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S197 Autocross Mustang Set Up - Mostly Wheel & tire sizes

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frosty said:
iDrive,

Thanks. Can you verify what we're looking at? Are those 315/30/18's all the way around on 18x11's? If so what offsets are the fronts and rears?

Thanks.

FYI. I spoke with Terry at Vorschlag extensively today. I'm serious considering foregoing the swaybar in favor of the AST coilovers to lower and stiff the front and then shocks in the rear.

Then a panhard bar with the forgestart 18x11's and the Vorschlag camber plate.

Or at least that the way I'm leaning.

Yes, running 315/30/18 (all 4 corners) on PF01 18x10.5, 38mm offset, 5mm spacer up front only.

All National event ESP S197 Mustang's (and most 3rd/4th gen Camaro's) run this size tire with either 10, 10.5, 11, 11.5, or 12" wheel width (17 or 18"). My tire slightly rubs on the rear sway bar, but not enough for concern. Fair's does also even with 315's. He is working on a custom sway bar fix according to his latest Project post update.

I agree with Bill. Having Autocrossed for going on 9 years, don't over do it on equipment mods. Sam has a low cost solution that works for 95% of entry to mid-level Drivers. Seat time is your greatest asset. Extra tuning knobs, adjustable sway bars, adj. upper 3rd link, adj panhard bar, or Watts link can easily get you lost trying to compensate for a Driver's inefficiencies. Experience driving the car gets you the best bang for the buck.

Stiffen up the car a bit with off the shelf lowering springs (incl. adj PH Bar). Add a set of race only wheel/tires. Grab your helmet and go racing.......a lot! Take the Evolution series. Add a set of sway bars and a quality set of struts/shocks when your ready for the next level.

Dave
 
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Updating this thread for anybody else who may venture into this. After going round and round the way it looks I'm going to try 18x10" wheels running 295's. The biggest reason for this car I'm not going to take any chance with Tire rub and I'd rather not run spacers.

From what I can gather, if you want to try and run 315's on the Boss without spacers and without rubbing, you can look at a wheel such as the Forgestar. However, to get the an 11" wheel with a 315 to fit without the tire sticking outside the fender and without rubbing, most likely you're going to have to go with a set of coilover which have smaller springs. Then a camber plate with negative camber to tuck the outer edge of the tire under the fender. This advice was obtained from JScheier & Terry at Vorschlag. I'm not going this route because the AST coil overs won't be in stock until around Sept & Forgestar is out of blanks for the 18x11" wheel sizes and right now it would take 7 to 9 weeks to get the wheels. (This is 18x11 or 18x10's)

Another tool I found that seems to be helpful is this Wheel Offset calculator.

http://www.1010tires.com/WheelOffsetCalculator.asp

So now to the 18x10's. My first choice in wheels was going to be the Forgestar F14's in red to match my stock wheels. However, again they aren't going to be available until the end of the summer.

So in searching, I started searching for an alternative. The Enkei PF01's 10.5 wheels seem to be the choice of most BMO users but I'm not sure based on numbers if the 38mm is the optimal offset. Plus since I’m going down to a 295 and my situation, I think I want a 10” wheel to be on the safe side. I researched the Boss 302R and it runs 18x10's with a 43mm offset on the corners. (Of course it runs coil overs so maybe there is some space differences.)

I used the calculator above my stock 19x9"F wheel has a 42mm offset. Going to an 18x10 with a 43mm offset gives a pretty even distribution of the extra width between the Inner and outer clearance. 14mm Less on the inner and extends out an extra 12mm on the outer.

The Enkei 10.5 is 15mm less inner clearance and extends out another 23mm if the calculator is 100% accurate.

I have taken my rear 19x10R with 47.5mm offset and put it up front. I can say it clears everything but I'm not sure you can get two dimes between the tire and strut mounting bolt in there and not sure I would run anything that tight. (I don't have the best setup to look at this with the tire on. All I'm doing is sticking my fingers in and feeling with the tire on.)

