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Build thread - daily driving budget track/autox beast!

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Hey everyone. Been a member here for awhile now but never got around to making a build thread. First a little bit about myself...

I've always been a car guy, and wanted to get into road course racing since my middle school shop class teacher let me be his pit crew on a SCCA VW GTI he ran. I spent many summers at Mid Ohio since it is less than an hour from my house. When I finished college I bought a Nissan 350z and started doing HPDE's. The bug bit me hard and after about 8 or 9 track weekends in the span of three years I was racking up some serious credit card debt. So I took some time away to pay bills and start a family, and ended up selling that car. After 20,000 hard miles, probably over 500 of which on a track, never once had a major issue. 350z's make great track cars.
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Fast forward a bit and I picked up a Miata to go along with my beater hatchback. I got into autocross even though it's not as fun and I suck at it, and quickly realized I wanted MOAR POWER and something with a backseat so I could get rid of my beater and just have one car.
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So I picked up my base '11 GT about a year ago and it is absolutely perfect for me. I even DD it through 8" of snow all winter (on snow tires of course) and it works fine. Now that my wife is done with school there's room in the budget for one HPDE weekend a year. Budget is reflected in a lot of my mods, especially tires. I have tried to do a lot of the work myself to save money but there has definitely been some trial and error. Here it was last summer a few weeks after I bought it. Took a $5 Megabus out to Indianapolis and drove it back with a set of 19" rims and tires in the trunk and back seat:
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The car came with a Steeda intake, Magnaflow Competition cat-back (which was WAY too loud for me), and a BBR tune (which had terrible manners for daily driving). The first thing I did was replace it with a tune by Hypermotive, which turned out to be sort of a pirated version of an AED tune. When I found this out I got a refund and switched to a Steeda tune, which makes less power and torque but has fantastic driveability. I then found a Magnaflow Street axle-back locally which mated up perfectly with my OTA pipes and quieted things down a TON.

Also, my car has a bit of an odd past. The guy I bought it from was USAF, stationed in the UK and so this car was actually delivered to England from new, driven around there like this for three years, then brought back to the states after his tour ended. It is a base 2011 GT with Brembos and 3.73's, just turned 34k miles.

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Fun fact, it took a shop 13 hours to peel off all that damn vinyl. I tried doing it myself but gave up after about an hour.

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Initially I was trying to hold off on suspension mods until I took it to its first autocross. I run with a local Miata club and we do autox at a go-kart track, which is great fun but can be VERY tight in a Mustang.
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After I realized how terrible the suspension is in stock form I started looking for some inexpensive shocks and springs. I ended up finding a great deal on a Bilstein B12 Pro-kit which is their HD dampers with Eibach Pro-kit springs. Also picked up a J&M panhard bar. In the interest of cost savings I did not get camber plates or replace the front strut mounts.

After getting everything aligned my front camber was around 1 degree IIRC so I immediately regretted not getting camber plates, especially since I paid a shop to do the work and don't have the skills or tools to take everything apart again and install the plates myself. I did another autocross and while the car felt a bit better, my times didn't really improve.

Next mods were...
-Whiteline bars F&R
-BMR LCAs (this was a fun install, the driver's side bolt seized up inside the stock bushing)
-Whiteline relo bracket
-Ford Racing diff cover, relocated vent, changed tranny and diff fluids to Amsoil
-Hawk HP+ pads
-Changed one of my panhard bar bushings to rod end
-Maximum Motorsports Camber plates
-18x10 AMR wheels with Goodyear F1 Supercar 285/40 (220tw tire)

I did get some rubbing at full lock with the AMR's so I added some 5mm H&R hubcentric spacers.
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With this setup and the below alignment settings it is very well balanced and I am extremely satisfied both from a daily driving and track day perspective.

