S197 BOSS 302 Race Car Build Thread Build Thread

[302 Hi Pro]

"My moderating will be limited during my absence, so everyone needs to play nice here on TMO while I'm out [/list"

Drew:
Ok, I'll try!

I'll look forward to reading your Race Weekend Recap and I hope you land on the top of the podium.

All the Best,
Dave

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

OK it has been a long week away in California and now recuperating and re-acclimating to my work environment. Here's a race report from the weekend.

​

This year's NASA West Coast Nationals was held at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in Buttonwillow, CA. This is roughly an 8-hour tow from my location near Phoenix, AZ. It was an uneventful tow out and that is always a welcome experience. My "new" 2015 F250 diesel hauled my fully-loaded rig up and down all kinds of hills including the Grapevine and barely broke a sweat doing it. The lack of stress involved is quite refreshing. I averaged 11.5 MPG over the course of the trip (roughly 1100 miles round-trip).



The event was planned to run Friday/Saturday/Sunday, with an optional practice day on Thursday. My goals for the weekend were to survive, and also to beat the one other racer in my class (ST2) that showed up from Arizona, to extend my season points lead. If I could get a shot at the podium, I'd take it.
Most of my fellow AZ racers and I elected to run Thursday's practice, so we arrived Wednesday afternoon and started setting up camp. Beers ensued. We took a break at dusk to bike the track and get a few tips from some of our AZ racers that had been here before.



This was my first time visiting Buttonwillow, and the odds were definitely stacked against me with three of my five other competitors being locals with a lot of experience on this circuit. From the beginning of Thursday's practice to the end of day Thursday I had managed to shave about 6 seconds off of my time, but I was still about 3 seconds off of the projected race pace of 1:52.xx for the Championship configuration. I was hoping I could make that up in tires, as I had a sticker set of Hoosier A7s squirreled away for Sunday's race.



This event featured live video coverage as well as timing and scoring so many of my friends at home were able to follow along for the weekend.







This event was quickly turning into a repeat of 2015's West Coast Nationals at Laguna Seca, with reliability being the name of the game. One of the Corvettes in my class lost a (relatively new) LS3 engine during qualifying (and the resulting caution ruined my qualifying time), and another 'Vette broke a wheel during Friday's qualifying race. Strong winds and frequent offs from other cars resulted in many dust clouds obscuring views on and off track.

Due to the issues my faster competitors were experiencing, I was able to sneak onto the podium for the weekend's first race.



At the end of the race on Friday, I noticed my front brake pads were looking a bit lower than I expected for this weekend, and that I would probably need to put another set in before Sunday's 45-minute race. I put in a call to Paul @74mach at Paul's High Performance and he acted FAST to get some fresh pads shipped to the track and in my hands by Saturday morning. A+ customer service from these guys!



Saturday's qualifying race was gridded by our fast times from Friday's race. This meant I was starting 4th of 5, despite finishing third the day before. I made a few mistakes at the start and dropped down to 5th in class, but had a great battle with the 'Vette in front of me and managed to get by and reclaim 4th. Unfortunately, I ended up getting stuck behind a slightly slower lap-traffic car that I could not pass (safely) and the 'Vette was able to capitalize on this opportunity and got back around me, meaning I finished last for Saturday. A disappointing result, but a very good race.

My third place result from Friday and 5th from Saturday meant I would be starting 4th for Sunday's championship race. It was clear that I didn't have the speed necessary to outright race any of the top three guys, but I did have the Mustang's reliability on my side. Aside from this, the "championship frenzy" was starting to take hold, so it was even more important to drive clean and not have any contact that would DQ me or take the car out of commission. The goal now was simply to survive and beat the other guy from AZ.
The main risk for the race was fuel economy. Due to the long sustained WOT sections at this track, my fuel burn rate looked to be about a gallon every 3 minutes--which meant I needed 15 gallons to finish the 45 minute race. With the stock tank holding 16 gallons, and filling the neck all the way, I might have 17 gallons; on paper this seems like enough but there were a couple fast sustained corners that could trigger a fuel choke-out at anything under 1/4 tank.

Fortunately for me, there was an incident about 15 minutes into the race that caused a full-course caution for another 15 mins. I didn't have to worry about fuel anymore, but I only had a couple laps once we got back to green to race ahead of my AZ competitor in the white 'Vette.

