The_Dead_Cow
Mike
Great write up, all the info you guys share really helps out.
Hopefully those tow hooks will be able to fit a GT350
Hopefully those tow hooks will be able to fit a GT350
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Vorshlag 2018 Mustang GT + S550 Development Thread
- Thread starterFair
- Start date
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@Fair nice write up and the brake cooling inlets. Any plans to sell an S550 brake cooling kit? I know many have asked about one.
The plan is to test both the inlet and backing plate and make sure we haven't overlooked anything, then make a production run. There are usually some small changes between the hand-built prototypes and the production parts to clean up fitment, and to make the install easier.
We have seen a few people propose that you can "make brake cooling for the 14" inverted hat rotor", but we feel that is pretty much pointless. While this might help cool the hubs, it would do little to cool the rotor itself, especially the outside face - since there is no way to pump air through the vented portion of the 14" rotor. This is a lot of work for very little benefit. Now if there is a non-inverted hat 14" rotor on the market that fits the 14" 4 piston calipers, yes, that might be worth trying. But we've moved beyond the 14" bits on our car.
Great info @Fair - really appreciate you sharing and documenting all of this. For the few of us who have the Base GT brakes and aren't ready to move to larger rotors/new calipers, would these Baer rotors be a viable option? It appears they have standard venting:
http://baer.com/Front-Sport-Rotor-15-17-Mustang-GT.html
Edit: Nevermind. I called Baer and their Sport rotors have inverted/outside venting just like OE, which makes sense as the Sport rotors are intended to be their OE-replacement offering. On the other hand they do offer their EradiSpeed 2 piece rotors with standard venting for the 14" Base GT brakes.
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Terry any update here?
Btw
News on the Air duct and the tow hook?
Please let us know!
Btw
News on the Air duct and the tow hook?
Please let us know!
They have been in the process of moving into a new shop and should have an update in a couple of weeks.
- Thread starter
- #47
Project Update for July 26th, 2018: It has been a hectic few months since my last post, and it took me nearly 3 weeks to finish this post after I started writing it. We have been dealing with moving our business into a new shop and finishing construction on this new building, which I talk about at the end. It also got VERY hot here in Texas in June and July. Due to time and heat we haven't run the car since our last two track events in May. But we have a lot of testing and competition events to cover since my last post.
I failed to cover many of these in the last update, even though some of them had happened already. We had a Track Night in America road course test at NOLA (April 12), competed in an Optima 2 day event at NOLA (April 14-15), did another private track test at MSR-C (April 22) to test some brake system changes, competed in a NASA Time Trial at COTA (May 5-6), and an SCCA Club Trials event at MSR-C (May 12).
I will try to cover these events as well as some upgrades and changes we tested on our 2018 GT, then list some of the many parts piling up waiting to be to installed - when we have a few hours to spare to work on a shop ca.
FORD RACING S550 TRAILER TIE DOWN HOOKS
I don't hide it: for most events we take this street legal Mustang to, I would rather tow the car there in our enclosed trailer. There are several reasons for this: to avoid tire issues on the road (like the blowout we had last time?), to reduce the heat cycles on the tires (even 200 treadwear RE-71Rs are susceptible to aging out), and to be able to bring ALL of our gear to the track in comfort and security (tools, spares, bikes, food, covered shelter, etc). After an exhausting weekend at the track it sure is nice to ride home in a big cushy seat inside the F350 - with no worries.
Strapping down a car safely to a trailer deck takes time and the right gear. To speed up this process we always try to make or buy some tie-down hooks for every shop car. We make tie-down hooks (below) for the rear of the S197. But the kit (shown above right) that Ford makes for the S550 looked good, so I bought a set.
The Vorshlag trailer tie-down hooks for the S197 Mustang rear are very handy for trailer towing
I mentioned in my last post how that the Ford M-1700-M kit we tested makes hooking the tie-down straps to the S550 chassis a whole lot easier. For less than $90 it was worth a try. We have pictures to show them - but we didn't install two of the hooks where Ford intended.
So the rear hooks were bolted to the two threaded holes on each side of the chassis, as Ford intended. These are just inside the "lower pinch weld" in front of the rear tires. With two 3" wide straps from MAC's we cross the tie downs and hook into D-rings on the floor behind the car. IT is easy to toss the straps up in front of the rear wheels, grab into these loops bolted to the floor, and strap the car down from behind.
They intended that you do the same on the front, but with so much front overhang and a low front ride height, it is much harder to toss the straps behind the front wheels from the front.
When we had the car on the lift I asked the guys to drill holes and bolt them to the beefy front subframe, as shown above. These are much closer to the front of the car, but still bolted to something very substantial. Makes it easy to reach under the nose and hook to these locations - at least until we add a splitter. Then we might move them back to the spots behind the front wheel... YRMV.
MY PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES AT NOLA (WHY I LOVE THIS TRACK!)
There is a reason I am sharing this section because the road course lap times on the NOLA 2.75 mile road course our 2018 GT, at both the TNiA test and Optima event (see below), were downright dreadful. I just wanted to make sure that readers understood that A) this was not my first time at this track and B) that I'm not some total squid who drives like Mr Magoo on course! Please indulge me for a minute while I list my bona fides at NOLA...
I made this track map from the NOLA Motorsports Park's 2.75 mi CW road course back in 2013, when I ran my first competition event event there in our 2011 Mustang GT with NASA in TT3. The track layout hasn't changed since, except for maybe getting a bit faster with some added pavement at the exit of Turn 16 (it used to be grass).
Before 2013 I got to make a some laps here in 2012 at a BFG tire test driving a Mustang Challenge/Miller Cup FR500S race car (above). I also ran here with NASA again in 2017 in our TT4 prepped BMW 330 (below). So I had a decent number of laps at this track, had two wins in TT4, two wins in TT3, and set a TT3 class track record that was only recently beaten.
To compare times between our S550 and our S197, let me explain a bit about that 2011 GT's "TT3" prep level in 2013. When we came here then we had just moved this Mustang into the brand new TT3 class. It was on Motorsport shocks/springs, but had pretty crude aero (APR rear + plastic LS faux-splitter), when compared to later seasons. We were on the smaller 18x11/18x12" wheels under stock fenders, only running 315/30/18 Hoosiers (we later ran 335/345 tires with flares). We brought 3 sets of tires to that 3 day race weekend: 295mm street tires we used in rain testing on the Friday before, a used set of A6 tires (which Amy and I both drove on Saturday), and a sticker set of new A6 tires (which I set the track record with on Sunday morning, in my one lap that day).
TT3 track record setting lap in May 2013
That 1:50.535 lap stayed the TT3 class record from 2013 until May of 2018 - a five full years. So I guess my 2013 drive here was one of my better ones, but the car got considerably faster in 2014 and 2015, so it wasn't what a max-prepped TT3 car should do there today. But not far off. We're running this S550 in TT3 class now as well (but on street tires) and for comparison: at Eagles Canyon's 2.5 mile track it is currently 5 seconds back from our S197 best lap there (still the TT3 record, set in 2013), and 4 seconds back from our best TT3 lap at MSR (we held that record in our S197 from March 2014 until March 2018, 4 years). So if you extrapolate the differences from these 2 tracks, I was hoping to run a 1:53 to 1:55 lap at NOLA (I did not). Also, we've set our best laps in the S550 on the wimpy 14" OEM brakes, which are far worse than what the 15" 6 piston brakes should do on this car (which should be worth another 1-2 seconds, even on street tires).
Last October I ran our BMW 330 in TT4 class, on a little 245mm R7 tire and 40 hp down on the class limit (really a TTD car with a wing added), but with decent suspension, brakes, and aero. My best lap of 1:56.029 wasn't a class record, but it was enough to win the class both days - barely. I drove the piss outta that BMW hunting for tenths, eventually clipping the pit wall on the exit of T16 and popping the side mirror off in the process. This BMW needed more POWER to drop into TT4 lap record range (1:54s), but the aero and brakes worked well enough to sneak in the two class wins.
In 2013 I went over to a Delta Region SCCA autocross during the NASA TT event after their final runs, made two "fun runs" just site reading the course (with Mark Council navigating from the passenger seat), and was quicker than FTD (on my second, cone-free run). So I had good luck at this autocross pad, too. All of those "nothing but wins" history at NOLA gave me a false sense of hope of maybe doing well at the Optima road course and autocross competition segments. But we had unknowingly hobbled the S550's brake hydraulics when we added the 15" PP front calipers - we made the already poor 14" brakes even WORSE. I will explain...
continued below
I failed to cover many of these in the last update, even though some of them had happened already. We had a Track Night in America road course test at NOLA (April 12), competed in an Optima 2 day event at NOLA (April 14-15), did another private track test at MSR-C (April 22) to test some brake system changes, competed in a NASA Time Trial at COTA (May 5-6), and an SCCA Club Trials event at MSR-C (May 12).
I will try to cover these events as well as some upgrades and changes we tested on our 2018 GT, then list some of the many parts piling up waiting to be to installed - when we have a few hours to spare to work on a shop ca.
FORD RACING S550 TRAILER TIE DOWN HOOKS
I don't hide it: for most events we take this street legal Mustang to, I would rather tow the car there in our enclosed trailer. There are several reasons for this: to avoid tire issues on the road (like the blowout we had last time?), to reduce the heat cycles on the tires (even 200 treadwear RE-71Rs are susceptible to aging out), and to be able to bring ALL of our gear to the track in comfort and security (tools, spares, bikes, food, covered shelter, etc). After an exhausting weekend at the track it sure is nice to ride home in a big cushy seat inside the F350 - with no worries.
Strapping down a car safely to a trailer deck takes time and the right gear. To speed up this process we always try to make or buy some tie-down hooks for every shop car. We make tie-down hooks (below) for the rear of the S197. But the kit (shown above right) that Ford makes for the S550 looked good, so I bought a set.
The Vorshlag trailer tie-down hooks for the S197 Mustang rear are very handy for trailer towing
I mentioned in my last post how that the Ford M-1700-M kit we tested makes hooking the tie-down straps to the S550 chassis a whole lot easier. For less than $90 it was worth a try. We have pictures to show them - but we didn't install two of the hooks where Ford intended.
So the rear hooks were bolted to the two threaded holes on each side of the chassis, as Ford intended. These are just inside the "lower pinch weld" in front of the rear tires. With two 3" wide straps from MAC's we cross the tie downs and hook into D-rings on the floor behind the car. IT is easy to toss the straps up in front of the rear wheels, grab into these loops bolted to the floor, and strap the car down from behind.
