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GT350 Track Review - Sebring

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Just a quick review of the GT350 in its natural environment: Sebring with Chin Motorsports.

Background: I'm an 'advanced' level driver coming from an 03 Cobra with 470whp, coilovers, 14" brakes and race tires. I also had a 95 GT American Iron car. My wife is an intermediate level driver and we were sharing the car in the same run group to run her in gently.

Overall: The car is phenomenal. It completely exceeded my expectations. Like everyone said before me, it seemingly has has no end to the power. It's very well balanced and doesn't feel like a 3850lb car. It understeers slightly when pushed hard but exhibits no bad handling traits.

Brakes: After the first day, I was a little disappointed in the brakes as they faded going into the Turn 7 hairpin. Evidently, they only needed a good bedding in, because they were great on Sunday. They don't have the initial bite of my old Carbotechs, but they never faded again. The brake pads did disappear quickly though. We had about 2.5 hours of track time on them and had to miss the last hour session because we wore through the pads.

Attention: I'm not one for enjoying a lot of attention, but I've never had so many people come up to talk about this car. I was even in really good company:
IMG_20160130_092459667_HDR_zpsoxdvnirf.jpg

Handling: Blew my mind. No idea this was possible on street tires and pads:
IMG_20160131_100608087_zpsy9in05oi.jpg

I didn't have the pleasure of meeting "Wally", but I did meet his owner. Black_Boss is a great guy and an even better driver. I was about 2 seconds a lap slower than him, but he's got a few more years in the car than I do in mine. :)
IMG_20160130_151850939_zps3dvdneen.jpg

FAQs:
Tires: Supersports @ 29psi cold, 37-38 hot
Alignment: Factory alignment, not track alignment
Pads: Stock pads, lasted 1250 street miles, 250 track miles
Lap Time: 2:30.3 Sebring long track

Dislikes:
Clutch - Haven't done the spring mod yet, but the release point is way too high. And it's not adjustable like my Cobra was. :(
Nannies - They were a little more intrusive than I was expecting, though they might have saved a spin in Turn 1, so I'm OK with it.
 
Thanks for sharing. I'm sure having some sticky rubber would drop your times by a couple of seconds. I'm still skeptical the stock pads are going to cut it for the track but your feedback is encouraging that they won't fade under track conditions.
 
Great feedback and yes those g's are really impressive on street tires. Can't wait to see what that looks like on R7s. Don't feel bad, "Wally" is really fast and he makes me squirm when in my mirrors. :p I am concerned about the longevity of the pads on the stock calipers. Too bad we didn't get the 25mm pads, but at least they're cheap. I'm not familiar with Sebring, but are there a lot of long straightaways? I would go through a set of front Hawk DTC-70 pads every day (4 25 minute sessions ~ 150 miles) at Road America, but there are three legs per lap where you go from 150 mph into 90-120 degree corners, two of which are downhill. I could live with 250 track miles per set if it's a high speed track.
 
Awesome Patrick! 2:30’ish is moving pretty fast at Sebring… wow! I hope to break at least a sub 2:40 one day… need more lap days and clean laps, lol. :-[

Glad you had a good time and unfortunately I couldn't make it last minute since I was under the weather. I have only been at Sebring 3x so far and I love that track. I'm a provisional solo (w/ Chin) so hopefully next time I can run intermed solo with you guys... no matter what, it's about about having a good time in such a fun car to drive! Your car looks great! :D

As you know, I was also at Sebring back on 1/23 with PBOC.... what a blast! I ran in the 400-500 group w/ an instructor. I'll be back there on 2/28... ;D

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pigrSGNyVdk
 
It's hard to describe the brakes. They didn't fade, but their coefficient of friction didn't seem to be as high as the Carbotech XP12s that I'm used to. I was hitting the same braking marks as the Cobra, but I was probably carrying a more speed into it.

I haven't had the rotors off to check for wear, but they don't seem too bad. Look a little ugly and the cross-drilled holes were caked with dust.

Here's a quick video of the most fun I had all weekend. Though that was probably tied with passing a Z/28, but I ran out of camera battery, so "it never happened". :)

https://youtu.be/Wx7Wr8J94q4

Sorry for the video noise. I had an external mic setup in the trunk, but it didn't work for some reason.

And I edited my first post to share some of my dislikes.
 
With the limited street driving I was able to do before the snow hit I wasn't at all convinced the initial bite would be enough for what I like on the track. If they weren't equivalent to the XP12s they'll almost certainly be a big step down from DTC70s. The problem is the stock pads are the only option for the time being........
 
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Wondering how the tire wear is on the front with factory camber settings? Were you in track mode and the nannies still interfered?

And......where was Wally?!
 
The clutch engagement is most likely due to the twin clutch assembly. Mine got raised up quite a bit when I went with the McLeod twin disk RST, compared to the stock single disk in the boss. You may have to get used to it!
 
cloud9 said:
With the limited street driving I was able to do before the snow hit I wasn't at all convinced the initial bite would be enough for what I like on the track. If they weren't equivalent to the XP12s they'll almost certainly be a big step down from DTC70s. The problem is the stock pads are the only option for the time being........

I think Ford is saying that you CAN take it to the track with the stock pads, but you might not want to. They're definitely not race pads, but they did one hell of a good job. I'm very curious about the brake cooling though, especially in mid-summer in Florida. Hopefully it won't require cooling ducts, because it would be nearly impossible to run without modifying a lot of plastic.

Oh yeah, one more thing, the hood bounces A LOT above 135mph. As someone who's had 2 hoods come open at speed, it made me very nervous. The way it bounces, it certainly appears to be a lightweight hood.
 
