S550 2017 Grabber Blue Mustang GT Build Thread Profile - S550 Mustangs

[JDee]

Those ar1's look to me like they are almost new. I used to run them till they were almost a slick and as long as they hadn't been overheated they just got faster and faster. Let us know how the new tires compare.
Congrats on the pb class finish, you should be pleased that the hard work you've done is paying off!

 

[bnight]

Those ar1's look to me like they are almost new. I used to run them till they were almost a slick and as long as they hadn't been overheated they just got faster and faster. Let us know how the new tires compare.
Congrats on the pb class finish, you should be pleased that the hard work you've done is paying off!

They are way slower than they used to be and when you are chasing few tenths you need as fresh tires as you can find. I will keep them and probably reuse them for training we will see. But I hope to be able to fit the 295/35/19 A052 and be way faster with them. Only time will tell. I'm 0.3 seconds slower than last year and the brakes problems are annoying as hell so even though I was 2nd in class the car and my driving are not where they are supposed to be. I hope the new tires as well as new check valve for the brake booster to solve some of this issues. And allow me to really run as fast as I know the car can.

 

[bnight]

Day in the Shop - 20.03.2024

As some of you might know today was a very special day to be in the shop. I got delivery of my car on 20.03.2019 so today actually marks the cars 5th birthday (technically 7th but still). For 5 years we have 685 laps together and I improved my laptimes from 1:19.4 all the way to 1:06.39 marking both mine and the car development. With that in mind today I got her some presents so I was excited to get to the shop and install them.

First we installed a set of Vorshlag Brake cooling plates:






It was really simple and straight forward install. Hope this will help with brakes cooling.

Next it was time to take the old AR-1's out of the car:




This did 190 laps and were still running strong but obviously were out of the top pace and will probably reuse them for some training day.

Next we installed the 295/35/19 Yokohama A052:




Turns out this fit without need for changing alignment but my fender clearance is a bit of a concern:





However I did a few laps around town till I manage to collect all of the tires back to the garage and it seams that they clear good enough.

With that in mind the car looks ready for the weekend. Hopefully will still have fenders when I'm back from Greece on Sunday .

I still can't believe I own that beauty for 5 years.

 

[o-man]

Camber curve should have it clear the fenders without any issues

 

[bnight]

Track-Speed 1st Premium Track Day 2024 23.03-24.03 - Serres - 1:30.527

After we manage to somehow fit the tires on the wheels and barely clear the car (at full lock I touch but this was the case with the 305/30/19 as well), on 21st I called Ford and found out my Check Valve is here so left the car at the Dealer and they promised to have the car ready on Friday Morning (22nd). The car was ready but sadly I don't think the Check Valve solved the issue I guess a new brake booster needs to be added. On Friday evening I was waiting for my friend with the 718 Cayman to finish work and to take off to Greece it's around 200 km's drive but it toke around 4 hours because the traffic is that bad. I have a new issue with the FP PP3 in traffic the IAT's are very high. I think I have seen 152F IAT. This is obviously not good for the engine. Ether way we got to the hotel at around 21:00 and naturally it was beer time. Few beers later we want to bed as we had to be at the track at 9:00 AM. We woke up to a lovely blue sky and sun and 59F air temp.

We arrived at the track at 8:50:





It took us a little while to run through registration, initial cars preparation etc but in a while we were ready:






To say the cars were Premium would be an understatement the list of cars included: Lamborghini STO, 992 GT3 RS, 992 GT3 , 997 GT2, BMW M2 F87 TA spec (fastest one in Bulgaria) , BMW M2 G87, Porsche Cayman, GR Yaris, Ferrari 488 etc.

And besides that the parking was full with even more cars and all very well build.

Just as a refresher the last time I was at Serres was 2 years ago when the AR-1's and the Ohlins were brand new in 77F temps and the Mustang did 1:31.87. The new tires combined with the new 7500 rpm red line allowed the car to literally drive the whole lap at 3rd and just put 4th and 5th on the front straight.

My first session with the new A052 I manage to did 1:31.3 when verified that everything is good with the car I did another 2 laps and did 1:30.578. The Cayman did 1:30.589.