They intended that you do the same on the front, but with so much front overhang and a low front ride height, it is much harder to toss the straps behind the front wheels from the front.
When we had the car on the lift I asked the guys to drill holes and bolt them to the beefy front subframe, as shown above. These are much closer to the front of the car, but still bolted to something very substantial. Makes it easy to reach under the nose and hook to these locations - at least until we add a splitter. Then we might move them back to the spots behind the front wheel... YRMV.
MY PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES AT NOLA (WHY I LOVE THIS TRACK!)
There is a reason I am sharing this section because the road course lap times on the NOLA 2.75 mile road course our 2018 GT, at both the TNiA test and Optima event (see below), were downright dreadful. I just wanted to make sure that readers understood that A) this was not my first time at this track and B) that I'm not some total squid who drives like Mr Magoo on course! Please indulge me for a minute while I list my bona fides at NOLA...
I made this track map from the NOLA Motorsports Park's 2.75 mi CW road course back in 2013, when I ran my first competition event event there in our 2011 Mustang GT with NASA in TT3. The track layout hasn't changed since, except for maybe getting a bit faster with some added pavement at the exit of Turn 16 (it used to be grass).
Before 2013 I got to make a some laps here in 2012 at a BFG tire test driving a Mustang Challenge/Miller Cup FR500S race car (above). I also ran here with NASA again in 2017 in our TT4 prepped BMW 330 (below). So I had a decent number of laps at this track, had two wins in TT4, two wins in TT3, and set a TT3 class track record that was only recently beaten.
To compare times between our S550 and our S197, let me explain a bit about that 2011 GT's "TT3" prep level in 2013. When we came here then we had just moved this Mustang into the brand new TT3 class. It was on Motorsport shocks/springs, but had pretty crude aero (APR rear + plastic LS faux-splitter), when compared to later seasons. We were on the smaller 18x11/18x12" wheels under stock fenders, only running 315/30/18 Hoosiers (we later ran 335/345 tires with flares). We brought 3 sets of tires to that 3 day race weekend: 295mm street tires we used in rain testing on the Friday before, a used set of A6 tires (which Amy and I both drove on Saturday), and a sticker set of new A6 tires (which I set the track record with on Sunday morning, in my one lap that day).
TT3 track record setting lap in May 2013
That 1:50.535 lap stayed the TT3 class record from 2013 until May of 2018 - a five full years. So I guess my 2013 drive here was one of my better ones, but the car got considerably faster in 2014 and 2015, so it wasn't what a max-prepped TT3 car should do there today. But not far off. We're running this S550 in TT3 class now as well (but on street tires) and for comparison: at Eagles Canyon's 2.5 mile track it is currently 5 seconds back from our S197 best lap there (still the TT3 record, set in 2013), and 4 seconds back from our best TT3 lap at MSR (we held that record in our S197 from March 2014 until March 2018, 4 years). So if you extrapolate the differences from these 2 tracks, I was hoping to run a 1:53 to 1:55 lap at NOLA (I did not). Also, we've set our best laps in the S550 on the wimpy 14" OEM brakes, which are far worse than what the 15" 6 piston brakes should do on this car (which should be worth another 1-2 seconds, even on street tires).
Last October I ran our BMW 330 in TT4 class, on a little 245mm R7 tire and 40 hp down on the class limit (really a TTD car with a wing added), but with decent suspension, brakes, and aero. My best lap of 1:56.029 wasn't a class record, but it was enough to win the class both days - barely. I drove the piss outta that BMW hunting for tenths, eventually clipping the pit wall on the exit of T16 and popping the side mirror off in the process. This BMW needed more POWER to drop into TT4 lap record range (1:54s), but the aero and brakes worked well enough to sneak in the two class wins.
In 2013 I went over to a Delta Region SCCA autocross during the NASA TT event after their final runs, made two "fun runs" just site reading the course (with Mark Council navigating from the passenger seat), and was quicker than FTD (on my second, cone-free run). So I had good luck at this autocross pad, too. All of those "nothing but wins" history at NOLA gave me a false sense of hope of maybe doing well at the Optima road course and autocross competition segments. But we had unknowingly hobbled the S550's brake hydraulics when we added the 15" PP front calipers - we made the already poor 14" brakes even WORSE. I will explain...
continued below
- Thread starter
- #48
continued from above
4 DAYS AT NOLA - TRACK NIGHT IN AMERICA + OPTIMA - APRIL 12-15, 2018
Last time I showed how we moved from the non-track worthy 14" inverted hat front rotors and 4 piston calipers to the "normal" vented 15" rotors and 6 piston calipers sourced from Ford Racing / optional S550 Performance Pack. At the same time also upgraded to more aggressive G-LOC pads front and rear, added our prototype front brake cooling package, and installed our front and rear tow hooks. I drove around the block and the brakes "felt fine" in a few 60 mph stops - this was right before we put the car in the trailer to tow 9 hours to New Orleans. I said was not going to get caught without adequate brakes again. The best laid plans...
THURSDAY - TRACK NIGHT IN AMERICA TESTING, NOLA 2.75
We thought we were being sneaky and had signed up for the Thursday evening Track Night in America event with SCCA - to get some road course testing in on the same 2.75 mile course that Optima would run. Well many of our Optima competitors figured this out as well, so it was a crowded track event. We showed up at 2 pm, unhooked the trailer, unloaded the car and got ready for a 3 pm driver's meeting and I was on track by 3:30.
All I could muster were some 1:58.1 laps in the first session - uh oh. But well... there was a LOT of traffic, all gridded out of order. The brakes just didn't feel right, and the car would not stop well at all. By the 2nd session I took a rider (Optima racer who didn't know the track) and ran some 2:02 laps, and that's when I knew I was in deep trouble. There's no way this car should be nearly 8 seconds off the pace of our TT3 car! Tires were sliding, hot pressures were only 30 psi, so I bumped them up 2-3 psi.
I was chasing what I thought were setup issues, but it really didn't dawn on me how bad the brakes were until late on Sunday. Why? Well I was running down the faster TNiA guys Thursday and even ahead the GT class on Sunday morning at Optima. I was ignoring what I felt and focusing solely on lap time placement in early sessions that didn't matter.
FRIDAY - TECH
Friday we slept in late, then went out to the track at about 2 pm to tech for Optima, installing all of the sponsor decals, and I did their fire exit drill test (actually pretty thorough). Talked to a lot of friends and competitors, Amy and I helped a lot of folks put their decals on, and we somehow stayed out there until 6:30 that night getting ready for the Saturday-Sunday Optima event. Productive day, and we had excellent seafood that night with friends.
SATURDAY - OPTIMA AUTOCROSS, D&E, FLASH FLOOD
Gallery: https://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/Optima-Nola-TNiA-041218/
Results: https://clubregistration.net/clients/usca/results/overall.cfm?eventID=8666
Now I haven't done an Optima event since 2015 so I was a bit out of practice. There are at least 5 classes now - I'm going to ignore most of them and concentrate on the GT class, which is for 3200+ pound 4 seat cars, mostly made up of Mustangs, Camaros and Challengers. If I talked about all of the classes and friends we had here this write-up would never end.
Saturday we were at the track early, but we were all rushed. They held the driver's meeting early (still took a long time), due to a 100% chance of major rain later that day.
Left: 400#/in rates with Whiteline dampers, 19x11/305 RE-71R. Right: Matt's '15 PP1 on R springs/shocks, camber, same wheel/tire
Everything on the schedule that day got compressed down, all to try to run the autocross before the skies opened up and dumped 6" of rain on the track facility in about 2 hours. We got to the autocross course and the GT class entrants (33!) got either 2 or 3 dry runs in before it started to get damp. Since we had no idea when it would start I took a very aggressive first run - but since I didn't walk the course (due to the compressed schedule) I figured that run would be junk. Turns out it was not only my best run, but the best run for all of GT class that day. I even got lost in the middle section, and of course I forgot to turn on the vidcam, because I was so rushed.
I took my 3rd run in the rain, just for fun... and the Optima guys took this driftoro pic and posted it with my own #Jankystick superimposed! Beaten with my own janky stick of doom!
continued below
4 DAYS AT NOLA - TRACK NIGHT IN AMERICA + OPTIMA - APRIL 12-15, 2018
Last time I showed how we moved from the non-track worthy 14" inverted hat front rotors and 4 piston calipers to the "normal" vented 15" rotors and 6 piston calipers sourced from Ford Racing / optional S550 Performance Pack. At the same time also upgraded to more aggressive G-LOC pads front and rear, added our prototype front brake cooling package, and installed our front and rear tow hooks. I drove around the block and the brakes "felt fine" in a few 60 mph stops - this was right before we put the car in the trailer to tow 9 hours to New Orleans. I said was not going to get caught without adequate brakes again. The best laid plans...
THURSDAY - TRACK NIGHT IN AMERICA TESTING, NOLA 2.75
We thought we were being sneaky and had signed up for the Thursday evening Track Night in America event with SCCA - to get some road course testing in on the same 2.75 mile course that Optima would run. Well many of our Optima competitors figured this out as well, so it was a crowded track event. We showed up at 2 pm, unhooked the trailer, unloaded the car and got ready for a 3 pm driver's meeting and I was on track by 3:30.
All I could muster were some 1:58.1 laps in the first session - uh oh. But well... there was a LOT of traffic, all gridded out of order. The brakes just didn't feel right, and the car would not stop well at all. By the 2nd session I took a rider (Optima racer who didn't know the track) and ran some 2:02 laps, and that's when I knew I was in deep trouble. There's no way this car should be nearly 8 seconds off the pace of our TT3 car! Tires were sliding, hot pressures were only 30 psi, so I bumped them up 2-3 psi.
I was chasing what I thought were setup issues, but it really didn't dawn on me how bad the brakes were until late on Sunday. Why? Well I was running down the faster TNiA guys Thursday and even ahead the GT class on Sunday morning at Optima. I was ignoring what I felt and focusing solely on lap time placement in early sessions that didn't matter.
FRIDAY - TECH
Friday we slept in late, then went out to the track at about 2 pm to tech for Optima, installing all of the sponsor decals, and I did their fire exit drill test (actually pretty thorough). Talked to a lot of friends and competitors, Amy and I helped a lot of folks put their decals on, and we somehow stayed out there until 6:30 that night getting ready for the Saturday-Sunday Optima event. Productive day, and we had excellent seafood that night with friends.
