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S550 mavisky's "LOUDCAR" Build Thread Profile - S550 Mustangs

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New tires worked as well as I thought they would.

New setup is rotatable 19x11 Apex wheels with 305/30-19 Khumo V730. I'd read some reports that these tires like crazy low hot pressures, and I can confirm that based on the 6 runs I got today and monitoring the sidewalls, this is accurate. Best times came with 30.5psi in the front and 27 psi in the rear.

I'm lucky to have a consistently fast local driver in my class in his modified 2014 GT and with the PS4S I had run during my first few events I was typically between a second and a half to 2 seconds behind him as he's on a set of 305 Falkens. With the new setup I was actually beating him until his very last run where he edged me out by a mere 0.087 seconds. My fastest time of the day caught 3 cones (2 minor slalom cones and one that probably cost me more time than it would have saved in raw time) but I did put down a faster raw time with a 65.732. Car is still on stock camber at the front and only slightly more than stock in the rear after lowering so I know I can dial in more front grip with a set of camber plates which could solve some of the understeer I'm fighting and really boost the car ahead in the standings. Time to pull the trigger on the next set of mods. (also looks like Brent and I need to update our vehicle profiles to list the correct tires, oops)

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At the end of the day I was in the top 20 on PAX even though the second heat was able to pick up a couple of seconds compared to our morning times. Typically Brent and his 2014 are top 10 in PAX so the second half got a major advantage on us in today's runs as he was only 15th with a number of cars he normally beats sliding ahead due to the better surface temps and cleaner surface in the 2nd half of the day. Feeling good as this means with a little more front turn-in from a set of camber plates I should be able to fight it out for top 5-10 PAX finishes in our fairly competitive Atlanta region events.
 
Tried a new camera location. Had to keep it low to keep it from blocking line of sight from my helmet, but in the end it's a little too low for me to use it again in car.

I will have to setup a sidemounted camera location. Moved the mic to the rear license plate frame and prefer the audio color. This was my fastest raw time, last run of the event, but 3 cones picked up unfortunately. Go Pro was dead for my fastest run and didn't have time to battery swap once I realized. The GPS also failed to record the second half of the lap. Not sure what's going on but this issue keeps happening consistently once we get down to the far end of the parking lot. Perfect recording up til I make the turnaround near the onsite airport and then my GPS dies. Weird, but not my major concern. Need to get more front camber as you can see that even on a square setup the car still defaults to understeer unless it's throttle invoked oversteer.

 
Added a set of Steeda camber plates before this weekend's double header event. Dialed the camber up to as much as I could get on the factory strut openings for now. Amazed at how much turn in the car has now and ended up dialing the tire pressures back to 27 front and rear are very well balanced now. The car rotates nicely as needed and I really needed the extra grip as the course was very technical. I didn't lay down the fastest raw times of the day for my class, but the other drivers either DNF'ed or picked up a cone on their fastest pass so ended up taking the win in CAM-C for Saturday's event.

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Also tried out a new helmet mounted camera view. Doesn't give the best course view, but much better idea of what I'm doing inside the cabin. Also still having issues with the GoPro maintaining GPS connection so I lose the cool track map overlay as well as the speed monitor it normally provides. Anyone have any advice on this.

 
Last edited:
28
23
Exp. Type
Autocross
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
Dawsonville, GA
That was a really fun season and super glad you joined up! I am looking forward to next year.

For your GPS woes, I use a Dual X160 GPS puck that I place on the dash that uses bluetooth and should hook right up to your GoPro. Mine usually reads accuracy within 5-7 feet and gives a strong signal.

 
That was a really fun season and super glad you joined up! I am looking forward to next year.

For your GPS woes, I use a Dual X160 GPS puck that I place on the dash that uses bluetooth and should hook right up to your GoPro. Mine usually reads accuracy within 5-7 feet and gives a strong signal.

Will be interesting as our cars/driving styles seem to favor different tracks. Saturday was a little more point and shoot and you were up on me by about a second and a half in raw time. That cone you clipped cost you 2 seconds, but the advantage wasn't more than a hundredth if we're honest.

Sunday was more fast and flowing and the roles sort of reversed with no changes to either car that I'm aware of other than me taking 1 pound out of all 4 tires on my last run. Definitely looking forward to the battles to come next year.
 
So got home today and noticed my front driver's side blinker wasn't working. Turns out it popped out during the event at some point. You can tell in this pic that the inner driver's side running light/turn signal isn't working because it's rattling around in the housing. Not looking forward to taking off the bumper again just to get this fixed.

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So got home today and noticed my front driver's side blinker wasn't working. Turns out it popped out during the event at some point. You can tell in this pic that the inner driver's side running light/turn signal isn't working because it's rattling around in the housing. Not looking forward to taking off the bumper again just to get this fixed.

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C'mon...
Someone hit a cone didn't they?????
Didn't they......?
 
C'mon...
Someone hit a cone didn't they?????
Didn't they......?
You know what, I hadn't even considered it, but I did smack one in the back sweeper right on that corner enough to leave a lovely cone shaped outline that I had to buff off directly near that turn signal. That very well could have been the moment it dislodged itself. I assumed it had been over one of the yumps on the course that caused the splitter to bottom out.
 
As part of my off-season upgrades I stumbled into a few good deals and this was the first one I came across. A member of this forum had this Trackspec GT4 hood vent kit new in box for only $350 vs $400 new. They're not as functional as the Race Louvers hood vents in the wind tunnel, but these look better in my opinion and I'm ok with a slight tradeoff in aero.

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Scary? Sure, a bit, but this also isn't the first time I've cut a hole in the hood of a Mustang. Luckiyly my photography and cutting skills have improved over the last 10 years.
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Also built this to help keep rain from getting in on the filter, and yes I often find myself using the lids to my garbage cans as additional workbench space far more often than I'd like to admit. Still need to get this over to my dad's woodworking shop to clean it up on the belt sander a bit to level off some of the outer perimeter.
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Chassis mounts finished. Still finalizing the bolt hole locations for the splitter itself before transferring this template to the final product. Hoping to have this all wrapped up by mid-February. Working now to adapt the GT500 style splitter wickers onto my splitter. Heavy on drag, but for autocross purposes it seems like a good tradeoff without having to add too much in the way of additional width to the front of the car.

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Mavisky, Whenever I see your "LOUDCAR" thread pop up I think of my Boss....I'm sure my neighbors do too!....I try to be considerate...........Son maybe not so much...........:idontknow:

One of the reasons I'm trying to master the exhaust valve control on this car. I hate that it closes the valves in 6th gear no matter what and hate that it opens them no matter what above 4,000rpm.

My neighbors (and family) really appreciate the quieter mode when I leave the house at 5AM on a Sunday to head out for autocross events.
 

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