Project Update for Nov 23, 2011: To our USA friends, Happy Thanksgiving! After over 2 months off from autocrossing in the Mustang (GRM Challenge, a NASA track day, a Hankook Arrive and Drive, plus some other events were jammed in there) Amy and I managed to get it to the last Texas Region SCCA autocross of the year this past Sunday, the 20th. It was run at the Lone Star Park horse track parking lot, my "not so favorite" local autocross site. The site is big, less than an hour from my house, has some cool elevation changes and on-site restroom facilities, so I should love it. It just has a lower grip surface that comes apart badly. It makes for a very narrow "clean line" that you have to stay on at all costs.
Last 2011 Autocross
Overall, it was actually a very fun day, surface degradation notwithstanding. Jarrett Jan laid out a pretty fun course that was technically challenging, plenty long (60 seconds), yet well marked. The hard working SCCA crew spent some serious time cleaning the course surface before the first runs, using brooms and air blowers to move hundreds of pounds of gravel off line. So the first run group has some clean course runs. The weather was looking very iffy (high chance of rain), and due to a site-forced re-scheduling, the event was moved a week back from its original date, so we were expecting a very low turn-out - but 82 racers made it out and we had a great event, running in STU and STU-W.
New Tires, Wheels, DDP pistons in AST struts
So yea, if you were paying attention just then we didn't run in STX. Let me back up a bit to explain why. In July of this year Amy won a random drawing for a free set of Bridgestones at the NSTC event. One of those "fill out this survey" deals. Whatever the reason for the tires, Amy already had a great relationship with Bridgestone for several years, after winning a National Championship (STU-L) on them in 2007 and being sponsored driver in 2008. So we were excited to be running their tires again, no matter how we got them. They sent us a set of 275/40/18 RE-11s (the biggest 18" size they made, by the way) and a big box of decals, and we mounted them up on the D-Force 18x10" wheels on Friday before the autocross. I gladly put on all of the decals they sent - give me $1400 of free tires and I'll damn sure run your decals!
We've got pallets of these 18x10" wheels (5x114.3 mm PCD, fits '05-up Mustang and '08+ Subaru Impreza; I'm almost 100% certain it fits the RX8 as well - will know soon!) arriving at Vorshlag right around the end of this year ($300, 19 lbs!) so I really wanted to do an autocross and a track day on the wheels first, and fit them with something wide like these 275s - which fit the 10" wheels perfectly. Sure, a wider tire would work even better, and for a more serious STU effort we would go with a 285mm tire. It was just that the widest RE-11 was this 275, so that's what we asked for and received. We'll use them for street use, drag racing, maybe a random track day, and this last autocross of the year. Good test miles on the D-Force wheels, for sure.
I was really impressed by these RE-11 - I think its just as fast and as competitive as the Dunlop, Hankook, or Yokohama. We drove that day in the cold and later when it warmed up a bit, and it was ripping up pavement. I think the RE-11's higher price and "lemming effect" of the online community has given this tire a bad rap. I'm going to start keeping the RE-11 on my "go to" list for Street Touring choices. Also street drove on them Monday in the rain and I was able to use 100% full throttle in 1st gear. That's never happened before on this car... the Pirelli's are a joke in the wet. These RE-11s are stupid good in the wet.
These wider/taller tires fit the 10" wide wheels and the car PERFECTLY, with the tall 40 series sidewall making for great ride quality on the street. Filled out the big wheel openings and were only 1/2" shorter than the mammoth 255/40/19 tires it came with. Anything we can do to lessen the effective rear gear ratio (3.31) is a plus, extending 2nd gear speeds even higher - into the mid 70 mph range @ 7800 rpm.
So I was curious if the wider and significantly taller tires would be a significant performance improvement, going from the 18x9" wheel and 265/35/18 Hankook RS-3s to the 18x10" wheel and 275/40/18 RE-11s. The 265 Hankooks had so much shorter and stiffer sidewalls, I felt the 'Stones would be a big improvement. And I was right.
We also got to try out some brand new shock pistons from AST - their new Double Digressive Pistons, or DDPs, were installed into our 4100 front struts a few weeks ago. We have Moton Clubsport doubles ready to install for this car but have been waiting to try the DDP equipped (and renamed) 4150 AST shocks at both autocross and track events first, before we switch to the Mo's.