SATURDAY - OPTIMA AUTOCROSS, D&E, FLASH FLOOD
Gallery: https://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/Optima-Nola-TNiA-041218/
Results: https://clubregistration.net/clients/usca/results/overall.cfm?eventID=8666
Now I haven't done an Optima event since 2015 so I was a bit out of practice. There are at least 5 classes now - I'm going to ignore most of them and concentrate on the GT class, which is for 3200+ pound 4 seat cars, mostly made up of Mustangs, Camaros and Challengers. If I talked about all of the classes and friends we had here this write-up would never end.
Saturday we were at the track early, but we were all rushed. They held the driver's meeting early (still took a long time), due to a 100% chance of major rain later that day.
Left: 400#/in rates with Whiteline dampers, 19x11/305 RE-71R. Right: Matt's '15 PP1 on R springs/shocks, camber, same wheel/tire
Everything on the schedule that day got compressed down, all to try to run the autocross before the skies opened up and dumped 6" of rain on the track facility in about 2 hours. We got to the autocross course and the GT class entrants (33!) got either 2 or 3 dry runs in before it started to get damp. Since we had no idea when it would start I took a very aggressive first run - but since I didn't walk the course (due to the compressed schedule) I figured that run would be junk. Turns out it was not only my best run, but the best run for all of GT class that day. I even got lost in the middle section, and of course I forgot to turn on the vidcam, because I was so rushed.
I took my 3rd run in the rain, just for fun... and the Optima guys took this driftoro pic and posted it with my own #Jankystick superimposed! Beaten with my own janky stick of doom!
continued below
- Thread starter
- #49
continued from above
Turns out my fastest autocross run was only 10th quickest overall out of 84 total entrants. The only video worth showing (below) was my wet run # 3, where I was just hooning. In the end I only won the GT class autocross portion by .003 sec, but I'll take it. I'm not that good at autocrossing, just sometimes very lucky.
Next, we got in line for the Design and Engineering judging, where the REAL rain came in. Man it just poured, for hours. People were seeking shelter and the D&E judges took their time.
Everyone got soaked and we didn't get outta there until 5 pm that night. That's when I found out that my first autocross run was good enough for the win! And this was my first autocross run ever in this car. Dumb luck - but I'll take it. I still felt like my performance in the Speed Stop and Time Trial portions would kill me, due to the bad feeling about the brakes from Thursday (not to mention the horrendous D&E score that we go, which was even worse).
SUNDAY - SPEED STOP, ROAD RALLY, ROAD COURSE TIME TRIAL
Sunday turned out to be a PERFECT weather day, but my competition results were taking a nose dive. Sunday was the day that I would fall way back in GT class standings. Sure, the D&E judging was a bloodbath for us, in a nearly stock Mustang, but early on I still felt we could beat the GT class on track and maybe score top 5 in Speed Stop. WRONG.
HOT LAP CHALLENGE
For this Time Trial portion each competitor had four 15-20 minute sessions on track Sunday. It was a little damp in the first session yet right off the bat I was the quickest car in "Intermediate" group in the first session and had the fastest time in GT class. Optima splits the track drivers into 3 groups: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced - with different passing rules and safety requirements for each. We haven't had time to add racing seats / harnesses / roll bar to this car, so I couldn't run in the "Advanced" group. As luck would have it, the two Intermediate groups had fewer cars, and once I got gridded closer to the front, the on track traffic I saw in session 1 went away. The "Group" you run does not affect your "class" standings, just the passing rules and who the other cars you are running with.
But as the day progressed over four track sessions my fastest lap time only dropped by a total of 1.1 seconds. All of the GT class competitors that ultimately went faster than me improved their morning best lap times by 3-6 seconds. As the sessions clicked off I fell to 2nd in class, then 3rd, then all the way down to 7th in class. I got beat like a drum!
quick look at "Hot Laps" road course results, by session
On a positive note, I got slightly quicker each session, but I was only finding tenths. Obviously my times got swamped by 3 full seconds, with 7th out of the 33 cars in GT and 20th overall. Just a dreadful result for how I've done here in competitions in the past. To compare, my best lap was a 1:56.867 which was 6.3 seconds slower than my 2013-seaon TT3 S917 and still a second slower than my BMW 330 - which had over 200 less hp and was on 245mm tires. At the MSR-Cresson 1.7 mile course with the crappy 14" brakes my S550 lap is 3 seconds faster than my 330 - another indicator of how far off the pace this Mustang is with botched brake hydraulics.
Watching the video below showing my 2 laps in session 4 of the "Hot Lap Challenge", you can hear me complaining loudly about the brakes as I was struggling to get the car stopped. The g-traces look good laterally (1.25 to 1.3g) but in braking the best you see is a brief spikes of 1.05g then it quickly trails off to .8g stopping. The tires were doing their job but the brakes just couldn't load them up. I was braking 200 feet sooner into T1, 100 feet sooner into T13, etc.
Video of my 4th session and quickest lap on track - which was SLOW!
The brakes never felt bad, it was just that the car was just not stopping. The harder I pressed the pedal, however, it stopped ever so slightly better for a brief moment - to the point that I was using my entire upper and lower body strength trying to pull up on the steering wheel and press down on the brake pedal SUPER HARD to eek out a tiny bit more stopping power. You cannot do that level of effort and concentrate well on driving, so in the g-traces you can see that brief spike in braking g's, then I would slowly ease into turning then onto the throttle on exit. Too slowly - it looks like some coasting in there, plus the fact that I'm not on the gas when I am still having to brake hundreds of feet early.
The result was that the 14" brake master cylinder was putting too much hydraulic force bias into the rear brakes, and the ABS was pushing back against rear lockup. This made the rear tires also dip into oversteer at corner entry, which I comment about several times in the video. With so much energy going into the rear brakes it is no wonder the tires were getting overworked out back.
Somebody driving 7/10ths of a car's potential on track might not even notice it, but they'd be 4-5 seconds off the ultimate pace of the car if it had good brakes, just like I was. To do all of this upgrade work - bigger brakes, new pads, brake cooling, drive 9 hours to this event - only to make the car slower, kinda sucked. And of course it had to happen at the televised Optima series event, and not at a local test day (we had no time). I doubt the interviews that were filmed (after my autocross win) will ever be seen on the TV series that follows this series, due to my poor overall performance. But that's how this works - you don't get on TV when you finish 10th, and you don't test new setups at big events. I know better!
SPEED STOP...ISH
As you can imagine, the brake intensive "Speed Stop" competition times were even worse. If you are look at the times for my left and right side course it doesn't look that bad, but it really was. My 11.2 sec (left) and 13.7 sec (right) runs were each about a half second per side off of the GT class SS winner Chad Langley's 2018 Chevrolet ZL1 times of 10.8 / 13.1 seconds. But that's an eternity, and I was buried down in 9th place in class and 26th overall in Speed Stop. I'm not even showing any video of that hot mess. I had great launches, and the slalom speeds / lateral gs were great, just no stopping power.
INDIVIDUAL COMPETITION & OVERALL CLASS STANDING
My overall GT class standing (10th place) was worse than any of my individual competition finishes due to the horrific D&E score (car show stuff) the car received.
Overall the Optima/USCA folks did a stellar job running this event, and we STILL had fun for the 4 days we spent in New Orleans. Considering the flash flood they had to work around, it was quite amazing.
Getting to see my nephew, niece, and grand nephew (?!) while we were in town made it that much better. I also got to see a LOT of friends who run Optima events and/or have similar shops to Vorshlag who I hadn't seen in a long time. I'll be back, Optima. And I will have brakes!
continued below
Turns out my fastest autocross run was only 10th quickest overall out of 84 total entrants. The only video worth showing (below) was my wet run # 3, where I was just hooning. In the end I only won the GT class autocross portion by .003 sec, but I'll take it. I'm not that good at autocrossing, just sometimes very lucky.
Next, we got in line for the Design and Engineering judging, where the REAL rain came in. Man it just poured, for hours. People were seeking shelter and the D&E judges took their time.
Everyone got soaked and we didn't get outta there until 5 pm that night. That's when I found out that my first autocross run was good enough for the win! And this was my first autocross run ever in this car. Dumb luck - but I'll take it. I still felt like my performance in the Speed Stop and Time Trial portions would kill me, due to the bad feeling about the brakes from Thursday (not to mention the horrendous D&E score that we go, which was even worse).
SUNDAY - SPEED STOP, ROAD RALLY, ROAD COURSE TIME TRIAL
Sunday turned out to be a PERFECT weather day, but my competition results were taking a nose dive. Sunday was the day that I would fall way back in GT class standings. Sure, the D&E judging was a bloodbath for us, in a nearly stock Mustang, but early on I still felt we could beat the GT class on track and maybe score top 5 in Speed Stop. WRONG.
HOT LAP CHALLENGE
For this Time Trial portion each competitor had four 15-20 minute sessions on track Sunday. It was a little damp in the first session yet right off the bat I was the quickest car in "Intermediate" group in the first session and had the fastest time in GT class. Optima splits the track drivers into 3 groups: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced - with different passing rules and safety requirements for each. We haven't had time to add racing seats / harnesses / roll bar to this car, so I couldn't run in the "Advanced" group. As luck would have it, the two Intermediate groups had fewer cars, and once I got gridded closer to the front, the on track traffic I saw in session 1 went away. The "Group" you run does not affect your "class" standings, just the passing rules and who the other cars you are running with.
But as the day progressed over four track sessions my fastest lap time only dropped by a total of 1.1 seconds. All of the GT class competitors that ultimately went faster than me improved their morning best lap times by 3-6 seconds. As the sessions clicked off I fell to 2nd in class, then 3rd, then all the way down to 7th in class. I got beat like a drum!
quick look at "Hot Laps" road course results, by session
On a positive note, I got slightly quicker each session, but I was only finding tenths. Obviously my times got swamped by 3 full seconds, with 7th out of the 33 cars in GT and 20th overall. Just a dreadful result for how I've done here in competitions in the past. To compare, my best lap was a 1:56.867 which was 6.3 seconds slower than my 2013-seaon TT3 S917 and still a second slower than my BMW 330 - which had over 200 less hp and was on 245mm tires. At the MSR-Cresson 1.7 mile course with the crappy 14" brakes my S550 lap is 3 seconds faster than my 330 - another indicator of how far off the pace this Mustang is with botched brake hydraulics.