My 3rd session was actually the scariest session in my entire track career. In the 3rd lap on the back straight in the only upshift at 90 MPH I hit 2nd gear instead of 4th and let go of the clutch it only took me less than 1 sec to realise what I have done and press the clutch back and shift up but the rev limiter went up to like a lot. Did a slow lap to figure out if the engine is damaged or not but no check engine light shown so I decided to push it a bit to see what was going on. The car was doing the same speeds so even it has an issue I hope it was minior. I exited the session and did a read. Turns out I did have 2 errors recorded a freeze frame that was extremely scary Cam Position sensor miss match on bank 2 at 98% load with 7500 rpm. I don't know why it didn't recorded the engine over rev error though. However the error was saying pending confirmation so I took the car out for another slow session and the errors cleared after that.

The Cayman dropped to 1:29.9 in mean time and the weather got really hot so we want for more fuel (Shell in Greece is terrible) my car was doing 26 L/100 km before the fuel change and 36 L/100 km after so the V-Power 100 in Greece is not the same as the one in Bulgaria but also it's twice more expensive.

My lap times dropped to 1:31.5 and my friend with the Cayman asked me for the keys so he can turn a few laps. He did and said that for him the suspension need to be firmer. We got the car on the jack and added 4 clicks of rebound for new base setting of -13/-15 clicks from full stiff. The car responded very good I went out and in the traffic dropped the lap times to 1:31.0 or so.

I want for lunch. My friend go for a thrill ride in the fastest BMW M2 in Bulgaria as he knew the owner that M2 did 1:19.589 to be the fastest car on track for the day. So my friend learned a lot and since my car is closer to the M2 than the Cayman he asked me for the keys again and did 1:29.845 with the car in the hottest time of the day.

He then did the same with the Cayman to do 1:28.956 so same driver same tires back to back runs the Cayman is faster by 1 second.

I did 1 more session when the car cooled down but again the 4th gear just refused to go in (don't you just love the MT82) and I only did 1:30.527 when I lost over 0.5 sec in that miss shift alone. Ether way I was thrilled for the next day. According to Live Timing I did 51 laps that day but my Racebox was showing only 36 because it doesn't count in/out laps and with 11 sessions in total thats a lot of laps. The tires were done:



So around 18:00 we want back to the hotel to prepare for a lovely dinner with all the Bulgarians on the track. This are the results from Day 1:

Results of TrackSpeed 1st Premium TrackDay of 2024 SATURDAY

Have in mind that even though my name say 1:29.845 this is my friends time (making him the fastest Mustang driver on Serres) and my time was only 1:30.527 or so.

The dinner was amazing the Owner of the Lambo STO who btw also owns the White AMG GTR from Dracon that does 1:02 was telling us stories about super cars and the BMW M2 driver was giving us a very long tour on how hard is to setup an TA M2 to actually be consistently fast. The Driver of the 488 was actually the Son of the Lambo owner and he said that he was behind me when I miss shifted and he said I puffed a lot of blue smoke (not surprising I guess). Everyone was excited for Saturday and we had a lot of Beers and laughs.

I want to bed at around 1:00 and woke up and 5:50 to watch the 6:00 AM F1 Race so happy I did what an amazing race and Forza Ferrari. But after that I decided to check the oil of the car I was down to minimum oil while I was full on Friday. I was hoping something as common as 5W20 Castrol Edge to be able to be found in the local Shell but was disappointed to find out that no one had any and my spare bottle was sitting on the shelf at my Garage in Bulgaria. Sometimes I'm an idiot. Without oil I was forced to watch how people try to run fast laps funny story at 9:30 AM the AIR temps were the same as 15:30 the day before. So naturally even though people were with the faster tires no one was improving. My friend with the Cayman only did 1:29.1 while all the others were around 1 sec slower than the previous day.

So around noon we decided it's time for us to hit the road.

I got to Sofia at 15:30 after a lovely but noice drive. Also something that is happening for a while is my pedals got super hot when driving for some reason I'm guessing CAT's or Exhaust leak but it's really annoying this was happening long before the FP PP3 and the Miss/Money Shifts going on but still super annoying.

Want to a carwash and they said give us 2 hours so I want for cake and the end result was amazing whatever tire or brakes I had on my car as well as bugs and road dust on the car after 2 days on track was gone:



Naturally it started to rain just when I took the car from the car wash. But I still manage to get home a really really clean car. In fact I don't think I have seen this car so clean in the past 6 months.

