sorry... back to the race.

NASA @ TWS, Sept 21-22, 2013

This NASA Texas event was scheduled only 2 weeks after NASA Nationals, and I was dreading this race weekend. Why? Several reasons: first, I was simply tired after the mega-haul to and from Miller and the week we spent there. Once we got back from that 8 day trek I was way behind at work, and had been working crazy late hours playing catch-up. We looked back and realized that Amy and I had only taken a single day off in the past 3 months (we almost always work 7 days a week), so we were both wiped out. Next, the weather forecast looked pretty bleak for the upcoming TWS race weekend, and it ended up raining Friday during the NASA endurance race they held from 6-9pm and looked to continue into Saturday. And I had no rain tires. That 24+ hours of rain also meant the infield grass areas would be a mud bog if anyone went off, and it is TWS... where there are usually big messy offs.

I was also worried about doing damage to the car here more than at any other track on the NASA Texas circuit or Miller. See, this track was built in 1969, in the age before even the RUSH movie was told. And it was made to be a super speedway, first and foremost, with a road course thrown in later for good measure. In 24 years of doing track events I've only ever damaged my cars at this track, and have seen many accidents happen here - the higher speeds, the rougher infield sections, one chicane that isn't needed, and nearby walls were all factors. The harsh impact coming off the banking into Turn 1 is also very jarring and eats RF wheel bearings. So I was more than a a little worried about damaging a car which I might be selling soon, and because of other events leading up to this weekend I was just a little less than cheery when we loaded up and headed down to College Station.


Left: One of the CMC cars that slid off into the muck at TWS on this race weekend. Right: A crashed TT car from April

The facilities at this track have also been somewhat neglected for the past 20 years, which I guess everyone is just used to. From my point of view, there hasn't been much spent on repairs, updates or upgrades to the track since it was built (other than a brief stint in the mid 1990s, when it was purchased by a Japanese investment group who dumped a lot of money into the track hoping to get NASCAR and some other big pro series to run there, unsuccessfully). I worked at this track off and on for a few years back then and have noticed a steady decline, as have many others. I know, a race track's surface should be more important than the bathrooms or parking areas, but it all plays a factor in the overall "Track Weekend Experience".

Vorshlag Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/NASA-TWS-092113/

I do have a lot of good history at TWS other than as a recent NASA Time Trial racer: as an employee during an oil company test that spanned two years driving (of all things) 5.0L Mustangs around the oval for 50,000 miles. As a corner worker with PCA in the 1980s-90s, as a volunteer track worker during a few Pro races they did manage to hold in the 1990s, as an HPDE driver at many events in the 1980s-1990s, and as an officer in the Texas A&M Sports Car Club (TAMSCC) when we rented the track 3 times in the early 1990s. I have driven many hundreds of laps here on virtually all of the various configurations since my first track event there in 1989. I guess it a love-hate relationship, because as good as this track is in some ways (the higher speeds, unique layouts, central location for Texas) the facilities and track have declined for a couple of decades. And you know me, I am not "politically sensitive" and usually say what's on my mind...



What I'm saying is, it doesn't take a keen eye or 24 years of history here to know that this track has seen better days. When you look at the bathrooms, garages, grand stands, the vehicle tunnels under the track, the man tunnels under the track (which have spent years being flooded), and the TWS scoreboard above (picture was shot in April) that looks like it should have a post-apocalyptic Charlton Heston standing under it yelling, "You damned dirty apes!"

This is the lone track that is on the NASA Texas schedule twice in each year, too, and in my humble opinion there are newer, safer tracks we could race at twice a year, all of which have been built in the last 13 years and have nicer facilities. So basically TWS is not my favorite track, because of the added dangers there and the generally declining facilities, but I still enjoy the once a year or so race there.



So that was my list of reservations about another race weekend at TWS, and this weekend in particular (with the Nationals 2 weeks earlier + bad weather). If this race wasn't on the schedule I would have stayed at home and slept, a lot, at least for one day. But I made a promise last year to compete in every NASA Texas race weekend in 2013, and I'm going to stick to it. I have also been trying to bag every TT3 track record this year, and already had the TWS record for the Clockwise 2.9 mile track back in April. Amy was ready to sign up at the event in TT3 if we didn't have 5 in class, to help somebody win Hoosiers, but she was tired enough herself that she wouldn't mind sitting this one out and just helping me that weekend. So likely I would run both days and we'd concentrate on getting me as much track time on this Counter Clockwise 2.9 mile course as possible to put in our best lap time for TT3 track record attempt number 7 for the year.

Last year, in April 2012 when I ran the Mustang at the same 2.9 mile CCW NASA race weekend, we had car problems from the word "go". The high G left turn off the banking and into Corner 1, coming off the high banks at 150+ mph, was causing oil to sling from the axle vent onto the right rear tire. The higher speeds seen here were overworking the plate style limited slip and apparently boiling the diff fluid. The lube was at first just spitting out of the right side axle vent, but later turned into a steady spray of oil. Going into a 150 mph corner with diff fluid spraying onto the loaded outside rear tire is NOT FUN. After fighting massive high speed oversteer for a handful of sessions on the first day, and a failed attempt at a track side fix, we packed up and headed home Saturday afternoon before ruining the weekend for someone else. All I could manage on some fresh 315mm Kumho V710s was a lousy 1:56.7 lap (nearly 4 seconds slower than the AI record), and it was a slip-sliding, scary mess.