Watching the video below showing my 2 laps in session 4 of the "Hot Lap Challenge", you can hear me complaining loudly about the brakes as I was struggling to get the car stopped. The g-traces look good laterally (1.25 to 1.3g) but in braking the best you see is a brief spikes of 1.05g then it quickly trails off to .8g stopping. The tires were doing their job but the brakes just couldn't load them up. I was braking 200 feet sooner into T1, 100 feet sooner into T13, etc.
Video of my 4th session and quickest lap on track - which was SLOW!
The brakes never felt bad, it was just that the car was just not stopping. The harder I pressed the pedal, however, it stopped ever so slightly better for a brief moment - to the point that I was using my entire upper and lower body strength trying to pull up on the steering wheel and press down on the brake pedal SUPER HARD to eek out a tiny bit more stopping power. You cannot do that level of effort and concentrate well on driving, so in the g-traces you can see that brief spike in braking g's, then I would slowly ease into turning then onto the throttle on exit. Too slowly - it looks like some coasting in there, plus the fact that I'm not on the gas when I am still having to brake hundreds of feet early.
The result was that the 14" brake master cylinder was putting too much hydraulic force bias into the rear brakes, and the ABS was pushing back against rear lockup. This made the rear tires also dip into oversteer at corner entry, which I comment about several times in the video. With so much energy going into the rear brakes it is no wonder the tires were getting overworked out back.
Somebody driving 7/10ths of a car's potential on track might not even notice it, but they'd be 4-5 seconds off the ultimate pace of the car if it had good brakes, just like I was. To do all of this upgrade work - bigger brakes, new pads, brake cooling, drive 9 hours to this event - only to make the car slower, kinda sucked. And of course it had to happen at the televised Optima series event, and not at a local test day (we had no time). I doubt the interviews that were filmed (after my autocross win) will ever be seen on the TV series that follows this series, due to my poor overall performance. But that's how this works - you don't get on TV when you finish 10th, and you don't test new setups at big events. I know better!
SPEED STOP...ISH
As you can imagine, the brake intensive "Speed Stop" competition times were even worse. If you are look at the times for my left and right side course it doesn't look that bad, but it really was. My 11.2 sec (left) and 13.7 sec (right) runs were each about a half second per side off of the GT class SS winner Chad Langley's 2018 Chevrolet ZL1 times of 10.8 / 13.1 seconds. But that's an eternity, and I was buried down in 9th place in class and 26th overall in Speed Stop. I'm not even showing any video of that hot mess. I had great launches, and the slalom speeds / lateral gs were great, just no stopping power.
INDIVIDUAL COMPETITION & OVERALL CLASS STANDING
My overall GT class standing (10th place) was worse than any of my individual competition finishes due to the horrific D&E score (car show stuff) the car received.
- Autocross: 1st in GT class, 10th overall
- Hot Lap Challenge: 7th in class, 20th overall
- Speed Stop: 9th in class, 26th overall
- Design & Engineering: 19th in class
- Road Rally: 100 points in a pass/fail street drive (9 cars in GT class got 0)
Overall the Optima/USCA folks did a stellar job running this event, and we STILL had fun for the 4 days we spent in New Orleans. Considering the flash flood they had to work around, it was quite amazing.
Getting to see my nephew, niece, and grand nephew (?!) while we were in town made it that much better. I also got to see a LOT of friends who run Optima events and/or have similar shops to Vorshlag who I hadn't seen in a long time. I'll be back, Optima. And I will have brakes!
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- Thread starter
- #50
continued from above
BRAKE MODS, ROUND #4 (PP MASTER CYLINDER AND BOOSTER)
One person online had warned me that the master wasn't right for the 15" PP brakes, while dozens said otherwise. I listened to the wrong people this time. The day I got back from Optima, I was hopping mad - at myself - and immediately asked Jon to order a 2018 GT PP1/PP2 master cylinder and booster.
In my last thread update I showed how we moved from the non-track worthy 14" inverted hat front rotors and 4 piston calipers to the "normal" vented 15" rotors and 6 piston calipers from the optional S550 Performance Pack. I drove around the block right before we put the car in the trailer to head to New Orleans. I and made a few aggressive stops on the street and it "felt" fine. That's the problem - the pedal feel in regular street driving is close enough, and I feel that's what people who are doing this upgrade are feeling. But it is moving a LOT of brake bias to the rear when using the 14" master cylinder. The hydraulic math proves that (9% front piston surface area change).
Of course, as you read above about our NOLA Optima weekend, this 15" brake with 14" master cylinder setup didn't work. AT ALL. I could press the brake pedal hard enough that it felt like I was going to break something - yet the car would just barely slow down. The g load traces under braking tell it all.
I am not trying to start controversy here, but the on track g-trace data, lap times relative to my other drives at this track, and hydraulic math all prove this out. There is a reason why the master cylinder is different on the base vs PP1/PP2 cars. You can see me measuring it in the accompanying video. Its a big difference. I simply could not make this car stop on the 6 piston calipers pushing with the hydraulic master and booster from the 4 piston brakes.
At the same track in our S197 with smaller 14" brakes I could brake 200 feet later into Turn 1 and 100 feet later into T3, T5 and T13. In the 4th session I did some lead-follows with Matt's 2015 GT PP1 car and he could outbrake my car by 100+ feet on every corner with the exact same wheel and tire, the same brake parts (15" PP bits), and he was even using bargain priced Powerstop brake pads. I was on a better pad on the "same" brakes, the exact same wheels and tires, where only difference was the master cylinder hydraulics.
And when you look at the caliper piston surface area differences, the 15" 6 piston brakes shouldn't have worked without the proper master cylinder from the PP. Some people swear by that 14" hydraulics with 15" brakes setup. Others swear that the backwards 14" brakes work fine on track, too. My theory to explain those statements is this: maybe those people just aren't that fast. Inadequate brakes for one person might be fine if they were pushing the car 50% or 75% as hard. So yea, people driving slower might not notice some of the issues I remark about, but when I push a car on track in "qualifying" type laps, limitations start to become very apparent. I have been doing road course events for 30 years, driven tens of thousands of laps in hundreds of different cars. I am not saying I am better or worse than those that argue against me - just that I have a lot of seat time, data, math, testing and results to back up this claim.
S550 Brake Hydraulics Explained
The video above shows the bore measurements of the base 14" brake vs 15" brake PP2 master cylinders for the 2018 model Mustang GT, the two boosters, how we installed them, and even the removal of the "sound tube" and plastic engine cover. The 1.5mm difference in master cylinder bores matches the same relative difference in piston surface area from the 14" 4 piston to 15" 6 piston calipers - which might just be why Ford makes two different master cylinders for these two brake packages, right? Why, you ask, does Ford Racing sell the 15" 6 piston brake kit (M-2300-T 4 wheel or M-2300-V front only) kits without the related Performance Pack master cylinder and booster? That I cannot answer - but trust me, you need the matching master and booster. I am not trying to sell you anything here, just trying to save you grief.
Once we tracked down the right part numbers (they are in the images and videos above) we installed the correct PP1/PP2 master cylinder and booster (thanks to tips from the engineers at Powerbrake, who verified the math) on brake mod round 4, then went back to MSR-Cresson for some brake testing (track test #6, below).
continued below
BRAKE MODS, ROUND #4 (PP MASTER CYLINDER AND BOOSTER)
One person online had warned me that the master wasn't right for the 15" PP brakes, while dozens said otherwise. I listened to the wrong people this time. The day I got back from Optima, I was hopping mad - at myself - and immediately asked Jon to order a 2018 GT PP1/PP2 master cylinder and booster.
In my last thread update I showed how we moved from the non-track worthy 14" inverted hat front rotors and 4 piston calipers to the "normal" vented 15" rotors and 6 piston calipers from the optional S550 Performance Pack. I drove around the block right before we put the car in the trailer to head to New Orleans. I and made a few aggressive stops on the street and it "felt" fine. That's the problem - the pedal feel in regular street driving is close enough, and I feel that's what people who are doing this upgrade are feeling. But it is moving a LOT of brake bias to the rear when using the 14" master cylinder. The hydraulic math proves that (9% front piston surface area change).
Of course, as you read above about our NOLA Optima weekend, this 15" brake with 14" master cylinder setup didn't work. AT ALL. I could press the brake pedal hard enough that it felt like I was going to break something - yet the car would just barely slow down. The g load traces under braking tell it all.
I am not trying to start controversy here, but the on track g-trace data, lap times relative to my other drives at this track, and hydraulic math all prove this out. There is a reason why the master cylinder is different on the base vs PP1/PP2 cars. You can see me measuring it in the accompanying video. Its a big difference. I simply could not make this car stop on the 6 piston calipers pushing with the hydraulic master and booster from the 4 piston brakes.
At the same track in our S197 with smaller 14" brakes I could brake 200 feet later into Turn 1 and 100 feet later into T3, T5 and T13. In the 4th session I did some lead-follows with Matt's 2015 GT PP1 car and he could outbrake my car by 100+ feet on every corner with the exact same wheel and tire, the same brake parts (15" PP bits), and he was even using bargain priced Powerstop brake pads. I was on a better pad on the "same" brakes, the exact same wheels and tires, where only difference was the master cylinder hydraulics.
And when you look at the caliper piston surface area differences, the 15" 6 piston brakes shouldn't have worked without the proper master cylinder from the PP. Some people swear by that 14" hydraulics with 15" brakes setup. Others swear that the backwards 14" brakes work fine on track, too. My theory to explain those statements is this: maybe those people just aren't that fast. Inadequate brakes for one person might be fine if they were pushing the car 50% or 75% as hard. So yea, people driving slower might not notice some of the issues I remark about, but when I push a car on track in "qualifying" type laps, limitations start to become very apparent. I have been doing road course events for 30 years, driven tens of thousands of laps in hundreds of different cars. I am not saying I am better or worse than those that argue against me - just that I have a lot of seat time, data, math, testing and results to back up this claim.
S550 Brake Hydraulics Explained
The video above shows the bore measurements of the base 14" brake vs 15" brake PP2 master cylinders for the 2018 model Mustang GT, the two boosters, how we installed them, and even the removal of the "sound tube" and plastic engine cover. The 1.5mm difference in master cylinder bores matches the same relative difference in piston surface area from the 14" 4 piston to 15" 6 piston calipers - which might just be why Ford makes two different master cylinders for these two brake packages, right? Why, you ask, does Ford Racing sell the 15" 6 piston brake kit (M-2300-T 4 wheel or M-2300-V front only) kits without the related Performance Pack master cylinder and booster? That I cannot answer - but trust me, you need the matching master and booster. I am not trying to sell you anything here, just trying to save you grief.
