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S197 2011 Mustang 3.7 Performance Package, Shooting my shot at CAM-C Build Thread Profile - S197 Mustangs

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Finally got a chance to run the 315 Falkens at the NNJR finale and couldn't be happier with the results. Was 1-2 finish for me and the old man in CAM, and a 27th overall PAX finish out of 108 drivers (including 21 Pro's at the event). This season didn't live up to our expectations, but taking the class win at the finale was the high point of the year after facing parts supply issues, unexpected repairs, cancelled events, and everything else that was thrown at us.


On the 285 Falken/18x10 tire setup the car was pretty competitive even with a blown rear Koni yellow (unbeknownst to me until last week). For this last event we swapped in the new Viking Berserker double adjustables, a smaller 20mm rear bar, and the 18x11/315 Falken combo. All I can say is what a difference! The car was better across the board and far easier to drive to the limit. We still have some rear shock tuning to do (first time with doubles), but I know the car is only going to get faster as we fine tune it. As we rack up some more miles on the Vikings I'll post a review, but with ~500 miles on them I am VERY impressed with both the street & autocross manners

We've got two more events left on schedule for this season to continue dialing in the car: 11/7 PCA at Tobay beach and 11/13 MSNE at Metlife

During the off-season I'm going to explore some street friendly CAM-C aero, look into a driveshaft upgrade, and maybe some more weight reduction to get closer to 33XXlbs. Looking forward to picking your minds as we head deeper down the CAM rabbit hole lol

Run video from NNJR: NNJR CAM Finale

The car still has a little low speed push, but I think some more compression/rebound tuning in the rear can compensate until we re-align the car next year with slotted struts and more camber to up the front grip.

Best,
-J
 
Why did you go to a smaller rear bar?
Previously ran a strano 1inch rear bar on the softest setting.

Took it off for 2 reasons:
- we were spinning the inside tire even with the rebuilt carbon plated trac lok in tight corners
- the street manners sucked

The current experiment is to see if the 20mm rear bar coupled with the double adjustable Vikings/better shock tuning can get the rotation we want while putting down the power better (and improving street manners

If we can’t get enough rotation, I think the next step is to try a 22mm bar off the 2011-14 base model v6 car.

Trying to balance a semi- competent CAM build with “daily drivability” is proving to be both an art and a science🙃
 

Dave_W

Cones - not just for ice cream
979
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Connecticut
What part of the corner are you getting the push - entry, middle, exit? If it's entry or exit, you can tune with shocks, if it's steady-state middle, it's more tunable with bars. However, you might be able to trade one adjustment for the other with a change in driving style. If you have mid-corner push and the car feels very stable on corner entry, you can use shocks to "free up" the car on entry and get the car to rotate a little more by using more/deeper trail-braking, so you don't need to do as much turning mid-corner. If you're not trail-braking to the apex, just doing that and keeping a little more load on the front could cure the push.
 
Off Season Update #1:

Happy New Year TMO!

The end of the 2021 season was challenging on many levels. On a positive note, the 315 setup has proven to be fantastic coupled with the Viking Beserker double adjustable shocks out back. That being said there was a minor incident with the car which has spurred a few changes as we prepare for the 2022 season

The biggest item on the agenda will be building the rear end with a few upgrades to hardware. At the moment the plan is the following:

- Eaton Tru Trac to replace the Carbon Trac-lok
- Keeping the Whiteline lower control arms (trailing arms? 😂@blacksheep-1 )
-Roush UCA
-13-14 GT500 rear differential bushing
-Considering a rear gear change from 3.31's for a few more mph in 2nd gear
-ARP extended rear studs

So far I'm happy with the front suspension combo of OTS Koni yellows with GC sleeves and GC street camber plates, will be looking to add more camber up front next year with slotted strut holes

In other news, the old man sold his G Street GTI and replaced it with a new Ridgeline, so it looks like we will be down to 2 functional autocrossers in the fleet. Locally we'll be running the E street 94 Miata R package with Yokohama a052's (14inch!) on small lots. The plan is to use the Mustang for larger venues locally and try to hit a few stops on the 2022 SCCA Solo Tour: NNJR Pro Solo, Champ Tour at Fedex Field, and the Champ Tour up in Seneca Falls

Debating getting a set of Khumho v730's (275 width) to throw on the 18x10's as a cheap set of local tires when running with PCA/BMWCCA clubs

Hope to have some more updates on the way soon!
-J
 
Apologize for the delays as life has been hectic these days. Between getting married, end of school year commitments, and gettin the car sorted + as much seat time as possible, we’ve been busy!