Our TWS 2.9 CCW race weekend in April 2012 was a dud, with gear oil pouring on the back tire and slow times

We learned a lot from that event, and have since made 3 revisions of a custom rear diff fluid catch can system on the car, with the current version being ready to turn into a production kit (when we get time to do that). The aero package on the car is also much better now, the suspension more sorted, the tire strategy is better, there's a Torsen T-2R diff in the car now, the Watts link over the previous Panhard rod, and the car is better classed in TT3 vs the TTS class we ran last year. So I was hoping I could stay ahead of the growing TT3 field that seems to be steadily getting faster, and maybe, just maybe, redeem my poor showing on this 2.9 CCW TWS configuration from last year. I had to beat that high 1:56.7 time, for sure, and was hoping to scoot in between the two closest records to TT3 on the books (TT2's record of a 1:50.2 and AI's record of a 1:52.9).

Saturday - Day 1

We got to the track early and it was still spitting rain, so the first few scheduled morning sessions were wet. Amy and I unloaded the car and got everything ready, we went to the TT meeting and handed out the Vorshlag created TT maps (below) but when the first TT Warm Up was scheduled it was still spitting rain. Like at Miller, with no wet tires I wasn't going to risk going out, so I stayed in the paddock. In hindsight, this was a mistake, which I will explain.


At the behest of the TT Director Vorshlag makes a TT Track Map for each NASA Texas race showing the bunch up and "go green" spots

When the next and first "official" timed TT session was scheduled, the track was mostly dried out, so I pulled into grid - at the back, since I didn't have a previous time from the Warm-up to rely on. Again, the Warm Up is mostly run just to get the cars some times to use for gridding purposes for the upcoming "official" TT sessions. So I was stuck in the back for TT session 1 and figured I'd need to make several passes in this session to be able to get a time good enough to move me up on grid for TT session 2. By my rough estimation our Mustang should be about 2nd quickest of the 31 TT cars entered, but I was gridded about 20th. Oh well, how bad could it be?


I was gridded poorly for the 2nd TT session (first official session), due to missing the Warm Up

As you can see in the video below, pretty damned bad, actually. The tires we were using in these early Saturday sessions were some of the 315mm Hoosier R6 scrubs I picked up at Miller from the Hoosier trash pile, and all 4 had a LOT of klag (balled up rubber) glued to the carcasses. So on my warm up "out lap" I was aggressively trying to get the rubber off by slaloming hard on the straights. Most of the time on a TT out lap we're doing about 50 mph, and until we get to the "bunch up" zone (marked on the map) we can swerve and brake and do what we need to get tire heat, brake heat, oil heat, and scrub off klag like on my set of tires. I thought I had done enough... but no.



That's my first hot lap and yes, I had an off at Turn 6. The car was very loose exiting Turn 3 so I should have been ready for anything, but it was calmed down in Turns 4 and 5, so I started turning it up by Corner 6. I did my normal turn in for T6 and the rear washed out VERY QUICKLY. When it did I think the right rear tire caught some of the still damp track surface off line and it REALLY stepped out some more. I like to think I have pretty fast hands, and can usually catch a spin like this fast enough. Nope, not this time. I got into a classic tank slapper and shot straight off the exit of Corner 6 like a bullet. I could have gone of sideways but figured "go off straight" was the wise choice.


The times from Saturday's TT Warm-Up (left, which I skipped) and TT Session 1 (right, where I had an "off" and a subsequent DQ)

The "off" didn't do anything bad to the car, as the stiff aluminum plate splitter just mowed the grass - you could clearly see the path I took in the outfield. I felt like I should go back and do the edging, since I did so much mowing. Luckily I didn't go very far off track and missed any ruts or big bumps while in the dirt. I slowed down, waited for a gap, and got back on track when it was safe. Once back on track (in between a safe gap of cars) I immediately pulled off line (track left) on the straight and waved several more cars behind me by, until I could check the gauges, brakes and tires to see if I could get back up to speed. Once I was up to Turn 7 the car felt and looked fine, so I sped up and started planning for a hot lap on lap 2. I knew that now this TT session 1 was was going to be a DQ (offs or spins = automatic session DQ in Time Trial), but my times should still count towards gridding for TT session 2. And I needed to move up the grid more than I needed to worry about my fastest official TT time at this point. I took 2 more hot laps with lots of traffic (mostly passing cars I let by when I had the "off"), and got down to a 1:55.564 in traffic, then noticed engine temps shooting up so I took a cool down and came in. Turns out the new mesh grill we added to the lower fascia opening was PACKED FULL OF GRASS, so no air was getting to the radiator. But it still took 2 laps to get hot, so I guess the ducted hood was still pulling some air through the rad, somehow. I wiped away the tall grass clippings that I had mowed and got the car ready for TT session 2, after lunch.


These grey wheels have the R6 tires, and were only used in TT session 1 on Saturday

I went up to check the grid sheet after lunch before TT session 2 was to begin and they had me gridded in... 26th. Huh?? There was apparently some mistake in T&S and they hadn't gridded me by my Session 1 time, which they should have. Oiy, what a mess. But hey, weird stuff can happen when you DQ a session, which was my own damned fault. Since we only had 2 sessions left on Saturday and we all knew it was only going to get hotter, and I had some fast TT3 drivers already breathing down my neck, I went ahead and made the call - switch to A6s now. I was hoping to wait until Sunday morning to make the A6 move, but I wasn't going to risk losing on Saturday by leaving the fast tires in the trailer. So I ran the scrub R6 tires for all of one session, and they never felt very good, but I was buried in traffic the whole time so who knows?