Caster L 6.88 R 6.57
Camber L -2.12 R -2.35
Toe L .07 R .07
Sway bars set to full stiff front, 2nd hole rear

The tires surprisingly held up very well at my track weekend @ Mid Ohio and never got greasy. Even the Hawk HP+ pads and Wilwood fluid didn't fade much, probably because the tires don't have a lot of grip. I was getting passed left and right by much slower cars. I was pretty rusty after not being on a road course for 5 years. Also in HPDE3 it seemed like most everyone was on R-comps or slicks.

Unfortunately I am a retard and didn't look at the torque settings for the camber plates. I made an adjustment and used an impact gun on all 8 strut tower bolts, promptly ruining them. So as it sits today I have them tightened down as best as I can but am not confident at all using them in an autocross. So, new parts are on the way from Maximum Motorsports.

And I figured if I am going to have to pay my local shop to redo the front suspension anyways, I may as well do some upgrades since it won't cost me any additional labor. I went ahead and ordered the GT500 struts that Vorshlag uses and will be interested to see if they are any shorter than the HD's for the standard Mustang GT.

The most recent mod was an offroad X-pipe. I have mixed feelings about this and may end up going back to stock. On a daily driver the smell gets annoying and it's so loud my wife and kid pretty much refuse to ride in it. Most of the time I love the sound but it's not worth it. After switching to the X-pipe I installed a Lund tune.

Some notes on the different tunes I have tried:
-Hypermotive (apparently based on AED tune) - Made 387/357 SAE on a Dynojet, however it bucks and surges a little when cold.
-Steeda - 376/346 on the same dyno, same day. Can definitely feel the loss of torque but it drives like stock.
-Lund - Have not dynoed yet but it feels like a middle ground between the above two. Bucks and surges pretty bad when cold but I haven't done a datalog yet to have them adjust the tune. Also have not dynoed yet.
 
Picked up a set of Continental take-offs in 285/35/18 for stupid cheap. They seem quite a bit narrower than the 295 Nitto NT05's I have sitting in my basement. Probably won't get around to using these until next year at Mid Ohio but they have plenty of life left in them.

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Also noticed my Steeda intake was getting incredibly hot, most likely since the airbox is only a couple inches away from the exhaust manifold. Picked up some inexpensive DEI adhesive heat blocker and it did a great job cooling down my IAT's.

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I did a hot potato test several times over my HPDE weekend a few weeks ago and the intake was never more than lukewarm.

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Next steps at this point are stiffer springs, and getting my camber plate issue fixed.
 
Thank you sir. Forgot to mention I have the Ford Racing finned diff cover with vent relocated to the top of the cover and capped off the axle vent. Didn't leak one drop at Mid Ohio. I actually bought the Blowfish Racing diff catch can but don't see a need for it yet.

Also don't see any reason to do a catch can under the hood. No issues whatsoever with my breathers.
 

Grant 302

basic and well known psychic
Thanks for sharing your build, and coming out of the woodwork! 8)

SlowJim said:
Thank you sir. Forgot to mention I have the Ford Racing finned diff cover with vent relocated to the top of the cover and capped off the axle vent. Didn't leak one drop at Mid Ohio. I actually bought the Blowfish Racing diff catch can but don't see a need for it yet.

Also don't see any reason to do a catch can under the hood. No issues whatsoever with my breathers.

That's the way I'm running on my GT, and no leakage issues so far for the last year+. The finned cover showed 20-30º F drops in the pumpkin temps in 20 min sessions.
 
1,281
3
Tulsa, OK
SlowJim said:
Thank you sir. Forgot to mention I have the Ford Racing finned diff cover with vent relocated to the top of the cover and capped off the axle vent. Didn't leak one drop at Mid Ohio. I actually bought the Blowfish Racing diff catch can but don't see a need for it yet.

Also don't see any reason to do a catch can under the hood. No issues whatsoever with my breathers.

This is how I'm planning to run mine after I switch to the finned cover.