What is next:

Obviously I need to do a compression test at least and figure out what I did to my motor.
I need to change my oil with a fresh one and start monitoring consumption.
My front R12 brake pads are gone gone and my rears are not great as well.
I also have to do full sit down with the car to figure what else might have not been good.
And by the looks of it I need new tires as well.
And a new Brake Booster

Dracon cup Round 2 is on 27-28 of April so I don't have a lot of time to figure out logistics.

 

[bnight]

Short update looks like 1.5 qrt of oil is missing. My dealer will be able to take the car in on Friday in mean time need to fill oil so the car can be taken to there.

 

[JDee]

Do you have the stock oil pan? If so you might want to consider putting in a larger capacity baffled pan like a Moroso road race unit. With my '16 I was getting drop outs of oil pressure in certain parts of the course, caused by oil sloshing away from the pickup. It was particularly bad on opposing linked corners, like a quick left/right combination. Putting in the bigger baffled pan fixed that. There's no real effective oil control with the stock pan.

 

[Bill Pemberton]

I have always carried a quart or two of oil with me to the track and you might consider doing that also. It is not overly surprising to see some oil usage when running depending on the weather, the amount of time running , etc. I also recommend most folks consider changing the oil after 2 full weekends of running and no later than after three as recommendation from many engineers ( Ford and Dodge ) over the past 30+ years. Checking the oil level at the track should be as common a practice as checking tire pressure in my humble opinion. Nice results and it is always fun to hear how you are doing at race tracks in Europe -- thanks for the fun stories!

 

[bnight]

Do you have the stock oil pan? If so you might want to consider putting in a larger capacity baffled pan like a Moroso road race unit. With my '16 I was getting drop outs of oil pressure in certain parts of the course, caused by oil sloshing away from the pickup. It was particularly bad on opposing linked corners, like a quick left/right combination. Putting in the bigger baffled pan fixed that. There's no real effective oil control with the stock pan.

I guess you guys didn't read the update close enought I Money Shifted the motor in Session 3 out of 11 2nd went in at like 90 MPH (that's 10300 RPM according to my calculation) it trow some VCT Camshaft Position errors on Bank 2 Driver Side: P0016 and P0349. They cleared in the next session and the was running the same. Someone said he saw a lot of blue smoke to come out of the car when I did that. Good thing I guess is that my Antifrieze is where it's suppose to be so I could have gotten lucky will know more on Friday.

 

[bnight]

I have always carried a quart or two of oil with me to the track and you might consider doing that also. It is not overly surprising to see some oil usage when running depending on the weather, the amount of time running , etc. I also recommend most folks consider changing the oil after 2 full weekends of running and no later than after three as recommendation from many engineers ( Ford and Dodge ) over the past 30+ years. Checking the oil level at the track should be as common a practice as checking tire pressure in my humble opinion. Nice results and it is always fun to hear how you are doing at race tracks in Europe -- thanks for the fun stories!

I money shifted into second so I guess my consumption started after that Тhe Engine needs to be very carefully inspected. Hopefully nothing to0 serious or unfixable.

 

[JDee]

The point I was trying to make (poorly, I might add) is that the stock pan is insufficient for track use and it made the motor in my '16 eat oil and smoke. It did it worst on right hand corners. A baffled 10 quart Moroso pan solved that problem. No more smoking or eating oil.
It can be hard to diagnose because of the issue with some of the passenger side valve covers on early S550 cars causing smoking. My car had that issue as well as the stock pan sloshing issue.

 

[bnight]

The point I was trying to make (poorly, I might add) is that the stock pan is insufficient for track use and it made the motor in my '16 eat oil and smoke. It did it worst on right hand corners. A baffled 10 quart Moroso pan solved that problem. No more smoking or eating oil.
It can be hard to diagnose because of the issue with some of the passenger side valve covers on early S550 cars causing smoking. My car had that issue as well as the stock pan sloshing issue.

My car actually didn't have oiling issues it did in the beginning but an ECU revision somehow solved it. I do think a GT350 pan is more cost effective though but yeah I know what you tried to make as a point. I also suspect that at least will have valve cover gasket issues now and maybe some other valve train related issues. But will know more on Friday the good think is that the car runs and obviously run well since it actually did it's best laps after the money shift question is besides compression and valve train what to look for. I guess the Coyote is really strong engine though.