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above


I switched wheels to run the the A6 tires for Saturday's TT Session 2, with help from Brian Matteucci (striped shirt)

By now my old college racing buddy and former roommate Brian Matteucci had arrived and he helped me and Amy swap the tires over - and because of the swarm of people coming by, we needed the help. With a freakishy good paddock spot and the "hard to miss" changes to the car, we had 100+ people come by on Saturday and ask questions about the hood, splitter and flares, as this was the first NASA Texas event where anyone had seen the front aero mods. But we don't mind talking to folks - that's why we're here. Matteucci was here to watch a NASA event, as he is building a top secret TT car that should debut next month at the NASA @ ECR event (Nov 2-3).


Getting gridded up for TT session 2 took some "wheelin and dealin"

My lap time from the DQ'd session should have put me in 5th place on the grid, but the official sheet showed me way back at the back again. After telling the nice grid workers my story about the mistake on the grid sheets, and talking to some competitors gridded ahead of my, I begged my way into 10th place on the grid (most of the folks didn't want "the big red Mustang that just drove off track" right behind them, heh) and I was ready for Session 2.

So in that session I started in 10th and got some passes done in the first few laps and finally got in a quick, mostly traffic free run on hot lap 4. The best time I ran on this 4th hot lap was a 1:54.369, which was the 3rd quickest time in the session. Vorshlag customer Allen Page was on fire in this session and cut a 1:53.893 in his TTB car, the quickest car out there this time! Mike Weather's was 2nd quickest in his TT1 car, still clearly in the TT1 lead but he wasn't even running his good tires yet (didn't until Sunday).


Allan Page (left) was the quickest in TT session 2 in his TTB E46 M3, while Mike Weathers was fastest of the day, running a 1:50.480 in TT Session 1

My lap time was still way slower than I wanted to see, but was good enough to move me up to P3 on the grid for the final TT session , TT Session 3. Mike was clearly in the TT1 lead and didn't want to bother with the added heat of the last session of the day, as was Allan in TTB, so I ended up leading the pack out for the last TT session. More importantly, I finally had the first bit of clear track all day, and what I thought was a full battery on the vidcam and lap timer. So here we go, in the video below...



As you can see if you watch that video (up to 1080P rez available) there were a few video and timing equipment faults. First, the data logger got all out of sync and we lost data about halfway down the straight away for my first hot lap. Brandon has been trying to coax the TrackMate software to work with the native output of my Sony HD video camera. Long story, but the data was borked so we cannot see speeds or the g-meter data on my hot lap. He has finally figured out how to sync this stuff, when the data isn't corrupt, so we'll keep trying. Next, the battery on the vidcam died about 3/4 of the way through my first hot lap.

Of course I didn't realize this until Sunday, so I don't have any Sunday video, either. And that's when I found 2 more seconds. Anyway, the final TT session Saturday went well enough, and I dropped down to a 1:52.616 on my 2nd hot lap (I made some driving mistakes on my first lap - the car was very twitchy and loose, and it took a lap to get the tires up to temp and settled down). And I'm glad I went out, because another TT3 driver slapped on some sticker Hoosiers in this session and dropped to a 1:53.330, for 2nd place. We had TEN cars in the TT3 class by day's end, out of 31 cars, so it was the biggest TT class of the day.


NASA time sheets for TT Session 2 (left), TT session 3 (middle) and End of Day Saturday Results (right)

I still didn't think the time was where I should have been running in this car, as the American Iron lap record was a 1:52.9 and I was barely beating that. The track was green from the recent rains, and the fastest AI car that day was in the 1:53s (Mike P's 4th gen Camaro), but that was still too close. I was hoping the first session on Sunday would seal the deal and we could push the TT3 record into the 1:49s or 1:50 flat range.



The best part of the weekend was still to come - the Saturday night NASA party! This time, instead of cooking the food themselves, the NASA region folks had the TWS food service crew cook the food, who did a stupendous job. Fajitas and drinks and beer for everyone there, entrants, friends, volunteers and everyone. That's how NASA does it - everyone is invited. We heard a short speech from Dave Baligant, who announced all of the NASA Texas folks who went to the NASA National Championships at Miller. He noted that I was the only TT racer from our region who went, trying to push more of our group to go next year. We ate, we drank, and had a good time conversing with other racers, friends and other shops from our area (like the guys from Texas Track Works and Evolution Dynamics). I also had great burger at lunch both days and breakfast tacos Sunday from the same TWS cafe, too. For such an old looking building they worked out of, that crew cooked up some damned good food.



After the party we went back to Costas' place and I talked about my laps with Paul. He has a lot more time on this track than I do lately, running his tube framed "GT-1-esque" Camaro in the 1:43-1:45 range. He had some pointers and I thought about these as I drifted off to sleep with the beginnings of a headache.

Sunday - Day 2

I didn't sleep well (woke up with that headache) and Amy and I woke up early and watched the start and first few laps of the F1 race with Costas, then got ready to go to the track at around 7:15... when I started feeling even more sick. We got out in his front yard, were getting into the F-350 to head back to TWS, and I felt very very nauseous ... double over for a ten count and almost puked. Head was POUNDING and I felt terrible. Brushed it off and we got fuel in the truck, ice for the coolers and headed out for an 8:30 TT session 1. This massive headache and stomach thing was with me all day and I was far from 100%, but I tried to push it out of my head and wanted to get in my first 2 early TT sessions, when I knew the conditions would be most favorable.