At the end of the day, I was able to bring the car home in 4th of 5. No accolades or trophies but the car was unscathed from the weekend (save for the free sandblasts) and I was able to capture more AZ season points to extend my regional championship lead. The new radiator ducting and oil cooling worked great, netting ECTs of 225* on-average and oil temperatures stabilizing in the 260-270* range in 85* ambient temperatures and significant amounts of WOT for extended sessions of 30-45 minutes.

I have one more race weekend here in AZ with NASA that counts towards season points. If I can win that race, the regional championship is mine.
After that we have a track weekend with our local AZ group ProAutosports at Wild Horse Pass "MONDO" track, which combines the "Main" track and the "Bondurant" track to make a 2.75 mile layout--the last time we ran this track was when I debuted the race car in 2013, so I am looking forward to running it again now that the car and driver are both a bit more mature!

Until next time...

 

[VoodooBoss]

Good luck with your final races of the season.

 

[steeda5]

Ill be out there for MONDO. My poor mans svtslib racer should be done before this event. If not Boss 302 time.

 

[Fabman]

That's the reverse direction that I've run there a couple times.....I think I like backwards better!
Says a lot about a track where you can run it both ways and is equally exciting in either direction.

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

It looks like the "final race of the season" will be a bit more complicated than I thought.

We will run a regular race day on Saturday (100 points at stake), but Sunday will be divided into a three segments that all count for season points:
-A 20-minute qualifying race worth up to 50 points
-A 90-minute Enduro with finishing position in-class after the first 40 minutes worth up to 50 points, and finishing position at the end of 90 minutes worth up to an additional 150 points.

If I win on Saturday, and win the Sunday qualifying race, I can come in second in both portions of the enduro and still win the regional championship for the year. If I slip up and have to fight to win the enduro, there will be challenges, as I'll have to stop for fuel to load 15 gallons in (and possibly a second stop for another 5-gallon splash) that gives my competition an advantage.

So my goal is to win Saturday, Sunday qual, and Sunday 40 minutes so I can just cruise for the second portion of the enduro and not worry about fuel too much.

I realize 90 minutes is not much of an "enduro" but that's what we're working with--and I'm OK with that due to fuel economy.

 

[302 Hi Pro]

Drew:
My take away from your above post is: You have a solid plan to win the Regional Championship, and you might have more than one way to skin the cat.

I wish you all the best, and will be routing for you in the final race of the season. Will there be a Live Stream of the main event race? If so, please let us know.

As Alsways,
Dave
2HP

 

[VoodooBoss]

It looks like the "final race of the season" will be a bit more complicated than I thought.

We will run a regular race day on Saturday (100 points at stake), but Sunday will be divided into a three segments that all count for season points:
-A 20-minute qualifying race worth up to 50 points
-A 90-minute Enduro with finishing position in-class after the first 40 minutes worth up to 50 points, and finishing position at the end of 90 minutes worth up to an additional 150 points.

If I win on Saturday, and win the Sunday qualifying race, I can come in second in both portions of the enduro and still win the regional championship for the year. If I slip up and have to fight to win the enduro, there will be challenges, as I'll have to stop for fuel to load 15 gallons in (and possibly a second stop for another 5-gallon splash) that gives my competition an advantage.

So my goal is to win Saturday, Sunday qual, and Sunday 40 minutes so I can just cruise for the second portion of the enduro and not worry about fuel too much.

I realize 90 minutes is not much of an "enduro" but that's what we're working with--and I'm OK with that due to fuel economy.

I'm dizzy from reading that.

 

[TymeSlayer]

Good luck Drew! We're pulling for you brother.

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

After my experience at Nationals, I decided to spend a bit of money to upgrade my data/video review capability. Building off of my existing AIM MXL dash logger and AIM GPS module, I decided to add an AIM SmartyCamHD and remove my GoPro Hero 3.

I believe @Black Boss and @voodoo child21 already have these systems installed, judging by their video layouts.

