parchisi

Well, first my autocross event is complete and the 5.0 did pretty well. The course was awesome and was set up on a lot of real estate. Only negative to that was on one section 2nd gear would top out about halfway through. I would just keep it at the limiter while going through some sloloms. Tried shifting to third on the last run but lost a second due to a sloppy downshift. Co-drove with a guy who competes nationally, who just happened to be on vacation in Vegas and was wanting to find somebody to co-drive with. I jumped on it and learned some great stuff from him.

Even with a coil cut from the front Steeda Comp springs, the car was pretty neutral, even maybe a little more towards oversteer. After I told him what I had done, he was expecting problematic understeer issues, and was suprised at the balance. That might have something to do with the thicker 2011 rear swaybar, is my guess, and the fact I maxed out the camber on my MM Caster Camber plates.

Kept the front D-specs about 2 turns from full soft, and had the rears on full soft, and about 2psi less px in the rear. The Dunlop Star Specs started out great, but in the afternoon session they started to get hot and pretty greasy. Somebody mentioned that guys with the heavier cars were using Hankooks and they held up better. Hawk HP+ pads worked great. Braking isn't as heavy as I thought it would be, probably could have done fine with a milder pad, at least with street tires.

In STU, with the pro driving, he was able to get within about a second of the class leader, who was driving a STU speced out WRX STI. And this was with a hardly prepared mustang giving up 10mm in tire width. I was under 4 seconds behind my co-driver's pace and I think I was about mid-pack in my class.

The LVRSCCA folks were awesome and did a lot to help me out. If you ever find yourself in Vegas for a while during an event, I'd highly recommend hooking up with them.

This was my best run of the day from the outside
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7OSOWA8VtU

This was a not-as-good run and was pretty sloppy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyY5OUGNjqM

nemosgt

It is a lot of fun isn't it. Nice job.

I notice most people set the D-specs so many turns from full hard because we know where that is. But where is full soft? I was under the impression (manual?) that if you wound them down past 5-7 turns from full hard you may bugger up the shock by going too far towards the softer settings. Can anyone illuminate?

Cheers.

jsnyng

Where/what section on that course were you hitting the rev limiter?

Sleeper_08

On my D-spces you could wind them out too far from full hard. There is no hard stop like on Koni Yellows/Sports

I always set my D-specs first to full hard and then backed off the desired number of turns.

parchisi

The straight right after the first U-turn. Its not a hard limiter, so the tach doesn't bounce off the redline, instead it just kinda shuts down

And the instructions that came with my D-Specs said that full soft is 7 turns from full hard. It did also warn about not unscrewing them much past 7 turns or bad things would happen.

And I did a little research. Apparently the Hankook R-S3 is now THE street tire to have. Takes a little longer to warm up compared to a Star Spec, but it loves heat and won't get greasy.

68DARKHORSE

How much did cutting 1 coil lower the car?

parchisi

Umm.... a bit? I was a boob and forgot to measure before/after, but if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say 3/4" to 1"...which sounds like a lot, but the full spring itself lowered the front very little or hardly at all.

68DARKHORSE

Thanks. I am about to order some Koni dampers. After reading your first post, I started thinking about cutting a coil from my stock springs. My springs are pretty firm but, they can't be as firm as your Steedas. Any thoughts on this plan?

chrumck

Don't do it. The stock springs are too soft for that. You need to go with a stiffer spring when you lower the car to avoid bottoming out. The Steeda comp front spring may be cut on a GT because it is designed for a front heavy Gt500 and is quite stiff. This is only done to even out the ride height, not to actually lower the car. And this is already pushing the envelope because you change the geometry of the spring by cutting it. That introduces uneven load distribution in the strut and actually nobody knows what effect it may have in the long run.

azrampage

Allow me to add some additional input from my perspective. '07 Pony Pkg, 265x40x17 Star Specs (have also had SS*245's, SS*255's, and Nitto NT-05's), and autocrossing in the Phoenix AZ area (but it's a dry heat!) I have never had to water down the Star Specs. Due to the fairly stiff sidewalls I'm able to run around 40# pressure (give or take 2#) front and rear. Another local Mustang on Hankooks (255's) waters his, and has mentioned the need for higher pressures to help allow for the weaker sidewalls. FWIW.