Mike was seen installing some sticker Hoosier A6 tires for sunday's TT Session 1

Luckily my first session went well and I didn't puke in the car! That was my biggest concern, because my stomach was telling me that whatever I ate the night before was going to come up. I went out on the same A6s from the end of the day before (which was the same set we used at Miller), and the temps were ideal in that first session. I went out right behind Mike Weathers in his TT1 Corvette, who was gridded P1, and I was P2 for the rest of the weekend. On paper my times were within 2 seconds of Mike, but I knew he had a lot left in the tank. And sure enough, Mike had a sticker set of A6 Hoosiers mounted Sunday morning and he said his first lap was going to be his best - and I told him I was on the same tire strategy and would follow right behind him. So we both went out with minimal tire scrubbing and looking to put in our best shot on hot lap 1, then cool down and come right in on Lap 2. That's the A6 tire game in TT and we both knew it well.



Well something happened to change that; one of the instructors was delayed getting from his student's car to grid in his new F30 3 series BMW (gorgeous car, BTW!), got released from grid late, made a wrong turn in the pits, and long story short... he was almost 3/4 of a lap behind the field we we went green. Just bad luck for everyone, and not his fault - instructing is a lot fo work and makes it extra tough if you are competing or trying to get some track time in your own car. Mike's C6 Z06 was setting a BLISTERING pace (he said his predictive timer showed a 1:44 lap!) and I pushed as hard as I dared, trying to simply keep him in sight. My timer was showing a 1:49 predictive, far better than I've ever run in any car at TWS over the years, in any car I've owned, even the E36 LS1 Alpha car. These two lap times were not to be, however, as Mike caught the F30 BMW in Turn 10 and I caught him in Turn 12, and we both had to scrub our first laps getting around him.

It wasn't a huge deal, and he did his best to get out of our way, but we just got unlucky and caught him in bad places to try to pass and had to back off. So Mike took a 2nd hot lap and so did I, with him getting down to the 1:45.680 and me getting a 1:50.744. I knew there was more in it so I took a 2nd hot lap (lap 3) and managed a nearly identical 1:50.75X, pushing even harder. The car was already sloppy and only got worse after that, as the tires had been overheating after the first lap. So I took a cool down and came in. Turns out I could have put it in the trailer then for the day, but I had no idea how anyone else was running, yet.


Sunday's TT Session 1 (left) and TT Session 2 (middle) were the only 2 I ran that day. Sunday End of Day times at right

We had beautiful, sunny weather on Sunday, which meant that Session 1 might have been the golden attempt. Ambient temps and track temps were up in TT Session 2, so Mike blew off going out in this one (he knew he had already seen the fastest session of the day). This meant I was gridded in P1, so I set the pace on the out lap at about 50 mph, and we had some stragglers but they finally caught up. I got in a good first lap and dropped a whopping tenth, down to a 1:50.675, for the new TT3 lap record (TT2 is a 1:50.2, but I couldn't get there in the growing heat). The car felt better than that, but the ambient temps were rising and times were slowing down to match. It is common for many TT racers on gumball tires set their fastest runs on the first Sunday TT sessions, once they have learned the track, as this can be the best track and tire temperatures. I tried another hot lap after my first but it slowed down a lot, then I started catching the back of the field. I took a cool down and came in.

Today my times were closer to where they needed to be. This 1:50.675 ended up being the winning time in class and the new TT3 track record, but I wouldn't know that until the end of the day. I felt like total crap so we loaded the car up before the 3rd TT session (after lunch) and headed back to Dallas by 2 pm. With the splitting migraine and other symptoms, I felt like I was coming down with something and didn't want to be out on track with my body nowhere near 100%. Leaving early put us home by 5:30 pm and we took a relaxing evening to eat, rest and catch up on TV shows and the like. We did, however, watch the MyLaps Race Monitor app during the TT session 3 and 4 on our drive back to Dallas, and as the temperatures rose the lap times did indeed slow down, and my time was safe. Whew!



New TT3 racer Jeremy Johnson (E46 M3 shown above) was fast and he is one to watch in 2014 in this class in Texas, as is John Robert's LS1 Miata (he's supposed to have his newest chassis built and ready for ECR). This was Jeremy's first weekend in TT, after his check ride on Saturday, and I'm sure he will get faster once he learns the "TT tricks". He still can add aero, A6s and more. Very clean car, well done cage, Motion Control double adjustable dampers with remotes, etc.

Aero Improvements Worked

The ease at which the car cornered at the handful of higher speed corners (T1, T2, T7 and T12) at TWS means that the aero changes we made after Miller worked. Lopping four inches off the front of the splitter brought the front to rear downforce balance to a perfect feel, once I got the car onto decent tires. The brakes, tires, motor, trans, and everything else worked perfectly. This was the car's 7th TT3 track record for the year, but I could have driven better both days and felt like I left that 1:49 lap out there.



Big thanks to Amy for coming and supporting me and the car on this race weekend, and to Matteucci for helping lend a hand on Saturday. I didn't ask Ryan or Brandon or any of our crew to come down to TWS, due to the lack of hotel rooms and recent haul to SLC for the big race. So the pictures are just ones Amy shot with our Nikon, and not Brandon's normal high end photo work. We also lacked the tuning help of Ryan, but I fumbled along well enough for the win.

Once I woke up that next Monday morning I was showing all of the symptoms of the flu-like thing that had been going around, and I was sick for a solid week, but luckily not enough to miss any work. This bug went around our shop and I was one of the last ones to finally get it. Everyone that went to Miller from Vorshlag got sick, so that explains the weird headache and nausea on Sunday. I did manage to take a day off the following Sunday, not going to the shop once, and took care of some long overdue home improvement projects and a bit of a lazy afternoon. With the racing season starting to wind down I can hopefully recharge my batteries for next season, which starts in January. Well, after about 3 more autocrosses, one more NASA Texas race weekend, and a couple of HPDE events planned in November and December.

