S197 Ken Build Thread Profile - S197 Mustangs

[Fabman]

Corrected bump:
.016 bump out in 3” of travel.
That’s 1/2” more travel and almost no bump at all.
(.016 is very very good.)

I rest my case.

 

[Ken R]

I guess I don't understand bump quite like I thought, I do have caster/camber plates though
I've got a couple bucket list tracks out your way so who knows I might be out there soon
Well damn, now I want to get a bumpsteer gauge and get this done correctly, .016 is incredibly impressive

 

[Fabman]

I guess I don't understand bump quite like I thought, I do have caster/camber plates though
I've got a couple bucket list tracks out your way so who knows I might be out there soon
Well damn, now I want to get a bumpsteer gauge and get this done correctly, .016 is incredibly impressive

Bump steer is the very last thing you do after alignment.
If the caster changes, that changes the bumpsteer because it raises/lowers the tie rod end and you get to start all over..

 

[Ken R]

Bump steer is the very last thing you do after alignment.
If the caster changes, that changes the bumpsteer because it raises/lowers the tie rod end and you get to start all over..

Caster should be good, if I remember the last report they were even, can't recall the actual measurement. Although I've been debating going to coilovers soon so maybe after that would be a good time to set bump

 

[Apexpny]

An alignment shop won’t have a proper bump gauge, regardless of what they may tell you.

Agreed. It's amazing how much the smallest spacer changes the bump curve.

 

[Fabman]

Caster should be good, if I remember the last report they were even, can't recall the actual measurement. Although I've been debating going to coilovers soon so maybe after that would be a good time to set bump

Basically you just slam the caster as far + as it will go, then set camber and toe. Them set the bump. If you are doing coil overs, do it at the same time.

 

[Ken R]

Agreed. It's amazing how much the smallest spacer changes the bump curve.

Yeah that is what I am learning here, now it makes more sense on why they send some paper thin spacers

Basically you just slam the caster as far + as it will go, then set camber and toe. Them set the bump. If you are doing coil overs, do it at the same time.

I'll have to see what the budget allows but hopefully I can make the move to coil overs, I've just been running the eibach stuff that came on the car when I bought it

 

[Fabman]

Yeah that is what I am learning here, now it makes more sense on why they send some paper thin spacers

I'll have to see what the budget allows but hopefully I can make the move to coil overs, I've just been running the eibach stuff that came on the car when I bought it

I have a saying:
Winners do what losers won’t.
It’s all in the details man.

 

[Ken R]

I have a saying:
Winners do what losers won’t.
It’s all in the details man.

I like it, now I just need to keep learning the details from you all

 

[Ken R]

Well last track day was plagued with a bit of hesitation, I kept getting a metallic resonance on left handed turns and despite raising the car up several times all suspension looked good, paint marks were where they should have been etc. Finally got around to checking it out and oddly enough tracked it down the passenger side exhaust being a little loose so the tip was hitting the bumper structure and it was only happening when that side suspension was loaded up thus only left handers. Okay easy enough, tighten maybe replace some clamps but the real scare came when checking on the clamps by the H-pipe under the middle of the car, one of the driveshaft center bearing bracket bolts was just gone, when I found it the bracket was actually resting on the black cross member. I was able to find a bolt that was the same threads so I could get it back up but now I really just want to get this heavy thing out and the aluminum requires no center bracket due to being so much lighter so that just moved up in priority

 

[Apexpny]

Well last track day was plagued with a bit of hesitation, I kept getting a metallic resonance on left handed turns and despite raising the car up several times all suspension looked good, paint marks were where they should have been etc. Finally got around to checking it out and oddly enough tracked it down the passenger side exhaust being a little loose so the tip was hitting the bumper structure and it was only happening when that side suspension was loaded up thus only left handers. Okay easy enough, tighten maybe replace some clamps but the real scare came when checking on the clamps by the H-pipe under the middle of the car, one of the driveshaft center bearing bracket bolts was just gone, when I found it the bracket was actually resting on the black cross member. I was able to find a bolt that was the same threads so I could get it back up but now I really just want to get this heavy thing out and the aluminum requires no center bracket due to being so much lighter so that just moved up in priority
View attachment 89387

Good catch, that could have made for a really bad day...