Once we tracked down the right part numbers (they are in the images and videos above) we installed the correct PP1/PP2 master cylinder and booster (thanks to tips from the engineers at Powerbrake, who verified the math) on brake mod round 4, then went back to MSR-Cresson for some brake testing (track test #6, below).
continued below
- Thread starter
- #51
continued from above
TRACK TEST #6: MSR-C, APRIL 22nd, 2018
This was an unusual and short test day for us. This was a Sunday "member day" at MSR, so I arranged to go with our tester Jerry, who has a membership. He had a bit of a delay that morning so we did not get out there until about 1:45 pm.
The track had double-booked a Camaro club event to run a few sessions on track that afternoon, so it was crowded, and we didn't get on track until 3:30 - the hottest part of the day. It was also the last member session of the day, so the members that were still there all came out to run at once.
I took what I have learned from running this car over the previous 2 months and put it into practice - I filled the tank full of 93 octane, to prevent fuel slosh in the high speed corners. I tried to get the hot tire pressures to 35 psi (by starting 30 psi front, 31 psi rear cold). We towed the car out to the track, to prevent any flats or mishaps. And I made it to grid first, to try to get some traffic-free laps early.
Well even going out first, I caught the field still coming of the pits in the middle of my first hot lap. Then I fought for 10 hard laps looking for a traffic-free lap, but the tires were too hot after lap 3. Brakes got the slightest hint of fading after 7 laps but I could still push the brakes HARD. Track temp was measured 100°F, ambient was around 68°F, but I was still fighting tire heat after just 3 laps. 10 laps into this 20 minute stint I dove into the pits, Amy checked brake temps and tire pressures, and the right side tires had crept up to 40 psi! She bled all four down to 35 psi and I went back out on track in the same session for 7 more hot laps. The tires were still blisteringly hot. #500psi
In the end I managed to test the brakes well in this solid 30 minute session, over in two stints, and it told me all I needed to know. The pedal effort required to stop at 1.05-1.10 g was normal. The hydraulic issues were gone, and I only saw minimal fade when pushing the brakes hard over 17 laps.
Some in-car video and test evaluation
In the video above I show one of several 1:23.1 laps, but never got clear track when the tires were "in the operating range", so I thought this was why I could not reach the previous best lap in this car here (1:21.9, NASA weekend in cooler weather). Going a second slower than my previous best lap, with bigger brakes, and I am calling that successful? Yes. More on this in Test #8, where I matched these tires again.
BRIDGESTONE RE-71R ACTS LIKE HOOSIER A7?
These Bridgestone RE-71R tires are made to get up to operating temperature FAST, and they perform best in their 1st or 2nd lap on track. The wear rate is somewhat in line with an "R" compound race tire, too (we have 8 events on this first set and they are wearing thin). We saw the same thing in the Focus RS testing at the same track on the same tires. Do these characteristics sound familiar?
My suggestion is to treat RE-71R tires just like a Hoosier A7. Minimize heat cycles and run them in very short stints. Get out on track, minimal scrubbing on out lap, get a fast lap in quickly (within 1-3 laps), then come in and let them cool down. The RE-71R really is not a casual, daily driver, lap-it-all-day kind of tire. Its a "200 treadwear" ringer tire. Doing 17 laps in one session on them was enlightening.
If you do want a "lap it all day" type of tire that is similar but lasts longer... the Hankook R-S4 is your answer. They have a lot of the same sizes as the Bridgestone, are a little cheaper, are a bit slower, but last a bit longer - and can deal with heat better over more laps. #TheMoreYouKnow
350R MAKING GRIP, BUT EATING CON RODS?
Talked to a GT350R owner who was running earlier at this same member day and he was super happy with his Vorshlag camber plates, supplied and installed by one of our dealers Doghouse Performance, located here at MSR. They setup up the car with max camber of almost -4.0° and it has helped him run his best ever lap time of a 1:23, and with a pro driver it has run a best of a 1:21 lap here.
A few weeks later I saw this image below on the Doghouse Facebook page, from a similar/maybe the same car... "We saw this failure on a Shelby GT350R with 2,600 miles on it yesterday. That is a connecting rod cap and bolt jammed through the composite (plastic) oil pan. Zero missed shifts. Car lost oil pressure then died instantly with zero warning."
These Voodoo 5.2L engines have a good bit more vibration than the Coyote 5.0L due to the weird 180° fire crank. We are hearing about more and more oil pressure related failures, for sure. Even pro racer and test driver Randy Pobst has come out publicly about the issues with the Voodoo V8. If you own one just make sure that oil filter stays tight and doesn't fall off, people! I would check that literally before each session.
NASA AT COTA, MAY 5-6th, 2018
After a two week break, we were off to COTA to race with NASA on the big boy F1 track! Super excited, and while I have run here 3 times previously, I have only run COTA once in competition. After track test #6 I was at least semi-confident in the 15" brakes now, but could they stop well from 145+ mph, lap after lap? Also, could a 3950 pound street car on Bridgestones hang with race cars with max aero and Hoosier A7s? Well... don't hold your breath.
FRIDAY
We got there on Friday mid-day, in the pouring rain - nobody got any decent testing that day, due to lightning that shut the track down for most of the day. Glad we didn't spend the $500 for that Test-n-tune day.
We unhooked the trailer, unloaded the car into our garage space, then busted outta there. Met up for a nice dinner at Javier's Tex Mex with a lot of racer friends, near the airport where all of the hotels are.
SATURDAY
Gallery: https://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/NASA-Cota-050518/
Early 6:40 am meeting for Instructors and then a TT meeting at 7 am. TT was out on track first and it was still wet - and I was SLOW running some 2:44 laps, trying to remember the line in a car I had never driven here. My BMW 330 lap times from 2017 were in the 2:42 range, which has now held up as the TTD track record through this weekend - somehow.
The track layout was different from 2017 with the removal of the big yellow curbs (sausage curbs) at the exits of Turns T11, T12, T19, and T20. The track limits for TT were also reset out past the second white line (which was past two sets of gator teeth curbing and big green painted patches). This change in limits could be worth 2+ seconds over last year, when we had those curbs to keep us in-bounds and away from 20+ feet of paved runoff.
I gridded for the first session in 14th, and then worked my way up the grid from there. After driving all four TT sessions and even an HPDE4 session, where I took my first student around for some coaching laps, I managed a best of 2:34.693 lap in TT competition Saturday. My first HPDE student Chris had a 2016 S550 Mustang GT automatic - and he had also just done the 15" PP brake upgrade without the PP master/booster. We noted significantly longer stopping distances than my car, but he was also on Hawk pads running about 15 sec/lap slower. Again - not everyone is going to feel the need for the correct master cylinder, but it does matter. His automatic trans equipped car never went into limp mode, and he was relatively quick for DE1. He was signed off for Solo in DE2 later that day I ended up working with 3 more students over the weekend.
The brakes on my 2018 felt "fine" all day. Sure, I could fade them after 2 hot laps in a row with some 145 mph stops going into T12, but with no way to cool the rears (they get HOT!) it is what it is. With Amy and I double-driving the S550 in warm weather, it puts a heck of a heat load on everything. Out of 7 cars in TT3 I was 5th fastest Saturday, and the only one on street tires. There was a LOT of traffic and I fought all day to move up the grid. Frustrating, and I never got a clean lap that day due to heavy traffic and tourists.
WHAT IS A TT TOURIST + HOW TO STAY OUTTA PEOPLE'S WAY
In Time Trial group we often get some folks who some of call Tourists. This includes anyone running in TT without a care for the actual TT competition going on around them. See, we often get W2W racers who pay an extra fee (about 50% of the normal entry fee) to be able to jump into TT sessions for "practice laps". They could be super fast cars, but without a previous TT session, they have to start at the back of the grid. The really fast cars then blast their way up through everyone and muck up everyone's laps. Another type of "Tourist" is when a TT drivers take passengers in the TT group. This is somehow allowed in this region, but it is something I don't like to personally do - since TT drivers are allowed to run in HPDE4 group it is always better to take students or riders along there. These TT Tourists might start in the back and drive fast thru the field or worse, or start in their grid spot and drive slower than normal. This REALLY isn't the right way to do this, and I need to talk to our TT director and NASA Region director about working out a change. With 63 cars in the TT group it was crazy crowded.
I had one Tourist in a prototype pass me in the esses, when I was on a hot lap, and he almost body checked me - so I drove off track and over one of the BIG curbs to avoid a collision. Bent a wheel, really torqued me off. Nothing seems to happen to these guys even when we complain about it. I think Time Trial competitors are put somewhere lower on the list of priorities than W2W racers - even in the TT sessions. We had 63 cars run in TT that weekend, often all in the same session - which was massively over-crowded, which led to crazy traffic. But I digress.
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TRACK TEST #6: MSR-C, APRIL 22nd, 2018
This was an unusual and short test day for us. This was a Sunday "member day" at MSR, so I arranged to go with our tester Jerry, who has a membership. He had a bit of a delay that morning so we did not get out there until about 1:45 pm.
The track had double-booked a Camaro club event to run a few sessions on track that afternoon, so it was crowded, and we didn't get on track until 3:30 - the hottest part of the day. It was also the last member session of the day, so the members that were still there all came out to run at once.
I took what I have learned from running this car over the previous 2 months and put it into practice - I filled the tank full of 93 octane, to prevent fuel slosh in the high speed corners. I tried to get the hot tire pressures to 35 psi (by starting 30 psi front, 31 psi rear cold). We towed the car out to the track, to prevent any flats or mishaps. And I made it to grid first, to try to get some traffic-free laps early.
Well even going out first, I caught the field still coming of the pits in the middle of my first hot lap. Then I fought for 10 hard laps looking for a traffic-free lap, but the tires were too hot after lap 3. Brakes got the slightest hint of fading after 7 laps but I could still push the brakes HARD. Track temp was measured 100°F, ambient was around 68°F, but I was still fighting tire heat after just 3 laps. 10 laps into this 20 minute stint I dove into the pits, Amy checked brake temps and tire pressures, and the right side tires had crept up to 40 psi! She bled all four down to 35 psi and I went back out on track in the same session for 7 more hot laps. The tires were still blisteringly hot. #500psi
In the end I managed to test the brakes well in this solid 30 minute session, over in two stints, and it told me all I needed to know. The pedal effort required to stop at 1.05-1.10 g was normal. The hydraulic issues were gone, and I only saw minimal fade when pushing the brakes hard over 17 laps.