I'm glad we waited! These DDP pistons are amazing - they ride even better on the street than before, but when you turn up the knobs they make some SERIOUS rebound forces. This piston is a game changer, and starting in 2012 all 4000 series ASTs will have these pistons (and a new shock name). Be prepared for a slight price increase on the AST 4000 series on Jan 1st 2012 - but the added costs will include these DDP pistons, improved top guides, upgraded seals, aluminum shock bodies, and several other innovations - all things learned from racing in GRAND AM in 2011 (where ASTs took 28 of the 30 podium positions in GS for the year!). The new 4150 is coming soon...
(click 2 left images for larger sizes)
This was also our first "normal" autocross event running with the additional ~30 whp from the ARH full length headers. We picked the larger 1-7/8" primary headers with their cat equipped X-pipe, and it added a very noticeable bump in power across the entire RPM range, but strangely added no additional outside noise (as measured in our WOT and drive-by sound tests - see previous thread entries here). The car feels so much quicker, but I was worried it would be even harder to control wheelspin on corner exits.
Boy was I ever wrong. The other changes (wheel, tire, and DDP pistons) must have combined to do something magic to the car - it had corner exit grip in 2nd gear like NEVER before. As long as I kept the outside/loaded tires on the clean line it was clawing out of corners, and the car was FAST. I was running in STU since it was +10mm out of spec for STX, but I still compared times to the serious STX we have in our region, with some outside region drivers arriving as well (Paul Carrig's DSG/AWD VW). So STX ran in heat #2, and I ran in heat #3, at the end of the day when the course was the dirtiest possible (there were piles of gravel just offline). Still, for the first time all year I was able to beat Ledbetter and his co-driver Brian in their 328is, and was only .018 sec behind Maxcy in his 328is STX car. That was nice, and we have still barely scratched the surface of the prep on this car. Amy won the PAXed "Womens" class, having to put an extra 1.1 seconds on Jen Maxcy in her STX car to win by a scant .075 sec on PAX, since the STU factor is so much worse (Jen won the W class for the year - congrats!).
Left: Terry's Run 4 in-car video Right: Amy's 4th run (timer borked). Her 3rd run is here, which won "W".
So in the end, I PAXed 13th overall, which was my best PAX finish in a long time; Amy PAXed 31st, which is far from her best. She was a full 2 seconds back from my times but I think the unexpected corner exit grip, lateral grip and braking traction from the new tires/shocks/wheels threw her way off. She needs more seat time to adjust. The car just WORKED like it never has before, and my spaz-monkey driving style of throwing the car on its nose under heavy Left Foot Braking and being super aggressive on the throttle on exit finally worked for me. It was just... hooked up. I dunno. I was also extra careful to keep the outside tires on the clean line (driving on gravel with the inboard tires, and she seemed to get caught out in the marbles on one showcase turn on every run. We don't know what she ran on her 4th run (timer error) but I hand timed the video at a nearly identical 62.3 sec time, so there was no hero run lost for her.
Two odd things didn't happen at this event: the steering never got into its feedback loop on me, and the brakes are completely ICE mode free, and I pushed the HELL out of the brakes. Amy said she noticed one steering shudder moment coming out of one slalom but that was it. The HP+ pads were rock solid but are getting below 1/2 pad thickness. I noticed some brake pedal squishiness in runs 3 and 4, and mention it in the video (I remind myself of these things in verbal "notes" when I am driving on camera; had totally forgotten about that until I watched it today). We will bleed the brakes soon and keep an eye on the fluid change intervals (Motul600). Still gong to keep working on a steering rack solution, which will happen over the winter (probably just buy a new electric steering rack and stick it in the car).
Results and Links
Obviously an STU car should have been a full second quicker than STX, but this was still a monumental showing, and I have plenty of excuses! One, this is hardly maxed out for STU - I'd be running an 11" wide wheel with a 285mm tire for that class. We also didn't have the race seats in for this event (took them out for the winter), which hurt us sitting in the barcalounger stock seats. Lastly the front camber was set to minimum on one side, which really didn't help. Long story there: basically there was a very busy week at the shop and the Mustang didn't get any pre-race preparation this week except for me mounting the wheels/tires and adding Bridgestone decals when I came into the shop for a bit on Saturday, between other fires I worked on that day. We had removed one corner of the front suspension this past week to take measurements for an all-new S197 camber plate design, and we never re-set the camber on that corner. Doh. It was set on -2.0° on the RF and -3.2° on the LF, so it cornered better one way than the other. I guess we push my cars down to a lower priority due to increased amount of customer service work.
