Fair

It sure is hard to be humble, eh Sam?



hehehehe.... and I'll take your stupid spoiler and raise it... to a stupid wing.

My 2011 GT has also seen "electrical gremlins" since the first couple of months of racing it in STX trim, which Ford also denied warranty work on as well - for going on 16 months. Now I'm no supreme being like him, but it doesn't take much to make the '11-up cars go into AdvanTrac faults, steering feedback loops, and ABS ice modes - we've made our car do all 3 for a while.

There is a pattern emerging now that people are putting some harder miles on the '11-up cars. Small build date window of a few months (the earliest production of '11 cars) has been shown to all have issues. Of course the biggest fix has already been handled by Ford Racing, with a custom flash of the computer that controls the electric assist steering. All of the GRAND AM and World Challenge '11-up cars figured this out before the production cars were even built. I've been waiting on a question as to the legality of this steering computer programming, which I finally have.

None of this seems to affect 2005-2010 cars, luckily.

Whiskey11

The great Terry Fair has blessed my thread with his presence, even if slightly OT! Its nice to have such a pool of great drivers who are willing to help on these forums. I hope that you didn't take offense to my wrong direction comment and my overly "armchair quarterback" attitude to your build. To say I have learned nothing from your build thread wouldmake me a huge liar, I just don't think the 5.0 with maxed power addons has a home in STX, even at stock power was probably pushing it IMO (which isn't worth much ). Even though I'm disappointed with the switch to ESP I plan to follow your build thread to the bitter end because STX and ESP are scarey similar in terms of allowances that there is a lot of good info from your experience with the chassis and FWIW when it comes time for Caster/Camber plates in the proper form, they will be the Vorshlag plates! If I go to coilovers there is a good possibility they will be ASTs through you guys as well.

I would appreciate any insight and comments you may have about my runs or the chassis as a whole, even if snide and rude as I probably deserve it!

Thanks in advance!

Fair

Oh, its quite all right! I'm used to it, especially at the SandBox, where I have some folks who openly despise me and have made downright vicious comments (I must have pissed them off in another life). Its likely just fan-boys of other brands, but its all good.

Beiber fans, sheesh...

Agreed. I am disappointed in the STX performance but damn it we gave it a year and a half and just were starting to place well against our local STX contingent (many of whom have some serious cars). It just took a hero drive for me to get in the trophies locally, which wasn't going to cut it at Nationals.

So here are my thoughts on your set-up. Of course I have that unique perspective on S197 Mustangs in STX, as one of the fools that tried to make a 3600 pound pig carve cones against 2600 pound RX8s and 2700 pound BMWs. It will be an uphill battle and your car will never be the overdog, but it is fun driving the cars on street tires and trying to wring every last drop out of them! The pre-11 S197 cars are a good bit lighter, and with less power actually become much more driveable. I think its going to be fun for you, regardless.


Wow. Hmm, don't take this the wrong way but looking at your mid-corner pictures, it doesn't look like there is enough roll stiffness. That's due to the soft bars and relatively soft spring rates you have. Lowering springs are never going to be the answer on a serious STX car, because they are all way too soft (and progressive). You need to run more front spring rate (coilovers), for sure... and more front negative camber. Even when fully loaded mid-corner, the outside front tire should still have a tick of negative camber visible - that's how radial tires work the best.


Left: That amount of bodyroll and camber loss is only seen in Stock class! Right: That's an STU winner with proper front camber under full load

I know, the Humble One doesn't believe in using much front camber, but I disagree. In classes like FStock the S197 racers go to great lengths to use every TSB allowed to get every fraction of a degree negative, and its still not enough. In STX and ESP you can run as much as your strut tower opening allows... and its sometimes still not enough. I design and build camber plates for a living and have tested camber settings on countless McPherson strut cars - and they all behave pretty much the same. They tend to work better with more static camber, up to some pretty high numbers, especially when the car is lowered. That silver M3 above has -4° camber, and won many times in STU against AWD turbo buggies on those numbers. This isn't something I believe, its something I know, from countless hours of testing. I build and sell thousands of sets of camber plates a year - because our parts work, but also because we know what we're doing when it comes to alignment settings.



