JDee
Ancient Racer
I did my first track day in my 16 S550 PP a couple of weeks back, and while I was generally pretty impressed with the car, the time on track pointed out a few issues. To back up a bit, I last raced W2W in 1993 and hadn't been on track since then until this summer when I went to Calabogie and did an HPDE afternoon in one of their rental race-prepped caged Mustangs with a coach. It was a fantastic day, amazing how quickly it all came back especially with the help of a great coach. I've kept up my heel/toe skills over the years so that helped. So the next step was an HPDE at Shannonville, a pretty safe wiggly track, in my car.
The car is stock except for wheels and tires, it is a base GT with PP and Recaros only. Last spring I put on a set of LMR's S350 wheels which are knock offs of the base GT350 wheels, 19 X 10 and 19 X 11 and Nitto 555 G2 tires 285 and 305. I wanted to keep the width stagger the same difference as the factory PP setup at 20 mm, since Ford tuned the suspension for that. My time on track with the car indicates that it will understeer at the limit but it is easy to moderate and avoid that. Eventually, I'm going to go square with the 11s/305s but not until I get more experience, driver rust being the biggest concern at the moment.
In the first few sessions where I was just feeling the car and track out everything felt great, I was impressed all to hell and back. Later when I got more confidence and started getting over 1g in the corners I noticed that on turn-in the rear of the car feels like it wants to come around for a brief instant but it doesn't, it just makes this brief outward motion and then seems to settle. I believe this is the soft bushings in the cradle allowing the body to shift a fair bit. This also happens multiple times in one corner that has a series of undulations in it as the rear loads and unloads. I think cradle bushings are in order? Being a street car I want to avoid increases in NVH. BMR's CB-005 cradle lockout kit seems to get good reviews with no complaints of any added NVH. Is anyone using this setup on a track day car and how it is working out? Are there better options than that?
Secondly, I missed a 4-3 downshift twice, driver rust is no doubt some of this, but this shifter generally gets not great reviews. Both times in the same double apex corner which I trail brake into and the downshift occurs where there is significant lateral and braking loads being generated. Are the mounts that bolt the shifter to the transmission housing like the Blowfish or FTBR units of any value? Does it come down to needing the MGW shifter and if so, will that fix the problem, or is it always going to be a problem with the soft engine/trans mounts and they need to be changed?
Last thing is front brake rotor temps were in the mid-high 300s, but rears almost 500. I had the nannies on due to my still questionable skills, but only saw the stabilitrac light flash briefly once all day and I never actually felt it doing anything. Is this heat difference normal or is it likely being caused by the nannies? Next time out I'll run without nannies and that should provide more insight. These brakes are outstanding, even though the stock pads dust like hell they're by far the best brakes I've ever had.
I'll be looking to make more changes down the road. But for now, this is enough to address immediately apparent issues and concentrate on improving the driver, who needs more help than the car does! Thanks in advance for any input you have.
The car is stock except for wheels and tires, it is a base GT with PP and Recaros only. Last spring I put on a set of LMR's S350 wheels which are knock offs of the base GT350 wheels, 19 X 10 and 19 X 11 and Nitto 555 G2 tires 285 and 305. I wanted to keep the width stagger the same difference as the factory PP setup at 20 mm, since Ford tuned the suspension for that. My time on track with the car indicates that it will understeer at the limit but it is easy to moderate and avoid that. Eventually, I'm going to go square with the 11s/305s but not until I get more experience, driver rust being the biggest concern at the moment.
In the first few sessions where I was just feeling the car and track out everything felt great, I was impressed all to hell and back. Later when I got more confidence and started getting over 1g in the corners I noticed that on turn-in the rear of the car feels like it wants to come around for a brief instant but it doesn't, it just makes this brief outward motion and then seems to settle. I believe this is the soft bushings in the cradle allowing the body to shift a fair bit. This also happens multiple times in one corner that has a series of undulations in it as the rear loads and unloads. I think cradle bushings are in order? Being a street car I want to avoid increases in NVH. BMR's CB-005 cradle lockout kit seems to get good reviews with no complaints of any added NVH. Is anyone using this setup on a track day car and how it is working out? Are there better options than that?
Secondly, I missed a 4-3 downshift twice, driver rust is no doubt some of this, but this shifter generally gets not great reviews. Both times in the same double apex corner which I trail brake into and the downshift occurs where there is significant lateral and braking loads being generated. Are the mounts that bolt the shifter to the transmission housing like the Blowfish or FTBR units of any value? Does it come down to needing the MGW shifter and if so, will that fix the problem, or is it always going to be a problem with the soft engine/trans mounts and they need to be changed?
Last thing is front brake rotor temps were in the mid-high 300s, but rears almost 500. I had the nannies on due to my still questionable skills, but only saw the stabilitrac light flash briefly once all day and I never actually felt it doing anything. Is this heat difference normal or is it likely being caused by the nannies? Next time out I'll run without nannies and that should provide more insight. These brakes are outstanding, even though the stock pads dust like hell they're by far the best brakes I've ever had.
I'll be looking to make more changes down the road. But for now, this is enough to address immediately apparent issues and concentrate on improving the driver, who needs more help than the car does! Thanks in advance for any input you have.