Some in-car video and test evaluation
In the video above I show one of several 1:23.1 laps, but never got clear track when the tires were "in the operating range", so I thought this was why I could not reach the previous best lap in this car here (1:21.9, NASA weekend in cooler weather). Going a second slower than my previous best lap, with bigger brakes, and I am calling that successful? Yes. More on this in Test #8, where I matched these tires again.
BRIDGESTONE RE-71R ACTS LIKE HOOSIER A7?
These Bridgestone RE-71R tires are made to get up to operating temperature FAST, and they perform best in their 1st or 2nd lap on track. The wear rate is somewhat in line with an "R" compound race tire, too (we have 8 events on this first set and they are wearing thin). We saw the same thing in the Focus RS testing at the same track on the same tires. Do these characteristics sound familiar?
My suggestion is to treat RE-71R tires just like a Hoosier A7. Minimize heat cycles and run them in very short stints. Get out on track, minimal scrubbing on out lap, get a fast lap in quickly (within 1-3 laps), then come in and let them cool down. The RE-71R really is not a casual, daily driver, lap-it-all-day kind of tire. Its a "200 treadwear" ringer tire. Doing 17 laps in one session on them was enlightening.
If you do want a "lap it all day" type of tire that is similar but lasts longer... the Hankook R-S4 is your answer. They have a lot of the same sizes as the Bridgestone, are a little cheaper, are a bit slower, but last a bit longer - and can deal with heat better over more laps. #TheMoreYouKnow
350R MAKING GRIP, BUT EATING CON RODS?
Talked to a GT350R owner who was running earlier at this same member day and he was super happy with his Vorshlag camber plates, supplied and installed by one of our dealers Doghouse Performance, located here at MSR. They setup up the car with max camber of almost -4.0° and it has helped him run his best ever lap time of a 1:23, and with a pro driver it has run a best of a 1:21 lap here.
A few weeks later I saw this image below on the Doghouse Facebook page, from a similar/maybe the same car...
"We saw this failure on a Shelby GT350R with 2,600 miles on it yesterday. That is a connecting rod cap and bolt jammed through the composite (plastic) oil pan. Zero missed shifts. Car lost oil pressure then died instantly with zero warning."
These Voodoo 5.2L engines have a good bit more vibration than the Coyote 5.0L due to the weird 180° fire crank. We are hearing about more and more oil pressure related failures, for sure. Even pro racer and test driver Randy Pobst has come out publicly about the issues with the Voodoo V8. If you own one just make sure that oil filter stays tight and doesn't fall off, people! I would check that literally before each session.
NASA AT COTA, MAY 5-6th, 2018
After a two week break, we were off to COTA to race with NASA on the big boy F1 track! Super excited, and while I have run here 3 times previously, I have only run COTA once in competition. After track test #6 I was at least semi-confident in the 15" brakes now, but could they stop well from 145+ mph, lap after lap? Also, could a 3950 pound street car on Bridgestones hang with race cars with max aero and Hoosier A7s? Well... don't hold your breath.
FRIDAY
We got there on Friday mid-day, in the pouring rain - nobody got any decent testing that day, due to lightning that shut the track down for most of the day. Glad we didn't spend the $500 for that Test-n-tune day.
We unhooked the trailer, unloaded the car into our garage space, then busted outta there. Met up for a nice dinner at Javier's Tex Mex with a lot of racer friends, near the airport where all of the hotels are.
SATURDAY
Gallery: https://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/NASA-Cota-050518/
Early 6:40 am meeting for Instructors and then a TT meeting at 7 am. TT was out on track first and it was still wet - and I was SLOW running some 2:44 laps, trying to remember the line in a car I had never driven here. My BMW 330 lap times from 2017 were in the 2:42 range, which has now held up as the TTD track record through this weekend - somehow.
The track layout was different from 2017 with the removal of the big yellow curbs (sausage curbs) at the exits of Turns T11, T12, T19, and T20. The track limits for TT were also reset out past the second white line (which was past two sets of gator teeth curbing and big green painted patches). This change in limits could be worth 2+ seconds over last year, when we had those curbs to keep us in-bounds and away from 20+ feet of paved runoff.
I gridded for the first session in 14th, and then worked my way up the grid from there. After driving all four TT sessions and even an HPDE4 session, where I took my first student around for some coaching laps, I managed a best of 2:34.693 lap in TT competition Saturday. My first HPDE student Chris had a 2016 S550 Mustang GT automatic - and he had also just done the 15" PP brake upgrade without the PP master/booster. We noted significantly longer stopping distances than my car, but he was also on Hawk pads running about 15 sec/lap slower. Again - not everyone is going to feel the need for the correct master cylinder, but it does matter. His automatic trans equipped car never went into limp mode, and he was relatively quick for DE1. He was signed off for Solo in DE2 later that day I ended up working with 3 more students over the weekend.
The brakes on my 2018 felt "fine" all day. Sure, I could fade them after 2 hot laps in a row with some 145 mph stops going into T12, but with no way to cool the rears (they get HOT!) it is what it is. With Amy and I double-driving the S550 in warm weather, it puts a heck of a heat load on everything. Out of 7 cars in TT3 I was 5th fastest Saturday, and the only one on street tires. There was a LOT of traffic and I fought all day to move up the grid. Frustrating, and I never got a clean lap that day due to heavy traffic and tourists.
WHAT IS A TT TOURIST + HOW TO STAY OUTTA PEOPLE'S WAY
In Time Trial group we often get some folks who some of call Tourists. This includes anyone running in TT without a care for the actual TT competition going on around them. See, we often get W2W racers who pay an extra fee (about 50% of the normal entry fee) to be able to jump into TT sessions for "practice laps". They could be super fast cars, but without a previous TT session, they have to start at the back of the grid. The really fast cars then blast their way up through everyone and muck up everyone's laps. Another type of "Tourist" is when a TT drivers take passengers in the TT group. This is somehow allowed in this region, but it is something I don't like to personally do - since TT drivers are allowed to run in HPDE4 group it is always better to take students or riders along there. These TT Tourists might start in the back and drive fast thru the field or worse, or start in their grid spot and drive slower than normal. This REALLY isn't the right way to do this, and I need to talk to our TT director and NASA Region director about working out a change. With 63 cars in the TT group it was crazy crowded.
I had one Tourist in a prototype pass me in the esses, when I was on a hot lap, and he almost body checked me - so I drove off track and over one of the BIG curbs to avoid a collision. Bent a wheel, really torqued me off. Nothing seems to happen to these guys even when we complain about it. I think Time Trial competitors are put somewhere lower on the list of priorities than W2W racers - even in the TT sessions. We had 63 cars run in TT that weekend, often all in the same session - which was massively over-crowded, which led to crazy traffic. But I digress.
continued below
- Thread starter
- #52
continued from above
In this session this same prototype Tourist passed me in the same esses - and I had to drive over a curb to avoid him!
I am sure there are some things I needed to apologize for - and I did, in person, to two TT drivers. There were a couple of folks who I held up and another who I passed "briskly", likely in frustration. With plenty of power and brakes for the straights, but lower cornering speeds than "slower cars" on Hoosiers with aero, I was often "that guy" holding up "slower" cars in some corners. I tried very hard not to be.
It took me all day Saturday and even into Sunday to move up the grid to be in the "right spot" where I could get a clean lap without holding up someone or being held up by cars gridded ahead of me. I tried to not blast by a slower car right before a series of corners, and instead waited until a straight and get them under power, or right before a straight and get them under braking. This car stops well and eats up a straight better than most, but the cornering... not quite up to Hoosiers+Aero level yet.
SUNDAY
On Sunday I was gridded around 20th and in my first session, but still moving up and down the grid depending on my times and others'. I ran my best lap of a 2:32.7 on my AiM Solo timer (2:32.9 on AMD loop) on lap 4.
Never lost brakes but I got them VERY hot into T12 and T19 where I had to press hard to get the car to make the corner. We measured some rotor temps after a cool down lap of 600°F up front. Yes I am already complaining about brakes with 6 piston 15" Brembos! Just got so spoiled last year running the Powerbrake BBK bits on both my 330 and our FR-S, neither of which ever missed a braking zone or faded - they worked flawlessly, lap after lap. Soon.
This shot of me is still within "track limits". We were allowed two wheels past the white line that was past the green section?!
We had some TT guys sessions DQ'd for passing under yellow, and had a number of HPDE and TT cars "have rapid deceleration incidents with stationary objects" (aka: tag walls). It is hard to imagine how you find a wall at COTA, where most corners have 200' of paved run off, but some folks did. Maybe it was the liberal track limits + many missing yellow curbs? Some snap spins to the inside of corners? Whatever the reason it was another reminder that I HAVE STOCK SEATS/BELTS/NO HANS in this car.
My best lap shown in the video above was far from perfect, and there might have another second or two in a "golden session" with this setup and no traffic or mistakes. As you will see, I missed a 2-3 upshift right as hot lap 1 began - in typical MT-82 style - that cost me a position. Then I had to fight to get that spot back on lap 2. Lap 3 was when a Tourist passed me mid-corner and blew that lap, so it took until lap 4 until I put my best in. Brakes were pretty toasty on that lap, tires were boiling, and I was running out of stamina myself (damn this car needs seats/belts!) Rotor temps were 600°F+ after cool down lap.
Braking into T12 goes from 145mph down to 42 mph, and on lap 4 it was barely pulling 1.0 g sustained there (in previous laps it could touch 1.1g). I think this is just a limitation of the OEM brakes and a lack of any possible rear brake cooling. That's still remarkable, as I was running at 3950 pounds with fuel, driver, and car. Likely the heaviest car on grid.
continued below
In this session this same prototype Tourist passed me in the same esses - and I had to drive over a curb to avoid him!
I am sure there are some things I needed to apologize for - and I did, in person, to two TT drivers. There were a couple of folks who I held up and another who I passed "briskly", likely in frustration. With plenty of power and brakes for the straights, but lower cornering speeds than "slower cars" on Hoosiers with aero, I was often "that guy" holding up "slower" cars in some corners. I tried very hard not to be.