So I searched for 18x10's with 43mm offset and I ran across some SVE drift wheels at Late Model Restoration. I've purchased parts through them before and I like their customer service and free shipping.

http://www.latemodelrestoration.com/item/SVE-1007FD/2005-13-Mustang-Flat-Black-SVE-Drift-18X10

This wheel weighs 2 more lbs than the Enkei but probably a $1,000 less. I know what get what you pay for but when I call LMR to verify they will allow me to return them if they don't fit and to verify the warranty on the structural warranty on these. Then I'm going to give these a shot until down the road when possibly the Forgestar I really want are in stock.

If I were going with Enkei's or something Tire Rack stocked, I'd take Bill's advice and contact Luke. He was the most helpful and seemed the most knowledgeable. Most of all if they research your car and tell you what will work. If they send it to you and it doesn't fit, he said he would take them back so that means a lot. From what I hear, the tolerances on these cars can differ slightly with ever car.

Then I’m going to go with the MM Camber plate to try and get as much negative camber as I can with them.
I’m serious thinking about going with M-5300-P Ford Racing lowering springs. (I actually need to verify what the LS has.)
In doing this, the consensus is that the rear axle will get pushed out to the right. So per I’m going to get an adjustable PanHard bar.
Per JScheier, the pinion angle needs to be researched and measured. Some are using the LCA relocating brackets when lowering the car. However, to my knowledge ESP rules do not allow this. According to John and LMR, you can use an upper adjustable 3rd link arm instead.
The guys at LMR didn’t think the pinion angle would change enough going with the P spring. However, obviously suggested to measure before and after. They mentioned you could pick up a Pinion Angle at Harbor Freight for a couple $. (I have not verified this.)
The LMR opinion was as long as the angle was <= 1 degree, at most 2 degrees, it shouldn’t need to be adjusted. (However, this needs to be researched.)

I think that’s about all I’m going to do for now. I’m on the fence about the lowering springs and the only reason I’m contemplating it is because I’ve got to remove the strut springs for the camber plate install.

Thanks to JScheier, Bill, Mark, Strano & Vorschlag for the feedback.

Disclaimer, please just use what I’ve stated above as a guide. Treat every car as being a little different and I would suggest contacting any vendor for which you will be buying any of these parts to verify what I’ve said. More importantly make sure they will work with you if you purchase something that’s off and you need to return it.
 
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Got my parts this weekend. (Well almost all of them. Got to love purchasing some springs from somebody when you have your car apart, they forget to ship them to you and then decide to go on a week vacation. Yaaay!)

Anyway, this weekend I recieved my SVE 18x10" wheels with 43 mm offset. I mounted the Hoosier A6, 295x30x18's all the way around.

The clearance appears to be good with not rubbing and no plates.

I also installed my MM camber plates. My Camber gauge didn't show up but the negative camber is extremely noticeable. I'm kind of puzzled as to why people get 2.8 on oneside and 2.1 on the other side so they change both sides to be 2.1. Ideally it would seem if you 're if 3.0 is optimal, if you can't get both sides at 3, then you get all you can for each side. However, 2.8 on one side would be better for that sides turns and would still have a slight advantage of over dropping it to 2.1 to match the other side. My car doesn't see the road, and I went and tested the new Hoosiers with the camber plates without an alignment and all I can say is it was amazing. (I was going to get it aligned but my springs didn't ship so I'm just going to monitor tire wire and see how I do.) I think a good driver adapts to the machine and utilizes it’s potential so again I’m not sure why I see people thinking each side has to match. (of course it would be optimally if both sides got the same highest number but if one side doesn’t why bring the other side down? If you’re running your car on the road and worried about even tread wear, then disregard these comments. Also, I've yet to test at high speeds. )

I also installed front and rear adjustable Howell Swaybars. The settings are in the middle holes.

I also installed a Spohn adjustable pan hard bar.

The tires alone make the car appear stiffer, this has to do with going from a 40 & 35 to 30's all the way around. I feel everything in the car, even on stock springs.

I would like to lower the CG of the rear but from a stiff standpoint, I'm not sure the stock springs aren't good. I see several people on here talk about roll and yes it can cause problems but I'm not sure I agree trying to get a car to stay flat all the way around a track is optimal. (I’m specifically talking about lateral.)