Cool thread. I actually like the green stripes on the car :)
 
Update, got some new tires put on today. Amazing what an aesthetic difference they make. The goal is to win the Goodguys autocross here on 7/12 on them. They are 295/35/18 Nitto NT05's which should be much better than the 285/40 Goodyear F1 Supercars. Got a killer deal on them back when Discount Tire was running a sale.

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It still blows me away how high my car sits in the rear with the Pro-kit springs. I ordered some Maximum Motorsports springs and hopefully they will get here in time so I can get them installed along with my GT500 Bilsteins (same as Vorshlag uses).
 
Update, got my new suspension installed. If you recall, I stupidly stripped all 8 strut tower bolts and so I needed to have the front strut/spring assembly removed anyways. So I decided to do a little upgrade while my local shop installed all new hardware on my Maximum Motorsports camber plates. I found a killer deal on GT500 front Bilsteins (same Vorshlag uses on their StreetPro kit) and I should basically break even once I sell my Eibach Pro-kit and the standard front Bilsteins. Now the front sits basically level with the rear, which looks a little odd to me. Since the rear springs are so much stiffer I set my rear Whiteline bar to full loose, which is still a little stiffer than stock. Initial impressions are... not much change in ride comfort. Haven't had a chance to track these yet, unfortunately - but I did get an additional .5 degrees of camber in front which should help. With the Eibachs I was maxed out at -2.35 and now I am maxed at 2.68. I had them dial in a little toe out and requested stock caster.

OLD: Eibach Pro-kit/standard Bilsteins
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NEW: Maximum Motorsports/GT500 Bilsteins
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I've got a set of black 18x9.5 Enkei PF01's which I will be putting my Goodyear F1 Supercars on as street tires, since the NT05's are pretty sketchy in the rain. They will be my "race tire".
 
Unfortunately I did not get them installed in time for the Goodguys autocross I was hoping to compete in. However it looks like pro drivers have taken over the "All American Late Models" class which is supposed to be for amateur drivers so I wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell anyways. Oh well
 
Update, got the PF01's mounted up with my Goodyears, these will be my daily driving tire since they are much better in the rain than my NT05's. Not too worried about the 220tw rating since my commute to work is about 7-8 minutes. Need to order some hubcentric rings

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Well, I think the recent changes to the car helped quite a bit. In my little local autox, when I last ran in May I got beat by:
-13 Mustang
-08 Mazdaspeed3
-05 Mustang
-Dodge Neon
-13 VW GTI
-BMW 328i
-15 Fiesta ST

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This time, I placed 2nd behind a stripped C4 vette. There is a F150 Lightning I usually have trouble keeping up with, and I beat him by 2 seconds! The car still understeers like a pig and quick transitions aren't very quick though. I think I need more toe out or a smaller steering wheel because I feel like I have to crank the wheel too much which makes it really challenging on such a small course (it's a go kart track). Also any throttle past about 50% still results in roasting the rear tires, even with 295's.

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I think the MM springs and Lund tune did the trick though. I was considering a Boss intake but at this point I'm really happy with the power and don't want to lose torque. I may do a diff upgrade at some point but I really don't feel the need to do any further upgrades beyond that.
 
Cool little gif from the last autocross of the season.

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It was a faster course so I was able to do fairly well and take 2nd place behind a Focus ST with a super aggressive driver. He took my car out for a lap and beat my best time by 7/10ths :eek:

Still having a lot of trouble putting down power on corner exit. Might try switching back to the OEM rear sway bar next season and if that doesn't help, upgrade the diff. Also the stock cats are being put back on the car today. Can't stand the stinky exhaust any longer.
 

302 Hi Pro

Boss 302 - Racing Legend to Modern Muscle Car
2,009
441
Southeast
I went with shorty headers to keep my cats to continue to run the OEM tunes. Reading your post about the smell of the exhaust with cat deletes is something I had not thought of before and makes me happy I went this route.

Dave
302 Hi Pro
 

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