It took me all day Saturday and even into Sunday to move up the grid to be in the "right spot" where I could get a clean lap without holding up someone or being held up by cars gridded ahead of me. I tried to not blast by a slower car right before a series of corners, and instead waited until a straight and get them under power, or right before a straight and get them under braking. This car stops well and eats up a straight better than most, but the cornering... not quite up to Hoosiers+Aero level yet.
SUNDAY
On Sunday I was gridded around 20th and in my first session, but still moving up and down the grid depending on my times and others'. I ran my best lap of a 2:32.7 on my AiM Solo timer (2:32.9 on AMD loop) on lap 4.
Never lost brakes but I got them VERY hot into T12 and T19 where I had to press hard to get the car to make the corner. We measured some rotor temps after a cool down lap of 600°F up front. Yes I am already complaining about brakes with 6 piston 15" Brembos!
Just got so spoiled last year running the Powerbrake BBK bits on both my 330 and our FR-S, neither of which ever missed a braking zone or faded - they worked flawlessly, lap after lap. Soon.
This shot of me is still within "track limits". We were allowed two wheels past the white line that was past the green section?!
We had some TT guys sessions DQ'd for passing under yellow, and had a number of HPDE and TT cars "have rapid deceleration incidents with stationary objects" (aka: tag walls). It is hard to imagine how you find a wall at COTA, where most corners have 200' of paved run off, but some folks did. Maybe it was the liberal track limits + many missing yellow curbs? Some snap spins to the inside of corners? Whatever the reason it was another reminder that I HAVE STOCK SEATS/BELTS/NO HANS in this car.
My best lap shown in the video above was far from perfect, and there might have another second or two in a "golden session" with this setup and no traffic or mistakes. As you will see, I missed a 2-3 upshift right as hot lap 1 began - in typical MT-82 style - that cost me a position. Then I had to fight to get that spot back on lap 2. Lap 3 was when a Tourist passed me mid-corner and blew that lap, so it took until lap 4 until I put my best in. Brakes were pretty toasty on that lap, tires were boiling, and I was running out of stamina myself (damn this car needs seats/belts!) Rotor temps were 600°F+ after cool down lap.
Braking into T12 goes from 145mph down to 42 mph, and on lap 4 it was barely pulling 1.0 g sustained there (in previous laps it could touch 1.1g). I think this is just a limitation of the OEM brakes and a lack of any possible rear brake cooling. That's still remarkable, as I was running at 3950 pounds with fuel, driver, and car. Likely the heaviest car on grid.
continued below
- Thread starter
- #53
continued from above
In that first Sunday session I ran my best of the weekend with a 2:32.930. I was almost ten seconds slower the TT3 winner that day, my friend Paul Costas driving the cheateringest cheater buggy C5 Corvette, with max aero and 345 Hoosier A7s!
Paul demolished the old TT3 track record (5 seconds) and gave me a reality check of where we need to be. His TT3 times were often 1st on the grid, when the TTU classed Ginetta didn't show up.
This Ginetta prototype with LS power was FAST AF! When it was on track, get outta the way - 2:09s!
Costas was beating all of the TT2 and TT1 cars for much of the weekend, until a few TT1 cars stepped it up. That's a C5 Z06 at 2900 pounds and only 288 whp... "allegedly". Whatever the case, to run a 2:22.915 lap he had to drive the wheels off that C5.
Its nothing radical - just a gutted C5Z with some big Hoosiers, nice brakes, good suspension, and aero. Sure, it has some hidden prep, but it looks like a sow's ear and yet it cleaned everyone's clocks. So... don't judge a book by it's cover! This is a fleet car at G-Speed that you can rent and drive at MSR-Cresson.
Amy got faster all weekend after I coached right seat with her in 2 sessions. It was nice to see my three other students improve as well. My Sunday 2 sec improvement pushed me up the grid and into 3rd in TT3 class, only 1.3 sec off of 2nd place. Does 3rd place seem like a weird thing to celebrate? Did I choke? Drive poorly?
I drove my ass off and happily took that 3rd place trophy, got on the podium, popped the cork, then drank ALL the champagne (2 bottles!) that hot afternoon! I was just ecstatic to be able to sneak my way into 3rd place on street tires - in a fat ass street car running against a bunch of race cars with aero. Damn right I was happy.
Of the three student cars I rode in - E92 335i, S550 GT, and 6th gen Camaro - this 6th Gen Camaro 1LE above was by far the most impressive. HPDE1 student driving it in bone stock form was really hustling around the track. We did a 26 minute long session and the car never gave us any grief - brakes, fluids, tires stayed cool in the heat of the end of the day (88°F). I suspect this car on these MSC2 tires could have given our 2018 GT a run for the money... it was quick. Owner said it does gobble up consumables at 3600 pounds, just like the Mustang does. But with so many coolers it doesn't overheat.
Our car was getting into "limp mode" after just 3 laps - it happened twice to me on Saturday - from high oil temps. Amy ran 4 sessions, I ran something like 7. We would use about 5 gallons of fuel per session but no oil was consumed.
Even having to deal with massive number of cars in TT and the Tourists, it was still a hugely fun weekend. 400 entries in W2W, TT and HPDE was a new NASA Texas record. I was really sore - gotta get some seats and belts in the car, because with 1.3g lateral spikes and these crappy seats, it takes ALL of my upper body strength to stay upright, steer, shift, and mash pedals. And we need more brakes. And more power. And more grip and aero! We did OK relative to American Iron - a W2W class with pony cars running that same ratio on R compounds and aero. Our 2:32.9 lap time would have been 2nd fastest for AI on Saturday and 3rd quickest on Sunday. We will keep an eye on the AI lap time comparisons, like we did on the S197 when we ran TT3.
With engine oil temps spiking after 3 laps we need to look at a better radiator + oil cooler upgrade soon. Trans and diff are silently boiling as well, I fear. Lots to do.
TRACK TEST #8, SCCA CLUB TRIALS, MSR-C, MAY 12, 2018
So for the previous 4 events we have been chasing a noise, that is obviously a parts issue. We went to this event in the Mustang to try to verify if we had it fixed, and also to see if we could find the 1:21 laps again here at MSR Cresson.
Amy brought her FR-S out just to make some laps. She knew the car wouldn't be competitive on the 215 Firestone tires that have aged out, but it was her last event on this tire set - as we have 18x11" wheels and 315 Rival-S tires going onto this car this week. Wait... what?! You think I'm kidding about adding 4" of wheel and +100mm of tire to each corner? Think again. Can a 2634 pound car with 200 hp use a 315mm tire? We will see soon... just testing the limits of our "big tires are always better" theory. I have a 6 year long build thread covering this car, of course.
I drove the 2018 Mustang GT at this SCCA Club Trials event also to compete - turns out we had 10 cars in the "Street Prepared" class I got lumped into somehow (SP allows Hoosiers yet I was on street tires??). I ran the Mustang in 3 of the 5 sessions, drove the FR-S one session, and rode along in EIGHT sessions with either students (and I didn't even sign up as an instructor, LOL!) plus coaching over radios in the right seat. Long, exhausting, hot day... here's my best lap.
The key word here is "frustrating". I ran the same damn times in all three sessions, which matched as my last test here (April 22), but was still a second off our pace using the small stock 14" brakes in March! I have been trying to rationalize why we have lost a second of pace since then, back when we had a ONE LAP WINDOW of usable brakes on the bass-ackward 14" inverted hat, easy-to-overheat base rotors.
continued below
In that first Sunday session I ran my best of the weekend with a 2:32.930. I was almost ten seconds slower the TT3 winner that day, my friend Paul Costas driving the cheateringest cheater buggy C5 Corvette, with max aero and 345 Hoosier A7s!
Paul demolished the old TT3 track record (5 seconds) and gave me a reality check of where we need to be. His TT3 times were often 1st on the grid, when the TTU classed Ginetta didn't show up.
This Ginetta prototype with LS power was FAST AF! When it was on track, get outta the way - 2:09s!
Costas was beating all of the TT2 and TT1 cars for much of the weekend, until a few TT1 cars stepped it up. That's a C5 Z06 at 2900 pounds and only 288 whp... "allegedly".
Whatever the case, to run a 2:22.915 lap he had to drive the wheels off that C5.
Its nothing radical - just a gutted C5Z with some big Hoosiers, nice brakes, good suspension, and aero. Sure, it has some hidden prep, but it looks like a sow's ear and yet it cleaned everyone's clocks. So... don't judge a book by it's cover! This is a fleet car at G-Speed that you can rent and drive at MSR-Cresson.
Amy got faster all weekend after I coached right seat with her in 2 sessions. It was nice to see my three other students improve as well. My Sunday 2 sec improvement pushed me up the grid and into 3rd in TT3 class, only 1.3 sec off of 2nd place. Does 3rd place seem like a weird thing to celebrate? Did I choke? Drive poorly?
I drove my ass off and happily took that 3rd place trophy, got on the podium, popped the cork, then drank ALL the champagne (2 bottles!) that hot afternoon! I was just ecstatic to be able to sneak my way into 3rd place on street tires - in a fat ass street car running against a bunch of race cars with aero. Damn right I was happy.
Of the three student cars I rode in - E92 335i, S550 GT, and 6th gen Camaro - this 6th Gen Camaro 1LE above was by far the most impressive. HPDE1 student driving it in bone stock form was really hustling around the track. We did a 26 minute long session and the car never gave us any grief - brakes, fluids, tires stayed cool in the heat of the end of the day (88°F). I suspect this car on these MSC2 tires could have given our 2018 GT a run for the money... it was quick. Owner said it does gobble up consumables at 3600 pounds, just like the Mustang does. But with so many coolers it doesn't overheat.
Our car was getting into "limp mode" after just 3 laps - it happened twice to me on Saturday - from high oil temps. Amy ran 4 sessions, I ran something like 7. We would use about 5 gallons of fuel per session but no oil was consumed.
Even having to deal with massive number of cars in TT and the Tourists, it was still a hugely fun weekend. 400 entries in W2W, TT and HPDE was a new NASA Texas record. I was really sore - gotta get some seats and belts in the car, because with 1.3g lateral spikes and these crappy seats, it takes ALL of my upper body strength to stay upright, steer, shift, and mash pedals. And we need more brakes. And more power. And more grip and aero!