I have an MX background and you want to utilize the full range of your suspension. Going with a completely stiff setup means less traction. A stiff suspension can cause tires to push through a turn.

I would have to think this would be the same in a car. But not getting my stiffer springs may turn out to be a good thing as I can experiment with each set. I took the car to a small empty parking lot and this just isn’t the same car now. Up front, I think it all has to do with the tires.

The point of this, for anybody else out there, Bill you were right, just get your tires and go from there. As I posted in another thread, I wish I had the time and energy to have done this in stages. However, it's not fun spending 2.5 days out in the garage in 100+ degree heat tinkering.
 
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P.S. I forgot to mention, I added a Corbeax harness bar with some harnesses from Cool Tech. I have to say, for me there is a big difference being strapped in while cornering.
 
I am burning through my Continental race slicks too quickly and it has been suggested I change the camber on my front tires a negative two degrees. I saw your comment about adding the MM camber/caster plates. I assume these are Maximum Motorsports plates. Are these what you were referring to and once installed how easy is it to adjust the camber between my street tires and my race tires and back to street tires?
 
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ls110 said:
I am burning through my Continental race slicks too quickly and it has been suggested I change the camber on my front tires a negative two degrees. I saw your comment about adding the MM camber/caster plates. I assume these are Maximum Motorsports plates. Are these what you were referring to and once installed how easy is it to adjust the camber between my street tires and my race tires and back to street tires?

Yes, I have the Maximum Motorsports camber plates. To adjust them, according to the instructions you loosen the 4 nuts on top of the camber plate. (I haven't tried this yet so I can't answer 100% accurately whether you would have to loosen up anything else.)

You'll need a camber gauge. I see most call for the need to have the car aligned when making changes. I'm not so sure that's necessary but I have no data to go off of.

You could create some marks for 0 camber and your race settings and go off of that.

How are your tires wearing? Thinking about it, I'm not so sure the plates will help you getting longer tire wear. With negative camber, you're getting uneven wear on straights. When cornering, one side should be flatter with more even wear but the inside tire is going to be at more of an angle probably producing even worse wear.

It would seem you almost would need to flip the tires after each session for optimal wear.

All of this is based on thinking about it and as I don't have any experience with tire wear & negative camber as of yet but I think my expectations for camber plates would be to increase performance.

If you're just looking for longer wear, you're probably going to go with a harder tire. Also, make sure you aren't spinning and sliding your tires a lot. (If they are squealing and sliding then your most likely losing time and wearing out your tires. Also heating them up and losing grip.)

I would suggest you start a thread, explaining how you drive, what type of wear life you're getting out of the tires etc to first see if what you are experiencing is normal. And if not share your driving techniques etc to see if there are changes you can make to help.

Also, I call the tire manufacturers and pick their brains on setup, wear, performance etc.

Good luck
 
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I posted full details of my first event with new tires in the following thread.
https://trackmustangsonline.com/boss-302-racing/purchase-as-much-tire-as-you-can/

Long story short, race tires over street tires, the difference is amazing. For me personally, I would guess it improved my times approx 6 seconds. I'm not sure how much the camber plates played into it. (Again, I've got full details in the other thread.)

My actual event videos, my wife stopped the camera when we were on course and started it when we finished. :)

My fast lap in competition was 58.462 and I won by 1.850 secs. (4 cars, a couple of older camaros and another mustang)

To gauge myself I used another guy who I've been having conversations with who runs a newer Mustang GT with 315s but no camber plates.

He ran in the 58's as well in the pro class and his co-driver dropped down in the high 56's his last run. (They shared a car.)

So I decided to stay and do a fun run as mentioned in my other thread. Even though the video is of horrible quality, (BTW I'm not having much luck with my GoPro Hero at getting quality video's.) I'm going to try my phone and track master the next go around.

Anyway, here are the Fun Run Laps. The second run was 56.868 and my best of the day.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8lzPZW5g_0&feature=youtube_gdata[/youtube]

Thanks again for all the input to this thread. I really appreciate it.
 

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