This will allow me to pull in after a session, pop the SD card out of the SmartyCam, and immediately start watching and reviewing that session with data rendered and overlaid automatically. This is a process that takes 20-30 minutes (up to a few hours) to sync up and render when I make the videos that are shown in this thread, and I have always done this AFTER I have arrived home from the weekend. Every time I review these videos I see areas where I could be more aggressive or do something differently that would net me some speed--so this change is intended to be able to make those changes to my driving in "real time" between sessions at the track. An additional benefit is that the camera automatically starts, stops, and charges based on a few user-defined parameters such as RPM or Speed, so I never have to remember to turn on my camera again, and don't have to hope that the GoPro remote works properly. This will avoid a lot of mental stress pre-race.

Here is the camera mounted on the rollbar in the car. I positioned it so it would have a clear field of view even if I have a passenger seat installed (soon!).



I also had to make some (minor) changes to my existing cable routing for the AIM data streams.
This meant going from a configuration like so:


To an expanded network like so:


Here are a few photos from the installation...

Drilled holes and installed (2) M6 rivnuts into the passenger side lower dashboard (this would be the hinge point for the glove box):


Data hub expansion mounted up:


Camera powered up:


Next step is to configure the network with AIM's software and create my dash overlays that will be used to display track data over the videos themselves.
I will test this out in a few weeks...

 

[Black Boss]

This is a great set up and very easy to use, with the ability to see video/data straight after each session as you say. You'll probably want to add an external microphone, as audio quality from the camera is compromised when mounted on the roll bar.

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

This is a great set up and very easy to use, with the ability to see video/data straight after each session as you say. You'll probably want to add an external microphone, as audio quality from the camera is compromised when mounted on the roll bar.

I got the cable with the additional external mic attached, but the mic cable is about three feet long, so it won't be too far away. We'll see how it sounds from two sources. I can probably tuck the additional mic down out of the wind so it mostly gets exhaust (and gear whine lol).

 

[ls110]

I too just bought an AiM MXG and am about to buy the SmartyCam. How did you decide between the SmartyCam HD versus the SmartyCam GP HD (bullet shaped camera)?

It appears both have batteries It would be nice NOT to have to pull the camera after each day to charge the battery like I have been doing with my GoPro. Is there any way to hard wire the power??

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

@LS110 the MXG does not appear to have a 5-pin connector in the rear to make things "easy" but I'm sure you can use the outputs on the 37-pin connector to power the camera from the MXG. On mine all the power is fed from the car to the MXL, then the accessories (including GPS and SmartyCamHD) are powered from the 5-pin connection on the back of the dash via the data hub.

I would send an email to AIM or call Roger Caddell out in California and he should be able to get you squared away. There should be no reason you CAN'T hard-wire the power, with all the flexibility they have.

AFAIK the GP version is specifically intended for open-cockpit cars or places where space is constrained or where the "regular" smartycam would impose an aero deficiency. That would be another good question for AIM. The "regular" SmartyCamHD is about the size of a clenched fist, compared to GoProHero3 being about the size of a box of Nerds candy.

 

[Black Boss]

I got the cable with the additional external mic attached, but the mic cable is about three feet long, so it won't be too far away. We'll see how it sounds from two sources. I can probably tuck the additional mic down out of the wind so it mostly gets exhaust (and gear whine lol).

I ran the mic cable vertical and attached to the base of the transmission tunnel -- not perfect, but better sound than from the camera alone -- you can adjust volume balance between the external mic and the camera mic too.

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

Got to play with the configuration a bit tonight. Looks like everything is communicating. Gotta do a running test and then hit the track

 

[ford20]

That is a pretty cool setup Drew! You racing for the championship this weekend correct?

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

That is a pretty cool setup Drew! You racing for the championship this weekend correct?

Not just yet. Final race weekend for the season is November 19/20. Followed by a Thanksgiving weekend of "no-pressure" racing w/ another local group.

 

[the5]

Just got my AIM Smarty cam setup, Love how easy it is to get videos pre-overlaid especially with 18 hours of video.

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

This weekend I installed the new AJ Hartman carbon fiber canard kit for 2010-2012 Mustangs. This is a "half set" with only one canard on each side, when compared to his 2013-2014 kit, which has two per side. The available surface area and curvature of the 2010-2012 fascias only allows one to be fit to these cars.

These were very easy to install and I was able to do it by simply removing the front wheel well liner on each side. They attach with flange-head screws on the outside, and join with quick nuts on the inside of the fascia. The fastening method is not "fancy" but does appear to be very sturdy post-install.