If you go with a 1 pc driveshaft, consider replacing your UCA with an adjustable unit so you can get the pinion angle dialed in. I went through two pinion seal replacements before figuring that out.

 

[Ken R]

Good catch, that could have made for a really bad day...

If you go with a 1 pc driveshaft, consider replacing your UCA with an adjustable unit so you can get the pinion angle dialed in. I went through two pinion seal replacements before figuring that out.

I think the only thing that really saved me was the fact that it is the one spot that is meant to have some angle to it
That's a good tip, I recall reading that somewhere but forgot about it. Do you have an UCA that you prefer?

 

[Apexpny]

I think the only thing that really saved me was the fact that it is the one spot that is meant to have some angle to it
That's a good tip, I recall reading that somewhere but forgot about it. Do you have an UCA that you prefer?

I used the Steeda adjustable uca with poly bushings and it's held up well 4 seasons later. I read that the Roush uca was the hot ticket but I think that one has been discontinued. However, most of the quality manufacturers should provide a decent upgrade over the factory part. It's crazy how much deflection the stock stamped unit with rubber bushings has.

 

[Ken R]

I used the Steeda adjustable uca with poly bushings and it's held up well 4 seasons later. I read that the Roush uca was the hot ticket but I think that one has been discontinued. However, most of the quality manufacturers should provide a decent upgrade over the factory part. It's crazy how much deflection the stock stamped unit with rubber bushings has.

Yeah after some reading and talking with the guys at Maximum Motorsports I got the same message about the Roush one and was able to find one, so I have been running that for the last year and a half and I have been really liking it. Same design just beefed up steel and much harder rubber bushing, I would like to see more higher density rubber bushing replacements in general, the poly stuff is good but from my (limited) experience the rubber seems to have a more consistent and linear loading action and it will eat up some of the small imperfections and bumps which depending on scenario may help keep the wheels planted. But then again I am running a good number of spherical bearings which are really unforgiving and perhaps the specific brand of poly I have been working with is harder than others so the experimentation continues!

 

[Ken R]

I should have made this update a month ago but life got busy so here we are. Anyways, after a bit of back and forth with Ford I got the aluminum driveshaft, in short a driveshaft for a 11-14 S197 got put into the box for the 05-10 S197 so it was several inches too long. This driveshaft is an upgrade I should have done long long ago, it feels like a different car and always wants to pull hard all the time so that is going to be fun going into next season

I decided to make a bit of a sound upgrade as well and switch out the MBRP pipes for some Roush ones

So with those upgrades in place I got to test them out along with our new trailer and head down to Road Atlanta for the NASA SE season ender and get a break from the Michigan cold, the track is a ton of fun and if you have the means I would recommend going, a ton of elevation and a fast track but the walls are a bit intimidating so I was watching a lot of lap videos before heading down and they helped a lot. I spent most of the weekend chasing down a GT3 and a Mach 1 who I could both hang with for the first half of the sessions but once we hit the back straight they'd put some distance on me but hard to be mad considering they have about 500hp vs my 300hp. Initially it was a very foggy and wet start to Saturday but things started clearing up and I was able to get some good clean laps in later in Sunday so we shall see if we make another trip down there next winter but either way I think a break from the cold for a track weekend is going to be a yearly thing from now on!

 

[Ken R]

So in the quest for more data I am going to see if I can build up a logger and save some money. I have been really eyeing the ASL RaceCapture/Track data acquisition and I think it's fairly priced but I want to see what kind of data I can get from the car before spending the extra money, there is also the internal struggle of do I want a data acquisition or a lap coach but considering I have an engineering background I think data is the answer for me. Thus far I have been running TrackAddict from my phone with a GPS booster, specifically the Haze Engineering booster which runs 18Hz and was painless to setup and has served me well over the years. I have tried to add an OBD Link along with the GPS booster but I can never seem to get the data from the CAN bus into my lap times which I suspect is due to it having to be Bluetooth Low Energy so it isn't transmitting as fast but I'm speculating and haven't looked into that.