Small recap: car required a rebuild after a small autocross incident at the hands of a co-driver. Things looked pretty bad at first, but wound up being manageable with a well thought out plan. We had a local racer friend rebuild us a junkyard 8.8 rear over the winter with a few changes (Eaton Trutrac, 2014 GT500 diff bushing, Roush upper control arm) and with some driveway wrenching the car has been put back in action!

I will say, switching from the tightly pqcked carbon trac-lok to trutrac has been interesting… the car behaves completely differently at autocross speeds. MUCH better turn in and has made putting the power down at corner exit more tame. On the other hand, the car does not rotate as well on throttle (possibly a v6 specific problem?) and has required a change to my driving style. The mantra for this year is A.B.E. Always Be Early! The earlier you set up the car for a corner, the better it responds.

More importantly, I’ve finally got the car into some SCCA National Tour events!

Had the car at the NNJR Prosolo and drove very poorly on Day 1 which led to a slow learning curve to try and make up time on Day 2. Took 11th out of 17 which was disappointing

This past weekend, had the car at the Finger Lakes Champ Tour and we WON CAM-C (as well as CAM overall)!!!

Possibly the the first time a V6 car has won CAM on the national tour?!?

That being said, it wasn’t a particularly heavy CAM field, but you gotta be in it to win it. And win it we did lol

Still have some braking issues to work out as well as some rear aero in the works. But the car is back out there doing “racecar” things

Will update with some run videos and data overlays eventually. Thanks for following the slow pony build!

29C757BF-927B-481F-92AB-6A529B231950.jpeg

4205699C-147B-4AB0-A0EA-A3CF195D5F16.jpeg
 

Dave_W

Cones - not just for ice cream
979
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Exp. Type
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20+ Years
Connecticut
+1 on the double congrats. Good to hear that you're out there competing and doing well. Interesting info on the change in handling - do you have double-adjustable shocks? Maybe increasing the rear compression, and/or reducing front rebound, would help rotation on entry? Trying to use the shocks to keep more weight on the inside front - outside rear diagonal when transitioning from braking to turning (dive to roll).
 

xr7

TMO Addict?
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Congrats on the CAM-C win, those pesky V6's can get the job done, I have one in my CAM-C group and he beat me for 2nd place by 1/2 second at my last outing.
 

Bill Pemberton

0ld Ford Automotive Racing Terror
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Way cool, followed you from your first days on this V6 adventure and fantastic to see you didn't give up but you and your Dad kept plugging along making improvements and getting seat time. I think part of your winning ways are probably due to your new wife , you have to impress her so she understands why you are spending money on the Mustang Mistress, ha, ha. Congrats on getting married, the win, and your persistence!!
 
Finally, got a chance to upload some run videos with data overlay from the Champ Tour event. I'd like to think this was some of my smoothest driving to date although there are still plenty of mistakes on my end. The "mantra" for driving the car this season has been "Always Be Early!"

Jon Day 1 Finger Lakes Champ Tour

Jon Day 2 Finger Lakes Champ Tour

As always feel free to provide some constructive criticism my runs, the TMO autocross guru's are some of the most helpful around and have pushed me to think about my driving more than anywhere else online
 
The car with my backyard "low buck" pieced together dual-purpose suspension setup seems to work pretty well, but I can't help but want to tweak some bits...

I'd really like to experiment with the front sway bar setup as I'm still running the stock GT/V6 performance pack bar (35mm?). Even with -2.9 degrees of camber we are getting some front tire rollover, so we've upped the psi to around 37 Front/33 Rear. Wondering if the S197 will benefit from a bigger bar to keep the front suspension within its camber curve? Or will upping the sway bar in the front further the inside tire lift and negatively impact front grip?

IMG_0176.jpeg

I have a Eibach red bar (36mm?) with reinforcement brackets that I purchased years ago sitting in the rafters. Considering swapping this in with a Steeda lightweight radiator support to pull a couple pounds off the nose.

Speaking of weight... at the Champ tour with a little less than a half tank of gas the car tipped the scales at 3455lbs, 155lbs over class minimum. Would love to pull more weight out of the car but it's been hard to find areas to pull weight without losing street-ability/safety.