The S197 chassis isn't some fluke car that goes slower with more negative camber... it needs a lot of static camber to compensate for camber lost through bushing deflection and worsened camber curves when lowered significantly. Shoot for -3° front camber and you're on the right track. If its a compromise street-autocross set-up... I'd still shoot for -3° but make sure the toe is set at 0 (to avoid excessive street use tire wear). If that number makes your nervous at least use -2.5° camber. We were using -3.5° in STX and seeing perfect tire wear. On these S197 chassis cars adding positive caster is relatively unimportant... I make our latest rev of the S197 camber-caster plates with ample extra positive caster adjustment only because people insist on this adjustment, but I run my car at the least positive caster setting, to maximize negative camber travel. Camber > Caster, on this chassis.

Again, not trying to knock on your parts selection but Tokico shocks aren't what you see at the National level for a reason. Hell, any twin tube is at a disadvantage when you are looking for adequate damping curves for Solo use. Monotube adjustable shocks are starting to dominate even the ST categories. And as others have said here, running on 245mm tire is severely handicapping your times. The most important thing in autocross is the tires.

The most important thing in autocross is the tires. That is worth repeating and bolding. This is 80% of the game, and you are giving up 20mm on each corner. Use the 9" wide wheel, of course. The brand/model of tire in ST is also a big question, and a huge investment in testing time and dollars. Its better to rely on the testing of others if you cannot afford to do a dedicated test on them all, at the same course on the same day. GRM does a great job of testing these. We are stubborn and tested them all on our STX Mustang: Dunlop SS-Z1, Hankook RS-3, Yokohama AD08, Toyo R1R, and Bridsgestone RE-11. Well, we didn't run the Kumho XS or Falken RT-615K, but having driven on these in other competitive SX* cars, I knew not to bother buying and testing those.



This will tip save you the hassle on your STX build: If you move to an 18x9" wheel, just use the RS-3.

Oh there's lots of places to improve the car for STX

• More camber
• Better shocks
• More spring rate (coilovers)
• Race seat (not so much for weight, but for the better communication it gives you to the car)
• Less weight (exhaust, battery, etc)
• More power (LTs, exhaust, CAI, tune)
• Better limited slip
• Poly LCA bushings
• But damn man, get the maximum wheel and tire the class allows.... first and foremost!

Don't do anything else - get the wheel and tire set-up first. Before anything else. HUGE.



Now if it were me, and I was running a 2005-09 GT like you, then I'd also look at the 17" wheel offerings. Going to a 17 lets you use lighter and less expensive wheels (like the Enkei RPF1 above, which is under 20#), but then you are locked into the Dunlop Z1, as they are the only company that makes a 265/40/17 tire worthy of ST, last time I checked. And its a tad bit short. And tire height can affect speed in 2nd gear, which is HUGE.

I am not a fan of running the shortest tire in an STX Mustang, but that's because we were trying to harness 430 whp through skinny *** 265mm street tires, with a different transmission 2nd gear ratio and rev limit (7850 rpm). The "extra gearing" the shorter tires gave us made the car have even more torque at the wheels which made it even harder to drive.

Maybe on your Mustang the shorter tires do help with your different trans/rear gearing. Run the calculations for your rev limit, transmission ratio, rear end ratio, and tire height and juggle the tire height + RPM get allow for to 70 mph in 2nd. That will tell you what tire height you want, which will either move you towards the 265/35/18 tires, 265/40/17 tires, or 265/40/18 tires. And yes, the shorter the tire the lower the CG, which helps... but not at the expense of a sub-70 mph speed limit in 2nd. Having to add a 2-3-2 shift costs you too much time compared to the amount you'd pick up in a lower CG, in my opinion (and we've tested the upshift thing). But find out for yourself, if you have the time and budget to test all the heights. Every time I've gone to a taller tire on our S197 we got faster.



Since our 2011 worked best on an ever taller tire at our tire test, we went to the 265/40/18 size. At first that only allowed for the AD08, but the RS-3 came out in this size in late 2011. Of those two the RS-3 was quite a bit less costly and ran just as well or better against the AD08 in the dry, so I recommend the RS-3. They also make a more sizes, too.


Sure, I like losing weight in these heavy cars. There are dozens of pounds in the exhaust, and there's no performance benefit to a heavy exhaust system. Go to full length headers, put the high flow cats (and check this FasTrack, page 40, for new ST* wording about cats) and have a system built with 16 or 18 ga stainless steel, and if you are serious about weight make it a single 3" exhaust. For vanity reasons I stuck with a dual 3" exhaust, but still lost a good bit of weight in the process. See our build thread to find the exact numbers, as I can't remember.