So with the background out of the way I decided to dig out some old equipment from when I was in undergrad and see what I could make work. The initial thought was to take my old Samsung tablet and turn it into a dedicated logger as it already has most of the features and just needs some updating and run that in conjunction with a Raspberry Pi with a CAN hat to feed a wired signal to the tablet to get those CAN messages. What I found was that the table was on Android OS 4.2 (for those keeping track the new devices are on Android OS 14) and I believe the highest the tablet can support is Android OS 7. Realistically I would need to run a modded software on the tablet to update the OS which isn't terribly difficult but then I run the risk of bricking the tablet and being back to zero. After some thought I decided to switch gears and actually run the Android OS on the Raspberry Pi with a touchscreen and then implement the CAN channels with the same add on board that I was planning on using. Since Android is open source many apps can be found in APK format, downloaded from the web and ran and installed on the Android device. With this all sorted out ideally I would like to remove the radio (which will be happening regardless) and install a plastic cover over the opening and mount the touchscreen or tablet right to where the radio was, with some careful wiring it shouldn't be hard to get the system to trigger on with the ignition

So this far I have a Raspberry Pi running Android OS 9 with TrackAddict, OBD Link, and GoPro Quik installed, the GoPro camera connected, and a working touchscreen. The next steps would be to connect to the Haze GPS booster, attempt to hook up the OBD Link but most importantly verify the CAN and figure out how I need to configure that to run on the Raspberry Pi. HP Tuners seems to lay out how the CAN messages need to come into the device to be recognized but I am yet to hook up the board and the car to see how they communicate with each other. The thought is that the wired connection from OBD to the Pi will eliminate any data latency and be able to record with the lap times. Given the Pi is a single chip computer I think speed and what I am asking of it may become an issue and it might freeze up or worse yet overheat and become damaged. Since it is only really a couple dedicated tasks maybe it won't be an issue but once I get that sorted I plan on taking it out around the block in the truck since, well, it's January in Michigan

 

[TMSBOSS]

Ken.

Nice work.

That seems like a lot of work to build half of a Garmin system. No coaching. I went through the Harry’s phase, then an Apex system and now have the Garmin. On the fly coaching is by far a cheap tool. Why? You don't have to stop after a session and analyze the data amd make your conclusions on what will work. The tool does these things on the fly and suggests improvement usually during your next lap. Laps and sessions are saved in the process.
I too enjoy building my next mod. My trans cooling system is a hybrid of parts recommended here over several builds. Sometimes ya just have to go with the pros when they hit a home run.

 

[Bill Pemberton]

I do so agree with TMS, the Garmin Catalyst is simply superb and even Computer Imbeciles ( that would be me ) can comprehend all the data , especially the virtually instant stuff. All that said, you, like many of us in the Midwest are getting ready for a massive snowstorm, so at least you will have something to do if you are stuck in the house for awhile, ha.

 

[Ken R]

Thanks TMS, I have been strongly considering the Garmin unfortunately money is tight and as of right now I am only into this project like $120 so this is kind of like my pilot run to see how effectively I can use the data, like you said the post session download is a thought and if I don't utilize it like I am envisioning or if it's too complicated then I can reprogram the Pi and do something else or even just use it as a diagnostic tool and move over to a Catalyst. So I will have to see, I have had the CAN data itch for awhile so I just want to try and scratch it and see how it goes ha.

You about nailed it Bill, it is supposed to be 0F next week with a "feels like" well into the negatives so this gives me an excuse to work on the car without being outside ha

 

[TMSBOSS]

I looked at the Garmin as a cost saver. I can sometimes learn and improve more in one session with the Garmin than I did in a full day with other systems.
For a few years I looked at the guys who poured over data as folks i just did not understand. Now, I do a cool down lap, shut the car off and start looking at data. Then I get out of the car. Likely because I needed to get “some skills” before data meant anything to me. Now, I can’t get enough. Overlaying fastest lap over optimal laps shows me where I can improve. I guess I’m getting better.

love your build.