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

continued from above

For some of you that know me and/or are from NASA Texas specifically, there is a big topic stemming from events after this race weekend that are obviously missing from this write-up, which I have written but decided to keep out of this build thread. It involves the track management at TWS, but I'm saving that for another time and another place - this thread doesn't need any more drama. I'm hoping some people come to their senses and these issues can be resolved privately.

What's Next?

We're still trying to sell the 2013 GT, and have removed the AST 4200RR coilover remote reservoir shocks and the 18x10" wheels. And before you ask, THE SHOCKS ARE ALREADY SOLD. Removing these two "big ticket" parts makes it a more affordable Mustang, but it still has the upgraded 14" front Brembo brakes, the custom front brake ducting, the Whiteline adjustable Panhard Bar, and Whiteline rear relocation brackets. We've re-installed the OEM shocks and top mounts but added Ford Racing 5300-K lowering springs, and installed the OEM 19x9" wheels and Pirelli tires from our red 2011 GT, since the stock 18x8" wheels won't fit over the bigger front brakes. The price dropped from $35K to $29.5K, and the ad is linked below.

• Updated CraigsList ad: http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/cto/4114930040.html

FFS, somebody please buy this car. If we can move this one I might be able to keep the red 2011 GT, which we would continue to use to develop more S197 parts. There's still a long list of parts we'd like to tackle, which having a car on hand would help with. I really need your help here, so please spread the word. Beautiful car, low miles, some covert track upgrades, great price. Thanks.

Other events that are upcoming (some already completed) include:

• Camaro vs Mustang Battle Autocross - this was the event we put on October 5th, and my write-up is coming soon.
• Goodguys All American Sunday Autocross - October 6th at TMS, also working on this write-up
• SCCA @ TMS Road Course Autocross - Oct 13th. Amy and I are signed up and will be racing the TT3 Mustang in this annual "road course" autocross event. Lots of fun, and we'll be giving rides on every run
• NASA @ ECR - Nov 2-3. I am already signed up and Amy will drive as well. This is our home track and I am hoping to clinch our final track record of the year here, but it won't be easy! TT3 clas sis hugely popular and it is anyone's guess who will win that class on this weekend. We have a ton of new TT and new to HPDE drivers we've prodded into entering this event, so it should be a blast.

Stay tuned and we'll have more racing action coverage of the TT3 Mustang soon, more S197 parts development, and other interesting bits chronicled in this thread.

Thanks for reading,

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Project Update for October 22, 2013: We've been to 3 more events in the red TT3 Mustang since the last update, and in this post we will cover 2 of those. I have written a lot more than that but I'm too far behind to finish the rest today, so let's go with what we have. I will have another post in this thread later this week.

Camaro vs Mustang Battle - Autocross - Oct 5th, 2013



So a local tuning/engine shop we recommend heavily is called True Street Motorsports. They decided to put on a big "Camaro vs Mustang" event at Texas Motorplex and enlisted Vorshlag to run the autocross portion of the event. There was drag racing, there was a car show, and there was an autocross, with 638 entrants signed up beforehand we were ready for a huge event, expecting at least 150 cars at the autocross.



We worked with some folks in the Texas Region SCCA to bring out their trailer, cones, and timing equipment. I had Vorshlag team members plus friends that volunteered to help us set-up and run the event. We had been to the Motorplex weeks before and inspected all of their parking lots, measured them for courses, marked obstacles, and were ready for a killer event!



Amy and I got there at 7 am, as the sun came up, and I was the first vehicle in the gate for the day with Brad driving the SCCA trailer in right behind me. With the help of the Vorshlag crew, we moved a bunch of barrels and "Caution taped" off the confines of the lot we were using. Brad and Gary from the SCCA set-up the trailer and timers while Amy and I laid out a course. I pre-drove the course in the 2013 GT and Brad made some suggestions, which we went with. Lots of helpers marked the cones and I chalked the outsides of the course.



On the day of the event there was nearly a 100% chance of precipitation in the forecast. With mostly drag racers signed up for this event, attendance really suffered due to the rain. Less than 100 people showed up by 10 am, and we had a total of 20 run the autocross event. Oh well, the sponsors all had already paid for the site and such, so we pressed on. It was overcast when we set-up but we managed to get a good course built for the small-ish lot we had available (350 x 375 feet). I still had hopes that more folks would continue to arrive, because autocross events run rain or shine. But the main draw for the event was the drag racing, and those guys don't run in the rain, obviously. We were hoping for a portion of the drag racers to come try autocross for the first time for only $10 more. And for the most part, the folks who did run the autocross were drag racers, except for a handful of Vorshlag customers that came just for this autocross.


"I'd like some Brake Dive with a side of wheelspin, please..."

This was the first autocross course I have set-up in ... maybe 15 years? But its like riding a bike - you never forget. Amy and I had set-up probably 80 autocross courses when we were part of the TAMSCC club in college (and after), down in College Station. The course we came up with ended up being pretty fun, and was all 2nd gear in all of the cars that ran (no 1st gear portions, thankyouverymuch!) with about a 26 second bogey time.



All of the Camaros were 5th generation models and all but one of the Mustangs were S197s (with one SN95 thrown in), and the Mustangs out numbered the Camaros by more than 3 to 1. We had some dry runs from 9:30 until about 11:30, then the looming cold front blew in and the course had to be shut down due to excessive winds for a few minutes. It went from humid and 85°F to a very breezy 55°F in a matter of about 15 seconds. The skies darkened and the winds blew over most of the barrels lining the edge of the course area, and blew over a dozen cones. I went scrambling out on course in one of our bikes to chase down runaway barrels before they made it over to some parked cars. We got that cleaned up, the winds calmed down, and we got back to drivers taking runs shortly after.