Yea, it looks like it has a push, with all of that bodyroll, skinny tires, and soft springs. Those are definitely things to improve.


Yea, those things will all help (Long Tubes, custom lightweight exhaust, CAI and tune) but nothing compares to the improvements you can make in TIRES and wheels + real shocks and spring rates. Do tires, then suspension, then worry about power.

Most Mustang guys do it in the reverse order.


Hope I didn't throw too much out there, but the car looks like a blank slate ready for some real mods.

Jason did a good job of pointing out areas to improve on driving, and the "nut behind the wheel" is always a place to improve lap times. After 2+ decades autocrossing I still find things to improve with my driving every year. Finding a faster co-driver that will go to as many events as you will is the best driving coach around - getting beat in your own car shows you the areas you can improve within like no other. Dedicated testing is huge. Tires are massive.

Cheers,

Whiskey11

And I think that right there is the wall of information that should be on page 1 of your build thread to summarize the findings about the chassis as a whole, talk about a great read and if we had a reputation system I would be abusing your reputation with many a positive ratings! I know I have said it before but I really appreciate the info!

My primary concern is in streetability as the car serves 99% of its life on bumpy Nebraska roads and 1% doing autocross or carving through the Loess hills scenic highway (the closest thing the midwest has to a canyon run/moutain run). I can't say this setup was chosen because it was going to be a class killer but because it was going to be something to learn on before getting super serious with spring rates and the likes.

About the D-Specs, I realize that they won't be winning me nationals as imnot that good of a driver and as Sam can attest to, I wanted the Konis but it was during the time when the backorder list was about 6 months long before I would get mine and that wasn't going to flow with my plans (which were to stay in F-stock another year) which ended up being a rather moot point anyway because I found two good deals on lightly used Steeda Sport springs and the HD mounts. Add in the rest and I am where I am. I guess it really surprised me to be that far behind those BMW guys from Kansas, a second behind I thought would be more realistic and I would venture a guess that I was being overly optimistic (not normal for me) about both the car set up and my own driving skills (normal Mustang owners assumption :P).

I do hope that with some work this car can fit both goals without being too compromised. I know your wife has been daily driving your, now esp, mustang, how firm do those ASTs with your spring rates ride on the street. Sadly I'm not sure how Texas roads compared to the cluster bombed Nebraska roads but my goal is to avoid internal bleeding associated with rather large sections of broken and patched concrete that are roads in Omaha Nebraska.

I do think that short of replacing the bump stops in the rear with the FRPP stops to remove or mitigate the horrifyingly rough back end that the next mod will be the wheels/tires its just a ways off yet so this is a good learning experience! after that I hopefully will have the experience to need the coilovers.

Thanks again Terry, I plan on re-reading that post at least half a dozen more times to make sure I have understood it all. I just hope this thread stays out of the flame zone! I know you and Sam have some very different opinions on car set up and I value both opinions greatly and both play a part in my decusion making process.

I look forward to hopefully being able to shake yours and Sams hand at Spring Nationals. I don't think I will be attending but I'm off Sunday/Monday so I will probably stop down to check out the action!

Sam Strano

It ain't bragging if you can back it up... isn't that how the saying goes????? I think I can back it up. Since 2002 I have 7 National Championship jackets, 6 ProSolo Class Championships, and the 2009 Overall ProSolo Championship that would, I think, indicate that I can backup my claims. Modest? Generally, I'm very modest usually to a fault because I don't normally need to brag much. But I've earned my titles, and that's not anything I'm ashamed of.

FWIW, I did not run -3 camber... No need. I also ran much softer spring rates, a Watts link, in fact it's pretty clear that what I do and what Terry does couldn't be more different. I in fact offered my help to him on his project early on, but I think he just wants to do his own thing. That's ok, but really since we are both in the business of selling parts and doing setups he shouldn't be surprised when I give my opinion. After all Terry, you do it all the time with huge long posts. I just choose not to spend my days typing, I don't really have the time to do it.

We can agree to disagree. I'm glad you had a pretty decent event in Mineral Wells against Mark. And I'm sorry that you are now having issues like I was and hope you have better luck getting them resolved than I did. I heard that Youngers had an AdvanceTrac issue in his F-stock car too.