Thought this was rather amusing.
IMG_20160131_191412837_zps15s9rb30.jpg

My wife said she thought she felt the fuel start to starve around 1/4 tank, but she wasn't sure. We averaged about 6.5mpg on the track.
 
CSL said:
Wondering how the tire wear is on the front with factory camber settings? Were you in track mode and the nannies still interfered?

And......where was Wally?!

Wally stayed home in the cold :( I've only got 875 miles in with the limits of Michigan winters, and even if Wally was ready not sure I'd want the first outing to be at an unfamiliar track -- especially one as challenging as Sebring! First outing is planned for early next month. 8)

StigsBaldBrother said:
My wife said she thought she felt the fuel start to starve around 1/4 tank, but she wasn't sure. We averaged about 6.5mpg on the track.

Yea, the Boss does exactly the same....
 
It's probably the same saddle tank design as the S197 so can't run below a 1/4 without starving it in high g turns. I thought the same thing about running cooling ducts.......nowhere to route them. Hopefully they won't be needed with race pads. Ironically at Road America good cooling ducts actually work against your rotors because the long straights end up cooling them too much amd you warp rotors.

Thanks for the heads up on the hood. I figured that would be the case. It's not the weight as much as the fact there's only a single latch in the center. I wasn't anticipating an aftermarket hood. I talked to the guy that bought the Tiger hood business and he wasn't sure they would fo a GT350 hood due to limited market since it's different than the GT. Unfortunately it may mean punching two holes in the OEM hood for pins.
 
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Kind of disappointed to hear about the stock pads. There wasn't much intel on them from the track days Ford Performance did. I ran the Raybestos ST45s last year on my GT500 and was duly impressed. I'm not a huge initial bite fan, like the DTC 70s, and these were perfect for my driving style. I would say initial bite is probably in between a DTC60 and HT-10. They lasted forever on my car with the Shelby Baer Extreme brakes. I don't ever recall any significant fade, and they never overheated and got chalky. It is an ultrareliable pad with really good track performance. They also do very well on the street and don't make a bunch of noise. Because they were so versatile I rarely swapped pads.....being lazy because I could. It does seem kind of impossible to have that level of track performance with streetability, but that was my experience. I am very picky about pads. I will be inquiring to Porterfield about their timeline in getting pads made for the 350, and when these are available, I will be running a ST45 up front and a ST43 in the rear.

Since I'm new here, my track cred is that I'm an instructor for a variety of clubs and race a fox body in Chump. My former ride was Griggs equipped GT500 with about 700whp. My 350 is on order and I'm really looking forward to it.
 
CSL said:
Kind of disappointed to hear about the stock pads. There wasn't much intel on them from the track days Ford Performance did. I ran the Raybestos ST45s last year on my GT500 and was duly impressed. I'm not a huge initial bite fan, like the DTC 70s, and these were perfect for my driving style. I would say initial bite is probably in between a DTC60 and HT-10. They lasted forever on my car with the Shelby Baer Extreme brakes. I don't ever recall any significant fade, and they never overheated and got chalky. It is an ultrareliable pad with really good track performance. They also do very well on the street and don't make a bunch of noise. Because they were so versatile I rarely swapped pads.....being lazy because I could. It does seem kind of impossible to have that level of track performance with streetability, but that was my experience. I am very picky about pads. I will be inquiring to Porterfield about their timeline in getting pads made for the 350, and when these are available, I will be running a ST45 up front and a ST43 in the rear.

Since I'm new here, my track cred is that I'm an instructor for a variety of clubs and race a fox body in Chump. My former ride was Griggs equipped GT500 with about 700whp. My 350 is on order and I'm really looking forward to it.
Glad you found us CSL. Be sure to let us know if you find any other pad options. You're absolutely correct though, Ford had to balance streetability which is a compromise for the track.
 
cloud9 said:
It's probably the same saddle tank design as the S197 so can't run below a 1/4 without starving it in high g turns. I thought the same thing about running cooling ducts.......nowhere to route them. Hopefully they won't be needed with race pads. Ironically at Road America good cooling ducts actually work against your rotors because the long straights end up cooling them too much amd you warp rotors.

Thanks for the heads up on the hood. I figured that would be the case. It's not the weight as much as the fact there's only a single latch in the center. I wasn't anticipating an aftermarket hood. I talked to the guy that bought the Tiger hood business and he wasn't sure they would fo a GT350 hood due to limited market since it's different than the GT. Unfortunately it may mean punching two holes in the OEM hood for pins.

Yes, it's the same fuel tank design.

Pins would also require drilling and likely reinforcing the carbon fiber cross brace :eek:
 
Black Boss said:
Yes, it's the same fuel tank design.

Pins would also require drilling and likely reinforcing the carbon fiber cross brace :eek:
Hmm. It couldn't just be simple now could it :-X Well here's to hoping someone figures out a solution. Hopefully it's a non-issue, but if it's fluttering like that at 135, I'm afraid to think what happens at BIR or RA hopefully exceeding 160.
 
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cloud9 said:
Hmm. It couldn't just be simple now could it :-X Well here's to hoping someone figures out a solution. Hopefully it's a non-issue, but if it's fluttering like that at 135, I'm afraid to think what happens at BIR or RA hopefully exceeding 160.

I've driven an S550 Mustang GT at Daytona, and that hood did a lot of dancing around. I just crossed my fingers and put a lot faith in the Ford engineers. After seeing a lot of action in Daytona, the good news is there were no issues on that car.
 

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