We did OK relative to American Iron - a W2W class with pony cars running that same ratio on R compounds and aero. Our 2:32.9 lap time would have been 2nd fastest for AI on Saturday and 3rd quickest on Sunday. We will keep an eye on the AI lap time comparisons, like we did on the S197 when we ran TT3.With engine oil temps spiking after 3 laps we need to look at a better radiator + oil cooler upgrade soon. Trans and diff are silently boiling as well, I fear. Lots to do.
TRACK TEST #8, SCCA CLUB TRIALS, MSR-C, MAY 12, 2018
So for the previous 4 events we have been chasing a noise, that is obviously a parts issue. We went to this event in the Mustang to try to verify if we had it fixed, and also to see if we could find the 1:21 laps again here at MSR Cresson.
Amy brought her FR-S out just to make some laps. She knew the car wouldn't be competitive on the 215 Firestone tires that have aged out, but it was her last event on this tire set - as we have 18x11" wheels and 315 Rival-S tires going onto this car this week. Wait... what?! You think I'm kidding about adding 4" of wheel and +100mm of tire to each corner? Think again. Can a 2634 pound car with 200 hp use a 315mm tire? We will see soon... just testing the limits of our "big tires are always better" theory.
I have a 6 year long build thread covering this car, of course.
I drove the 2018 Mustang GT at this SCCA Club Trials event also to compete - turns out we had 10 cars in the "Street Prepared" class I got lumped into somehow (SP allows Hoosiers yet I was on street tires??). I ran the Mustang in 3 of the 5 sessions, drove the FR-S one session, and rode along in EIGHT sessions with either students (and I didn't even sign up as an instructor, LOL!) plus coaching over radios in the right seat. Long, exhausting, hot day... here's my best lap.
The key word here is "frustrating". I ran the same damn times in all three sessions, which matched as my last test here (April 22), but was still a second off our pace using the small stock 14" brakes in March! I have been trying to rationalize why we have lost a second of pace since then, back when we had a ONE LAP WINDOW of usable brakes on the bass-ackward 14" inverted hat, easy-to-overheat base rotors.
continued below
- Thread starter
- #54
continued from above
Our S550 Lap Times at MSR-C 1.7 CCW:
Left: Street Prepared class results. Right: Overall results
Even being 1 second off the pace from March, we still won SP class with 10 cars, and had the 8th quickest time out of 57 Club Trials entries. But I was still not happy with the lap times. I ran almost the same times in each session, consistently. Session1 - 1:23.079, Session 2 - 1:23.124, Session 3 - 1:23.148 and 1:23.038. Sure, there was some traffic that forced my best laps in the first 2 sessions until after lap 4 or 5, but not on session 3. That time we were gridded by lap times and I built up a gap on the out lap to the 3 faster cars ahead, which yielded 3 clear laps. Tires are still pulling 1.25g lateral in sections, so they aren't totally dead (but they are far from new, after 8 race weekends). I'm driving the same lines, and running consistent times. Something just seems "off".
Gallery: https://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/SCCA-Club-Trials-051218/
Very, very frustrating.
WHAT'S NEXT?
I better wrap it up here, as this update has run long. But for once we are caught up on events! We skipped all of the events we had planned to run in June and July, due to obligations every waking moment working on construction of our new shop, moving our business, getting things operational, then continuing construction while we are moved in. Absolutely not the right order of operations, but one contractor was so late wrapping up (8 months late) that it threw all of my plans out the window and put all development work (including this S550) on hold for more than 2 months.
We have been shipping orders for over a month and the shop is operational, but the '18 Mustang continues to wait patiently while we tackle some higher priority customer jobs that were delayed by the move. Because of this persistent lap time slowdown "issue" we have opted to not run the car again, even when we had a few hours on a weekend available and it was a local event. Until we can "fix" this glitch, it is parked.
As more systems around the shop come online and customer cars are catching up, this S550 hiatus should end very soon. We have a prototype 380mm/6 piston Powerbrake front brake kit already on hand that needs to be installed and a few loose ends completed before that goes into production. That will need to be tested on track. We also have Sparco racing seats sitting here waiting for install - which we will do with production level seat brackets made with our newly added CNC plasma table. A whole new suspension setup is also sitting by, ready to to be tested (MCS Remote Doubles!) But until then, thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Our S550 Lap Times at MSR-C 1.7 CCW:
- Stock 2018 GT laps March 2nd, 2018 - 1:31.412
- After Round 1 of mods, March 10-11, 2018 - 1:21.733 on AiM (1:21.9 on AMB loop)
- After 15" brake upgrades, April 22nd, 2018 - 1:23.144
- SCCA Club Trials at MSR-C, May 12, 2018 - 1:23.031
Left: Street Prepared class results. Right: Overall results
Even being 1 second off the pace from March, we still won SP class with 10 cars, and had the 8th quickest time out of 57 Club Trials entries. But I was still not happy with the lap times. I ran almost the same times in each session, consistently. Session1 - 1:23.079, Session 2 - 1:23.124, Session 3 - 1:23.148 and 1:23.038. Sure, there was some traffic that forced my best laps in the first 2 sessions until after lap 4 or 5, but not on session 3. That time we were gridded by lap times and I built up a gap on the out lap to the 3 faster cars ahead, which yielded 3 clear laps. Tires are still pulling 1.25g lateral in sections, so they aren't totally dead (but they are far from new, after 8 race weekends). I'm driving the same lines, and running consistent times. Something just seems "off".
Gallery: https://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-Events/SCCA-Club-Trials-051218/
Very, very frustrating.
WHAT'S NEXT?
I better wrap it up here, as this update has run long. But for once we are caught up on events! We skipped all of the events we had planned to run in June and July, due to obligations every waking moment working on construction of our new shop, moving our business, getting things operational, then continuing construction while we are moved in. Absolutely not the right order of operations, but one contractor was so late wrapping up (8 months late) that it threw all of my plans out the window and put all development work (including this S550) on hold for more than 2 months.
We have been shipping orders for over a month and the shop is operational, but the '18 Mustang continues to wait patiently while we tackle some higher priority customer jobs that were delayed by the move. Because of this persistent lap time slowdown "issue" we have opted to not run the car again, even when we had a few hours on a weekend available and it was a local event. Until we can "fix" this glitch, it is parked.
As more systems around the shop come online and customer cars are catching up, this S550 hiatus should end very soon. We have a prototype 380mm/6 piston Powerbrake front brake kit already on hand that needs to be installed and a few loose ends completed before that goes into production. That will need to be tested on track. We also have Sparco racing seats sitting here waiting for install - which we will do with production level seat brackets made with our newly added CNC plasma table. A whole new suspension setup is also sitting by, ready to to be tested (MCS Remote Doubles!) But until then, thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Great update! Just curious if your Powerbrake kit uses forged calipers? I’ve been told that not only are forged calipers lighter they dissipate heat better. Is that your experience?
Terry,
The 15" S550 PP calipers can be installed on an S197 if one uses the 15" 2013-14 GT500 Rotors. Given the issue you detailed with the 14" master cylinder and booster on the S550 what do you predict if installing these calipers on an S197?
By the way, I have a 14 GT without the Track Pack but upgraded to the 4-pot Brembos and 13.8" GT500 rear rotors and installed your backing plates and grill inlet ducts. The master cylinder is the same across the base GT, Track Pack GT, and GT500. The only difference is the the booster. Different on the base GT and the same for the Track Pack GT and GT500. I did not upgrade the booster and have not encountered any problems stopping from 135 to about 45 at Pocono (from back straight turning into the infield on the Option 3 track layout). In fact, my car brakes even better than my friends slightly heavier 2014 GT500 convertible.
Finally, do you use titanium shims with your pads?
Thanks!
The 15" S550 PP calipers can be installed on an S197 if one uses the 15" 2013-14 GT500 Rotors. Given the issue you detailed with the 14" master cylinder and booster on the S550 what do you predict if installing these calipers on an S197?
By the way, I have a 14 GT without the Track Pack but upgraded to the 4-pot Brembos and 13.8" GT500 rear rotors and installed your backing plates and grill inlet ducts. The master cylinder is the same across the base GT, Track Pack GT, and GT500. The only difference is the the booster. Different on the base GT and the same for the Track Pack GT and GT500. I did not upgrade the booster and have not encountered any problems stopping from 135 to about 45 at Pocono (from back straight turning into the infield on the Option 3 track layout). In fact, my car brakes even better than my friends slightly heavier 2014 GT500 convertible.
Finally, do you use titanium shims with your pads?
Thanks!
captdistraction
GrumpyRacer
I run those calipers on s197, as a
Kit bought from opmustang.
The s197 chassis doesn’t share the bias issues that comes up with the s550, but the change in piston surface area does mean the pedal travel is longer than options originally designed for the s197 hydraulics.
However I can speak to their effectiveness: they just plain work. It’s taken some getting used to and I’ve changed hydraulics a few times on this car adjusting to the new calipers but now I’m super happy and the braking for me has gone from a pain point to a competitive advantage.
I also have the same caliper in my 2015 PP mustang, though they feel completely different due to the different pedal ratios, the master cylinder design, volume and stroke are completely different and the rear caliper piston sizes are different.
Kit bought from opmustang.
The s197 chassis doesn’t share the bias issues that comes up with the s550, but the change in piston surface area does mean the pedal travel is longer than options originally designed for the s197 hydraulics.
However I can speak to their effectiveness: they just plain work. It’s taken some getting used to and I’ve changed hydraulics a few times on this car adjusting to the new calipers but now I’m super happy and the braking for me has gone from a pain point to a competitive advantage.
I also have the same caliper in my 2015 PP mustang, though they feel completely different due to the different pedal ratios, the master cylinder design, volume and stroke are completely different and the rear caliper piston sizes are different.
Thanks. Did you upgrade from the S197 6-piston Brembos or the 4-piston?
When you say you've adjusted hydraulics a few times, what do you mean? Bleeding? Different fluid?
When you say you've adjusted hydraulics a few times, what do you mean? Bleeding? Different fluid?
captdistraction
GrumpyRacer
I messed with different master cylinders and boosters (s197 had two master cylinders, the 05-09 one and the later 11-14, not sure about 2010, no meaningful change in piston diameters). None of them gave me the pedal feel I wanted and the 13-14 gt500 booster was plain dangerous on track. Eventually went with Kohr’s race booster kit with Watson racing lines; had I left it alone with the 2011 track pack booster and master I’d have had no problem, but I really wanted to chase the pedal feel.
Car originally had the 4 pot brembos, which eventually were holding me back.
Car originally had the 4 pot brembos, which eventually were holding me back.
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