Anyway, it was an encouraging event when compared to STX and other classes with very talented drivers in them, more than the "near win" autocross in September, which was on the freagin TMS Road Course (where I should have easily won STX with the +200 hp advantage, but drove like an ass). These STX cars I'm running against are FAST, and a good gauge. We had Mark Sipe in his STX RX8 there as well, running in "X" class (with a 60.5+1), and fast STS drivers running in the 59.5-60.0 range (also in X). So we are at least "in the ballpark" of where I think we should be, for STX. If we can get the rear suspension tweaked to put power down like this on the 265s, we might actually have a shot in this big pony car pig (40 series 265s).
Oh! We finally got the 3" 304L mandrel bent exhaust bends built and in stock this week, so we're busy building our first customer dual 3" mandrel stainless exhaust with the new bits. Ryan has TIG welded up a nice system so far, and I can't wait to let him loose on the Mustang here, which still has the OEM heavy/restrictive/stupid quiet "after cat" exhaust. Once that is on I will take the car back to True Street Motorsports for another custom dyno tune, and finally get the "street" tune" we didn't have time for before. I think it will exceed 430 whp, in STX legal trim (last dyno pull was done in 107°F August temperature). It could be knocking on the door of 500 crank hp, which is pretty cool. We're going to hit the 1/4 mile dragstrip right after that, and I better see some low 12 second ETs @ 115 mph (it ran 12.9@109 mph in bone stock trim). Then we have LOTS of rear suspension development and even some STX legal aero bits to build for the car over the winter. Hankook just came out with a big 265/40/18 RS-3 that needs a look and I still have yet to test on the rear 17x9/265/40/17 Dunlops.
I'll check back into this thread as soon as we have something new to show... probably December. There's also a track at at ECR on Dec 10th we might take this out for a few laps in. PRI is Dec 1-3, and a LeMons race Dec 17th.. its looking like a hectic month.
Cheers,
Last 2011 Autocross
Overall, it was actually a very fun day, surface degradation notwithstanding. Jarrett Jan laid out a pretty fun course that was technically challenging, plenty long (60 seconds), yet well marked. The hard working SCCA crew spent some serious time cleaning the course surface before the first runs, using brooms and air blowers to move hundreds of pounds of gravel off line. So the first run group has some clean course runs. The weather was looking very iffy (high chance of rain), and due to a site-forced re-scheduling, the event was moved a week back from its original date, so we were expecting a very low turn-out - but 82 racers made it out and we had a great event, running in STU and STU-W.
New Tires, Wheels, DDP pistons in AST struts
So yea, if you were paying attention just then we didn't run in STX. Let me back up a bit to explain why. In July of this year Amy won a random drawing for a free set of Bridgestones at the NSTC event. One of those "fill out this survey" deals. Whatever the reason for the tires, Amy already had a great relationship with Bridgestone for several years, after winning a National Championship (STU-L) on them in 2007 and being sponsored driver in 2008. So we were excited to be running their tires again, no matter how we got them. They sent us a set of 275/40/18 RE-11s (the biggest 18" size they made, by the way) and a big box of decals, and we mounted them up on the D-Force 18x10" wheels on Friday before the autocross. I gladly put on all of the decals they sent - give me $1400 of free tires and I'll damn sure run your decals!
We've got pallets of these 18x10" wheels (5x114.3 mm PCD, fits '05-up Mustang and '08+ Subaru Impreza; I'm almost 100% certain it fits the RX8 as well - will know soon!) arriving at Vorshlag right around the end of this year ($300, 19 lbs!) so I really wanted to do an autocross and a track day on the wheels first, and fit them with something wide like these 275s - which fit the 10" wheels perfectly. Sure, a wider tire would work even better, and for a more serious STU effort we would go with a 285mm tire. It was just that the widest RE-11 was this 275, so that's what we asked for and received. We'll use them for street use, drag racing, maybe a random track day, and this last autocross of the year. Good test miles on the D-Force wheels, for sure.