Officially we gave each car 4 timed runs but due to the low turnout we allowed unlimited fun runs after their 4th, yet still ranked drivers on their first 4 runs. Most of the entrants took between 10-15 runs, with several over 25 and one Boss302 driver (Brian S, shown above) who took 37 runs! The surface was somewhat abrasive and grippy. Even in the misting precipitation that was present for about an hour, the run times didn't slow down all that much. Nobody was running for a short bit so I took our red Mustang out for 5 runs on a set of R6 tires in the wet, then Ryan swapped on the 18x10s and 295 Nitto street tires and I took another 4 runs on those, setting fast times on both set-ups, but I didn't take part in the competition. Kind of silly to enter an event we were setting up and sponsoring. I took riders on every fun run in this car, including in the video below.



Note to self - put the windshield wipers back on! We had them off for Miller but forgot to reinstall them for this event. Ryan managed to dry the windshield before every fun run we took. Our Mustang ran flawlessly and handled exceptionally well, rotating perfectly in these damp conditions. I was testing the old set of NT-05s (that we ran at Optima in June 2012 and on several track events and autocrosses on the 2013 GT since then) which we had to use for the Goodguys autocross the next day (Sunday). I dunno... felt OK, but again, it was wet.



Mark Council had his black 2012 GT at Vorshlag getting worked on the previous day (Friday), where we installed a new Cobra Suzuka GT seat, with a slider, harness bar and 6-point harness, using our new custom S197 seat bracket (I'll show that below). He also picked up his new 18x11" Forgestar wheels, which we had built using our custom offsets. We mounted a set of fat 315/35/18 Kumho V710 race tires to these wheels and he ended up setting the fastest time of the day with a 23.944 second lap, leading "Team Mustang" by a solid 9 tenths. The top time in a Camaro was a 26.337, Matt Coate driving in a 2011 Camaro SS on street tires. The results for the Mustang vs Camaro event are below.

• Event Results Sheet: Click here
• Vorshlag Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/Camaro-VS-Mustang-100513/

After a short 30 minute break for lunch at noon we started back up at 12:30 and had a steady stream of cars on course. By 1 pm we'd had the last few stragglers arrive, get teched by Vorshlag's Ryan, take their 4 official runs plus several fun runs, and had their picture taken on course by Vorshlag's Brandon. So after a 20 minute heads up we wrapped things up at 2 pm, then took another hour picking up the course, taking down the timers/display, and loading the SCCA trailer. Big thanks to the SCCA folks for joining us in this event, that we thought would bring in some new autocrossers. And even with only 20 entrants we had some good "newbie retention", with several of these first timers showing up at the next SCCA autocross (which I will cover below).


In-car video spliced with some external video of the TT3 Mustang running this course in the wet

Sure, it was a short course (23-26 second times) but it was very easy to see, it was fun and flowed well, we had no DNFs and very few cones were hit - even though we used a LOT of cones for the size of the lot and length of course. We did have a few folks that walked the course early on, but due to the nature of the event (drag racers would come over in waves after they made some 1/4 mile passes, so most did NOT walk the course) we needed an easy to see course. We also had to make the course route around 2 big light poles, a number of dips and bumps on the surface, and a building in the corner of the lot, but it was still super safe and everyone seemed to have a ball. When you get people taking 10-30+ fun runs I think you can say they liked it.



One thing that was different about this event, other than the massive number of fun runs, was that competitors did not have to work, which is normally a part of most autocross events. The entrants become volunteers, mostly used to shag cones during run heats they are not racing. But we had it covered, with the two folks from SCCA and the four of us from Vorshlag. We had Amy as the starter, one and sometimes two corner workers (and used a bicycle to get cones too far away), a guy teching cars all day, an announcer, timing operator, and a floater. We had a few friends help with set-up and tear down, but for the most part these 6 people did the bulk of the set-up and run the event. It was a lot of hard work, of course, but I'm glad we didn't have to resort to getting competitors to work corners and all of that. Trying to wrangle corner worker is like trying to herd cats - nobody likes to do it, and these folks had other things going on that day (drag racing + car show stuff). I suspect the next autocross some of these first timers go to after this will be like, "Wait, I have to WORK, too?"

We didn't get a chance to take part in the other activities going on at this "Battle" event, as we were working the autocross all day, but the drag racing portion ran for a couple of hours off and on. We would look up and see/hear the cars blasting down the 1/4 mile strip off and on that day, with big breaks during the two small bouts of misting rain. I believe I saw 3 cars in the car show area when we went by at lunch, too. I think this entire event might have a rain date for a total re-do, but I'm not sure when it is yet (mid November, maybe?). We've got enough events going on during the rest of this year where we won't likely be able to sponsor the autocross again, but maybe next year. It would help everyone involved if they had paid pre-registrations (fewer folks will skip the event that way, relative 500+ Facebook invite "yes" acknowledgements that bailed) and boost attendance, and maybe hold it at a facility that has a better autocross lot (Crandall!). If so, maybe we can be a part of this Camaro vs Mustang event again? We'll see how it looks if they do another one in 2014.

continued below

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Goodguys All American Sunday Autocross - October 6th at TMS

The very next day that same weekend we had another autocross we wanted to attend. This was the 21st Lone Star Nationals put on by Goodguys, October 4-6, at Texas Motor Speedway. These weekends are really tailored to the hot rod/street rod/car show crowd, with all sorts of car shows, a swap meet, and much more. But in the past few years there has been a big push to include some sort of competition events for the hopped up muscle cars called "G-machines". Most of the places they hold Goodguys weekends don't have the capacity to do road courses, and the speeds and safety issues are higher in that form of competition, so they have adopted a form of autocrossing at most of their events.