In the end you have options folks. Two ways to go, I think I've pretty well proven what I can do with my setups and I guess unless we want a lot of back and forth there isn't much more I can say. Results speak for themselves. When a less than STX prep level 5.0 (barring the wheels and tires) can run better than Super Stock times, I think that's a good indication of how well my car was working. In fact it worked handling wise so well, the tires that came off it from the Pro Finale and a few events after were put on the front of my Z06.. and won the Dixie Tour this spring. Again, this is with less than -3 camber. That's not too terrible I don't think. I did lead one round of the Pro Finale over Mark, and Saturday afternoon he led me by .4.... and I was still faster than SuperStock... The end result was worse, because my car would not run on Sunday, which sucked.

As for other things. I've had many dampers. I've worked with a lot of them, including AST, and Penske, Ohlins, etc. My Mustang ended up on production Koni's, so is my Corvette. I manage to beat cars with high-dollar shocks all the time.... even back to the days in the Camaro's in ESP. Ran cars with Triple Penske's and multi-time Championship winning driver (Motonishi, Berry, Botkin, etc.)... and won, more than once--on production Koni's. And in that car, my old Z28 I owned Double Adjustables, but opted to run singles.

So, take things for what they are worth. I have, and always will feel the proof is in the pudding. I want to win, and if took high dollar stuff to do it, I will. I had Forgelines on my 5.0 in FS trim, but even that was more about not having any legal wheel available at the time and I had to have something built and Forgelines rock. Those wheels are what Mark Daddio now owns. And oh yeah, he's also on production Koni's.

Whiskey11

For what it's worth the event on Sunday went well for me. I placed 1st in STX but more due to the fact that my only real competition (a 2011 Mustang GT) was running on all seasons. There were 5 of us in STX, 2 Mustangs, and 2 BMW's whom this must have been their first event or didn't walk the course. The results said the one DNFed every run and the other only completed one successful run? I had a co-driver with me and this was his second event ever and first since all the suspension changes and he was the 5th STX driver and actually placed third in STX.

Anyway, I set out with a few goals in mind. Mostly to find the limits of the car and get some tires to make some noise. I half succeeded in making the tires give some noise but I'm finding out that the Star Specs are VERY tolerable of large steering angles at speed so there is still grip in the car. The other goal was to get a better video with sound. The GoPro reset itself after I set it's sound to high so it recorded all of the exterior videos in low volume again, but my cell phone took a decent one of my second run which had some pretty crappy lines in it! The GoPro also took a crap for my final and fastest lap so I have NO idea what the lines looked like, but between dropping a passenger and the better lines I was half a second quicker with no other changes to the car.

The other goal was to do some data logging with an accelerometer application on the phone. It is pretty nifty but I'm not sure how accurate the accelerometers are in a cell phone let alone how well the application reads their outputs but that did work.

Anyway, for those that were asking about my throttle inputs and sounds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8OnkGNmJEM

Those lines are horrible so I'm expecting the "Those lines suck!" and the camera's shake reduction really hides the steering inputs.

Here is the same run with the GoPro if you want to comment on the steering and set up for the lines:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quxjupDbO0w

Here is the fastest run I have recorded and second fastest run. Still with passenger though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM9XGfW9Iac

I also want your guys opinion on whether or not these numbers seem realistic for the Nationals concrete and my car set up. These readings were taken with a Droid RAZR running the Accelerometer App (AC Meter Pro is how it shows up on the applications menu but on the market place it's one of the first if you search for accelerometer)

Run #1:


Peak Lateral G: 1.18g
Peak Acceleration G: 0.64g
Peak Braking G: 0.87g

Line graph for the entire run:


Run #3:


Peak Lateral G: 1.16g
Peak Acceleration G: 0.56g
Peak Braking G: 1.03

Line graph for the entire run:


Those are the data plots that I got from the accelerometer app. The phone was lodged flat in the center console in the cup holders. It fits perfectly on the ridge that separates the cup holders and sits below the rest of the center console area so it didn't come out at all! The app also does pitch and roll.

Anyway, analyze away! I'm still waiting for any photos to come from the event but I'm sure they will look similar to this last events. I have been chatting with one of the local event master guys and he seems to think that the Nebraska Region needs to do another driver school. Something I will take an entire weekend off for if they can get one together as I think I'm not looking far enough ahead on the course and the large number of runs and someone being in the car giving pointers would really help me improve as a driver.