I was really impressed by these RE-11 - I think its just as fast and as competitive as the Dunlop, Hankook, or Yokohama. We drove that day in the cold and later when it warmed up a bit, and it was ripping up pavement. I think the RE-11's higher price and "lemming effect" of the online community has given this tire a bad rap. I'm going to start keeping the RE-11 on my "go to" list for Street Touring choices. Also street drove on them Monday in the rain and I was able to use 100% full throttle in 1st gear. That's never happened before on this car... the Pirelli's are a joke in the wet. These RE-11s are stupid good in the wet.
These wider/taller tires fit the 10" wide wheels and the car PERFECTLY, with the tall 40 series sidewall making for great ride quality on the street. Filled out the big wheel openings and were only 1/2" shorter than the mammoth 255/40/19 tires it came with. Anything we can do to lessen the effective rear gear ratio (3.31) is a plus, extending 2nd gear speeds even higher - into the mid 70 mph range @ 7800 rpm.
So I was curious if the wider and significantly taller tires would be a significant performance improvement, going from the 18x9" wheel and 265/35/18 Hankook RS-3s to the 18x10" wheel and 275/40/18 RE-11s. The 265 Hankooks had so much shorter and stiffer sidewalls, I felt the 'Stones would be a big improvement. And I was right.
We also got to try out some brand new shock pistons from AST - their new Double Digressive Pistons, or DDPs, were installed into our 4100 front struts a few weeks ago. We have Moton Clubsport doubles ready to install for this car but have been waiting to try the DDP equipped (and renamed) 4150 AST shocks at both autocross and track events first, before we switch to the Mo's.
I'm glad we waited! These DDP pistons are amazing - they ride even better on the street than before, but when you turn up the knobs they make some SERIOUS rebound forces. This piston is a game changer, and starting in 2012 all 4000 series ASTs will have these pistons (and a new shock name). Be prepared for a slight price increase on the AST 4000 series on Jan 1st 2012 - but the added costs will include these DDP pistons, improved top guides, upgraded seals, aluminum shock bodies, and several other innovations - all things learned from racing in GRAND AM in 2011 (where ASTs took 28 of the 30 podium positions in GS for the year!). The new 4150 is coming soon...
(click 2 left images for larger sizes)
This was also our first "normal" autocross event running with the additional ~30 whp from the ARH full length headers. We picked the larger 1-7/8" primary headers with their cat equipped X-pipe, and it added a very noticeable bump in power across the entire RPM range, but strangely added no additional outside noise (as measured in our WOT and drive-by sound tests - see previous thread entries here). The car feels so much quicker, but I was worried it would be even harder to control wheelspin on corner exits.
Boy was I ever wrong. The other changes (wheel, tire, and DDP pistons) must have combined to do something magic to the car - it had corner exit grip in 2nd gear like NEVER before. As long as I kept the outside/loaded tires on the clean line it was clawing out of corners, and the car was FAST. I was running in STU since it was +10mm out of spec for STX, but I still compared times to the serious STX we have in our region, with some outside region drivers arriving as well (Paul Carrig's DSG/AWD VW). So STX ran in heat #2, and I ran in heat #3, at the end of the day when the course was the dirtiest possible (there were piles of gravel just offline). Still, for the first time all year I was able to beat Ledbetter and his co-driver Brian in their 328is, and was only .018 sec behind Maxcy in his 328is STX car. That was nice, and we have still barely scratched the surface of the prep on this car. Amy won the PAXed "Womens" class, having to put an extra 1.1 seconds on Jen Maxcy in her STX car to win by a scant .075 sec on PAX, since the STU factor is so much worse (Jen won the W class for the year - congrats!).
Left: Terry's Run 4 in-car video Right: Amy's 4th run (timer borked). Her 3rd run is here, which won "W".