Now I use that word loosely, as the Goodguys autocrosses are unlike any other I have ever seen in the 25+ years I have been competing in these events. Goodguys events are usually run on much smaller parking lots and the courses are notoriously TIGHT. They are closer to a gymkhana than anything else, but its all good. This time I at least knew what to expect, unlike at 2012's Hot Rod Power Tour "Optima Challenge" event, when I was shocked to do the entire autocross event there in 1st gear in our Mustang. But I won that event, and this particular Goodguys weekend was the 8th and final Optima Challenge Qualifier for 2013 - and it was right in our back yard - so we had to go.



Not complaining about the course design, just want anyone that goes to these events to know what to expect - tight, ultra low speed events with a LOT of cones, and a different level of competitiveness than the typical SCCA type of autocross. Number of runs might vary, cone rules can vary from run to run, etc. It isn't really about the competition, per se, but more about showing that these muscle cars and hot rods aren't trailer queens - they are driven, and driven hard. Which is VERY cool and I applaud the event organizers for making these autocross events part of their weekends.

The other good part of a Goodguys autocross - the participants don't have to work course. Just like at the event we put on the day before. Racers notoriously HATE working and running to shag cones on course, by the way. Many folks would much rather pay more to NOT have to be an event volunteer at their competition events. I've participated in hundreds of autocross events over the years but I can count the events where racers DIDN'T have to work at the event on one hand, and I remember each one vividly. Kind of speaks for itself that those stick out in my mind, doesn't it? Competitors don't have to work at HPDE, Time Trial and W2W events, either. Just sayin...


Left: The LS1 powered Genesis Coupe Blanton Payne ran on Sunday. Right: The Mini that Blanton drove Fri-Sat, and he and 2 other drivers also drove on Sunday

Anyway, so Ryan swapped the 200 treadwear 295mm tires and wheels onto our Mustang at the end of the Mustang vs Camaro event, reloaded the trailer, and we drove out to Texas Motor Speedway early on Sunday. We couldn't pre-register, so we had to go to the "race hotel" nearby and register between 7 am and noon. We got there at 7 (after dodging some wacky road construction detours) and we tried to sign up with 2 drivers, to better our chances. The Goodguys weekends don't allow anything newer than 1972 model cars to compete in the autocross events held all 3 days of their event weekends... except on Sunday, in an event specifically for 1973-newer American cars or American powered cars. Entry fee is $40, and we were prepared to pay $80 to get both drivers entered, but they said "that isn't needed, just take turns driving". Huh? Really? We both want to race... "No, you're fine, just enter once". OK.


Couple of Ride Tech Pro class cars, including the Factory Five replica 32 Ford monster and a beastly truck bodied racer

But they wouldn't let us in with our truck and enclosed trailer, crap. ALL of our autocross and track gear is loaded in there, and we had a giant cooler full of drinks, tools, chairs, sunscreen, rain gear, etc. We found the remote parking lot we were supposed to park the truck and trailer in, located outside of the track. Then we unloaded the car and tried to stash as much of our gear in the trunk and back seat of the Mustang, then drove in to the autocross lot way in the back of the infield paddock area.



It was being held in a smallish, fenced in parking lot I didn't even know existed at TMS, and I've raced inside there many times. We parked and went to walk the course. It was as I expected - SUPER TIGHT, with concrete barriers less than 10 feet from the edge of the course in several places. Knife fight in a phone booth. The lot and layout would give SCCA Safety Chiefs spasms and fits, but its normal for a Goodguys autocross. You are expected to drive in control, and if you don't, you are responsible for the damage. We had some rain overnight and it was seeping up between cracks in the asphalt, but I expected it to dry. As soon as we walked it Amy said "No way, YOU are driving all of the runs."

We were unsure how the event would run, so I asked some folks there that I knew. Turns out we knew a bunch of people who were either competing in the "All American Challenge" or that were just making runs in the cars that competed on Friday and Saturday. Yes, they let anyone that was paid up for the autocross from any of the 3 days make runs, which meant the Sunday competitors would be getting fewer runs. I was told the competition would be from about 9:30 or 10 am until 12:30, then they'd stop the competition but continue to take fun runs until about 2 pm. If Amy were to drive with our single entry, we'd have to split our runs, as the cars are run through in order, and make one run, then you park and wait your next turn. It seemed like the competition part was almost secondary, and I was really just hoping for an Optima invite - which doesn't necessarily go to the fastest cars at any Optima Qualifier, as we noticed last year.



Amy and I took a couple of walk-thrus and tried to memorize the somewhat complicated course, much of which was run twice in a given run, with 2 different "changes in course" portions that you had to remember to do in the right order. The video below might explain the course better. In this, my 2nd of 3 total runs, you can see how many times I shift from 2nd back to 1st (3 times per run), and how little traction I had with the year old Nitto NT-05 tires. I had planned on bringing the Mustang on a fresh set of 315/30/18 BFG Rivals, but my racing budget just didn't allow for it, and I kind of figured that winning wouldn't really matter much.



My first run was tough, as the width of the splitter barely fit through some sections of the course, and I kicked a cone with the splitter on one of the 1st gear turn-arounds. My second run (video above) still felt pretty rough to me, and was riddled with mistakes, but it was at least clean. The car felt so wide and there was ZERO traction leaving the line, plus the front end was pushing HORRIBLY in the higher speed (35 mph in 2nd gear) super tight right-hander that I had to navigate twice per run. Had to crawl around the course, super conservative, to keep from mowing down the tight bits.