I know there was probably 10lbs of junk in the car that I could've pulled out during the event (F/R all weather floor mats, sun shade, full glovebox, SCT tuner/Forscan harness, etc). I'm thinking I can get another 15-20lbs out with the radiator support swap and by removing the factory front strut bar. Do the strut bars actually do anything on an autocross S197 (obviously no roll cage)????


Will keep you updated as I continue to get things done on the car (new front brake setup/cooling, rear spoiler setup, etc.)

-J
 
I forgot your springs/spring rates? In that photo, the rear is all hiked up like they do with pillow front spring rates. When it is doing that, it overloads the front.

I think I was medium hard on the brakes here and you can see how flat the rear is https://rainbowmarks.smugmug.com/2022/Motorsports/June-26th-Autocross/Heat-3/i-JRLp6nc/A

This is full on braking in a straight line https://rainbowmarks.smugmug.com/2022/Motorsports/June-26th-Autocross/Heat-3/i-WKp64h3/A

I tried a bigger front bar back when I ran my car in FS and it just pushed worse. That said, I run the big blue ford adjutable bar on mine now (I forget the size, I think 34 or 36mm) and it works fine, but also much higher than stock spring rates.

DaveW
 
I forgot your springs/spring rates? In that photo, the rear is all hiked up like they do with pillow front spring rates. When it is doing that, it overloads the front.

I think I was medium hard on the brakes here and you can see how flat the rear is https://rainbowmarks.smugmug.com/2022/Motorsports/June-26th-Autocross/Heat-3/i-JRLp6nc/A

This is full on braking in a straight line https://rainbowmarks.smugmug.com/2022/Motorsports/June-26th-Autocross/Heat-3/i-WKp64h3/A

I tried a bigger front bar back when I ran my car in FS and it just pushed worse. That said, I run the big blue ford adjutable bar on mine now (I forget the size, I think 34 or 36mm) and it works fine, but also much higher than stock spring rates.

DaveW
Wow, your car looks so planted compared to our setup!

Currently the car is setup with the following (just for a recap and to catch up anybody who might be interested)

Front:
-400lb linear eibach front springs
-ground control “coilover” sleeves
-ground control street camber plates
-off the shelf Koni yellows
-RE suspension uprated bumpstops
-stock GT/V6 pp swaybar
-100k mile factory control arms 😅

Rear:
-185lb boss 302 springs (progressive?)
-Roush UCA
-14 Gt500 diff bushing
-whiteline panhard
-whiteline adjustable trailing arms
- 20mm ford factory RSB
- Koni yellows (Vikings on the workbench)
- shortened ford performance jounce kit

I originally modeled the spring package as a balance between the Vorschlag GT rates (475/175) and the Cortex street rates (400/200). The ride height is pretty high overall it looks particularly odd on the super short 285/30/18s lol. the car definitely has more of a forward rate, especially after lowering the front slightly to get more camber out of it.

Do you think the high rear ride height/forward rake combined with the soft spring rate could be exacerbating the front becoming overloaded?

BTW @DaveW I met JJ Mallrich up at the Finger Lakes event, he had nothing but great things to say about you and the St. Louis region!
 
Hmm, that’s not that soft in the front. I am 450 right now, have been 500. My rear rates aren’t comparable because of the cambered axle


you might try the front bar and getting some rake out of it.

I wonder about the strut bar doing anything as well. I debate it every time I look under the hood or go across the scales. (3490-3520 depending on fuel)

JJ is a great guy and driver. He laid down the smack on us at the last event on his last run and killed us on the index. :)

davew
 

Dave_W

Cones - not just for ice cream
979
1,271
Exp. Type
Autocross
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Connecticut
Looks like some nice runs. Did you feel there was more grip on the concrete section? On the Day 1 vid, you get loose after going back onto the asphalt, like you had gotten used to the concrete gip level and didn't recalibrate when you left it.

When I walk a course, I'll scuff my sneakers across anything that looks like a change in surface to see if I can feel a change in grip. That sometimes gives me a clue I can use on the first run.
 
When I walk a course, I'll scuff my sneakers across anything that looks like a change in surface to see if I can feel a change in grip. That sometimes gives me a clue I can use on the first run.
Dave_W, You are very wise to do your research..............Clues are always there.....you just have to find them......If it was easy, even I could do it..LOL,,,,,,,,,,
 

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