So in the end, I PAXed 13th overall, which was my best PAX finish in a long time; Amy PAXed 31st, which is far from her best. She was a full 2 seconds back from my times but I think the unexpected corner exit grip, lateral grip and braking traction from the new tires/shocks/wheels threw her way off. She needs more seat time to adjust. The car just WORKED like it never has before, and my spaz-monkey driving style of throwing the car on its nose under heavy Left Foot Braking and being super aggressive on the throttle on exit finally worked for me. It was just... hooked up. I dunno. I was also extra careful to keep the outside tires on the clean line (driving on gravel with the inboard tires, and she seemed to get caught out in the marbles on one showcase turn on every run. We don't know what she ran on her 4th run (timer error) but I hand timed the video at a nearly identical 62.3 sec time, so there was no hero run lost for her.
Two odd things didn't happen at this event: the steering never got into its feedback loop on me, and the brakes are completely ICE mode free, and I pushed the HELL out of the brakes. Amy said she noticed one steering shudder moment coming out of one slalom but that was it. The HP+ pads were rock solid but are getting below 1/2 pad thickness. I noticed some brake pedal squishiness in runs 3 and 4, and mention it in the video (I remind myself of these things in verbal "notes" when I am driving on camera; had totally forgotten about that until I watched it today). We will bleed the brakes soon and keep an eye on the fluid change intervals (Motul600). Still gong to keep working on a steering rack solution, which will happen over the winter (probably just buy a new electric steering rack and stick it in the car).
Results and Links
- Final Results: http://autocross.com/tr/2011_9_final.htm
- PAX Results: http://autocross.com/tr/2011_9_pax.htm
- Photo Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/SCCA-LSP-112011/
- Videos: Terry Run 4 (60.404), Amy Run 3 (62.347), Amy Run 4 (no official time; hand timed at 62.3)
Obviously an STU car should have been a full second quicker than STX, but this was still a monumental showing, and I have plenty of excuses! One, this is hardly maxed out for STU - I'd be running an 11" wide wheel with a 285mm tire for that class. We also didn't have the race seats in for this event (took them out for the winter), which hurt us sitting in the barcalounger stock seats. Lastly the front camber was set to minimum on one side, which really didn't help. Long story there: basically there was a very busy week at the shop and the Mustang didn't get any pre-race preparation this week except for me mounting the wheels/tires and adding Bridgestone decals when I came into the shop for a bit on Saturday, between other fires I worked on that day. We had removed one corner of the front suspension this past week to take measurements for an all-new S197 camber plate design, and we never re-set the camber on that corner. Doh. It was set on -2.0° on the RF and -3.2° on the LF, so it cornered better one way than the other. I guess we push my cars down to a lower priority due to increased amount of customer service work.
Anyway, it was an encouraging event when compared to STX and other classes with very talented drivers in them, more than the "near win" autocross in September, which was on the freagin TMS Road Course (where I should have easily won STX with the +200 hp advantage, but drove like an ass). These STX cars I'm running against are FAST, and a good gauge. We had Mark Sipe in his STX RX8 there as well, running in "X" class (with a 60.5+1), and fast STS drivers running in the 59.5-60.0 range (also in X). So we are at least "in the ballpark" of where I think we should be, for STX. If we can get the rear suspension tweaked to put power down like this on the 265s, we might actually have a shot in this big pony car pig (40 series 265s).
Oh! We finally got the 3" 304L mandrel bent exhaust bends built and in stock this week, so we're busy building our first customer dual 3" mandrel stainless exhaust with the new bits. Ryan has TIG welded up a nice system so far, and I can't wait to let him loose on the Mustang here, which still has the OEM heavy/restrictive/stupid quiet "after cat" exhaust. Once that is on I will take the car back to True Street Motorsports for another custom dyno tune, and finally get the "street" tune" we didn't have time for before. I think it will exceed 430 whp, in STX legal trim (last dyno pull was done in 107°F August temperature). It could be knocking on the door of 500 crank hp, which is pretty cool. We're going to hit the 1/4 mile dragstrip right after that, and I better see some low 12 second ETs @ 115 mph (it ran 12.9@109 mph in bone stock trim). Then we have LOTS of rear suspension development and even some STX legal aero bits to build for the car over the winter. Hankook just came out with a big 265/40/18 RS-3 that needs a look and I still have yet to test on the rear 17x9/265/40/17 Dunlops.
I'll check back into this thread as soon as we have something new to show... probably December. There's also a track at at ECR on Dec 10th we might take this out for a few laps in. PRI is Dec 1-3, and a LeMons race Dec 17th.. its looking like a hectic month.
Cheers,