 

[Bill Pemberton]

You likely are okay, as I doubt there are many on here who have not missed a shift like that at some time in their track life, regardless of what they might have been driving. Do check your oil quite often though and JDee has a good suggestion on the oil pan upgrade.

 

[67GTA]

My car actually didn't have oiling issues it did in the beginning but an ECU revision somehow solved it. I do think a GT350 pan is more cost effective though but yeah I know what you tried to make as a point. I also suspect that at least will have valve cover gasket issues now and maybe some other valve train related issues. But will know more on Friday the good think is that the car runs and obviously run well since it actually did it's best laps after the money shift question is besides compression and valve train what to look for. I guess the Coyote is really strong engine though.

As you progress to tires with more grip, the higher g-loads can expose oiling issues that weren’t there previously. Do you have oil catch cans on both sides? The drivers side cam cover vents to the throttle body tube, which can dump oil directly into the intake side with higher g-loads. Any oil pushed there gets burned off (blue smoke). GT500 Predator oil pan and cam covers are the most cost effective and best solution IMO.

 

[bnight]

You likely are okay, as I doubt there are many on here who have not missed a shift like that at some time in their track life, regardless of what they might have been driving. Do check your oil quite often though and JDee has a good suggestion on the oil pan upgrade.

Missed a shift and hitting the wrong (lower) gear are two totally different stories though

As you progress to tires with more grip, the higher g-loads can expose oiling issues that weren’t there previously. Do you have oil catch cans on both sides? The drivers side cam cover vents to the throttle body tube, which can dump oil directly into the intake side with higher g-loads. Any oil pushed there gets burned off (blue smoke). GT500 Predator oil pan and cam covers are the most cost effective and best solution IMO.

I do have a catch can need to look through it to see how much is indear. The G loads were high 1.38-1.4G but not exessively higher than my AR-1's. The Oil likely got lost or is still getting lost because of the Money Shift 10 300 RPM even for a second on the Coyote is no joke for sure. I'm happy that the car is in the garage clean though it could have been much much worst. Hopefully on Friday will figure out what's wrong with the engine (it's probably not nothing but hopefully not too much).

 

[Bill Pemberton]

You are so correct bnight, and I was not clear as I was commenting on how many of us have missed a downshift like you did. I was going to 5th gear in a Viper and missed the upshift and went into 3rd .........not fun , but then I was much younger and my lightning quick reflexes caught the error in milliseconds, ha,ha. Well, maybe not that fast but safe to say no issues so wishing you the same outcome!

 

[bnight]

You are so correct bnight, and I was not clear as I was commenting on how many of us have missed a downshift like you did. I was going to 5th gear in a Viper and missed the upshift and went into 3rd .........not fun , but then I was much younger and my lightning quick reflexes caught the error in milliseconds, ha,ha. Well, maybe not that fast but safe to say no issues so wishing you the same outcome!

Thanks. I hope it's something small but considering it's losing oil there for sure it's some damage present hopefully not a lot.

 

[biggsy]

I'm happy you were able to finish your track day. I also want to echo the suggestion of cam cover upgrade. I know you haven't experienced issue with it yet, but may be worth looking into for prevention instead of reaction. I was black flagged two years in a row after the same sequence of turns. Found oil in my intake. GT500 cam covers fixed it and no longer an issue. I dont know how easy it is to source over there but may be worth adding to the cart when ordering other items.

 

[bnight]

I'm happy you were able to finish your track day. I also want to echo the suggestion of cam cover upgrade. I know you haven't experienced issue with it yet, but may be worth looking into for prevention instead of reaction. I was black flagged two years in a row after the same sequence of turns. Found oil in my intake. GT500 cam covers fixed it and no longer an issue. I dont know how easy it is to source over there but may be worth adding to the cart when ordering other items.

I'm an expert in importing stuff from USA now so shouldn't be that hard. I think I have an oil leak because there is oil on my Swaybar connection at driver side. It's really surprising that the Coyote can survive a WOT 10 300 RPM Money Shift and still take 40 laps abuse and bring me home. I hope I didn't do a lot of long term damage to it driving it without oil and after a Money Shift.

 

[TMSBOSS]

This last weekend a NASCAR Cup car over revved. They changed the valve springs and raced it the next day. Engine lived. I know our cars are not meant to last at those engine speeds. My point it to share that the part(s) they saw as most effected were the valve springs.