Somehow that 2nd run put me in the lead, with a 71.82 sec time. That made the on rush of people stopping by step up even more, with tons of questions about the racey bits they could see. I kept reiterating that this was a street car, with A/C, interior, emissions, and tags. There were several of the muscle car "Pros" running that had mega prepped engines and even one re-bodied NASCAR chassis, but the Mustang looked more like a race car, even though it really wasn't all that fast on this crazy tight course.


No helmet? No problem. Concrete barriers? Fences a little close? Don't hit 'em.

My 3rd run came around and I had another passenger (took riders on runs 1 and 3), and somehow I managed to go into THIRD gear on one run, meaning to grab 1st. That run was cleaner and faster, up until that point, and I lost a lot of time re-shifting the car once I figured out the problem. It was a hair slower than my 2nd, with the mega-screw-up in there. And sure enough, someone who had been driving all 3 days snuck in a quicker run on the 3rd and final run group, driving his wife's Camaro ZL-1 automatic convertible. Beat me by .01 seconds, oh well.



Turns out there was a FREE SET OF BFG TIRES on the line for the winner, which I didn't learn about until after my 3rd run. What?! Knowing this up front I would have taken the day a WHOLE lot more seriously - with no passengers, more walk-thrus, and maybe even ponied up for real tires. These old Nittos were shot, and I knew it before I got there. Stupid, stupid, stupid...



I should have known about the potential tire winnings, because as it turns out that was all I had the hope of winning - as I had zero chance of getting the Optima Invite. I talked to the Optima rep who was there picking the one car (he picked this Ford Maverick for the final 2013 qualifier before the 10 picks he will get from the floor at SEMA), and he said "the Mustang just looks too much like a race car". The wing and front aero along with the stripes and graphics were just too much. So the chances of going to the Optima Shootout after SEMA for this car were squashed, but he did tell me what they are looking for. I'll try to build our E46 LS1 Alpha car more explicitly for this type of event in 2014, now that I know what to do and what NOT to do to a car.

After our 3rd runs the line for the drivers wanting to get on course got really long, as more and more drivers from Friday and Saturday kept pouring in all day to take fun runs. And the Pro drivers kept hopping back in line, over and over, so this meant the competition for the All American Sunday event would end with 3 runs. We could have stuck around for fun runs, but I was so pissed at myself for throwing away a free set of tires by blowing a shift, Amy grabbed me and made me walk around the car show areas to blow off steam. And we found out later that if Amy would have paid for that second entry (like we tried to do) that we could have hopped back into rotation twice as many times as I drove. It was... kind of a free for all, but that's how they do their events, so I'm not going to knock it. Just wish I had done a bit more research and prep (pulling the splitter off would have cut 8" of width from the front of the car!) before signing up.


Mike Dusold's very well built twin turbo LS1 '67 Camaro was brutally fast on 315mm Rivals

We walked the swap meet area very briefly, and not seeing anything we could want moved to the car show area. There were some beautiful cars there, and several kick ass 60s/70s muscle cars that I can relate to, but mostly things I cannot comprehend or understand. Air bags and 30" wheels and acres of chrome. By now it was getting towards 1:30 pm and we were starving, so we went back to the autocross area and packed up all of our junk and headed for the tunnel leaving the track. Before we left I talked to some friends, congratulated Mike Dusold for winning the day before in his twin turbo LS1 '67 Camaro and snagging the invite to the Scottsdale Goodguys Nationals, and away we went. We were already exhausted from the event the day before and really wanted to get home and rest before heading to work early Monday morning.


Left: The Mustang drew a fairly large crowd all day. Right: SCCA autocrosser Norm snapped a pic of me and Amy

All in all, the Goodguys weekends are pretty cool, and there is some amazing machinery there, but their Sunday autocross deal is not really targeted to people like me. The autocross format is too different than what I'm used to; the safety requirements (no helmets, course barriers) and course layout were so far removed from a "normal" SCCA autocross that it became a distraction. But they had a good announcer talking up the competitors, a big crowd watching and cheering all day, and it was still fun.

Results: https://good-guys.com/lsn-ac-13 (note: all other class results were from different days)
Photo gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/Goodguys-TMS-100613/

After missing out on winning a set of tires by .01 seconds, due to some stupid driving mistakes and showing up on absolute crap tires (when will I ever learn?!), plus the "no chance" for an Optima invite, I was in a foul mood. But even a bad day racing beats a good day at work, right? At this event I did find out that Amy really likes the looks and lines of the old muscle cars and she wants us to build a g-machine from an old Mustang fastback "some day". I'm definitely down with that. I grew up building muscle cars when I was a wee lad back in high school, so these cars are already part of my past. One thing I might suggest for anyone thinking about entering and/or building a car for these Goodguys events - don't skimp on tires (build around a 315mm BFG Rival), gear the car for 10-35 mph events, and add some extra steering lock for navigating SUPER tight turns. Keep the car narrow and keep the car light.


Some of the cars from the show car area included some of the Pro class autocross crowd

After we left we were both so tired we just wanted to go home and sleep. Which we did for most of the afternoon. Luckily TMS is less than an hour from our house so we were home by 3 pm. Just wanted to mention that the track itself was very nice, with clean bathrooms, good food, and friendly staff directing us at the gate and inside.

More Soon

I've got several more posts written but I need to stop here to post. I should have another post on Friday, with coverage of an SCCA autocross held on the TMS Infield Road Course and hopefully a link to the auction for the Mustang. One more big event on the schedule for the TT3 Mustang, NASA @ ECR, Nov 2-3. Then both Mustangs will be likely sold.

More soon,