UPRSharad

If Jason sees two seconds on those videos, you can take that to the bank. He definitely knows what he's talking about.

I'll just mention that adding 2cm of tire all the way around and 30+ hp from CAI/Tuner/Exhaust is a very noticeable improvement. It sounds like that bimmer will be chasing your times if you add those mods and take some coaching from Mr. Young.

Whiskey11

Thanks for the comments, I look forward to his response! The one thing I've never done is had a pro ride with or watch (or really offer comments on videos :P) any of my runs to correct errors in lines. Some of my lines are very much "road course" despite never having been on one. My friend and I spend a lot of time playing racing simulators so I'm probably carrying over some interesting habits from that to autocross which is hurting time. Being new to this car set up certainly doesn't help either!

Sadly, it will be at least another year before I can fork over the cash for new, wider tires and lighter rims. My hope is that I will be able to do both. I would like, provided the world doesn't end, in 2013 to attend Spring Nationals and maybe even Nationals itself since both are in my back porch relatively speaking. It will probably be that long before I can afford any other modifications either! Seat time is probably a better investment anyway!

jsnyng

First a disclaimer or two... I would never publicly critique anybody's run unless they asked for feedback which you did. Also, I don't consider myself a "pro" by any means, but I am a very good student of the game and will try to help anybody who wants it.

Some positives... Your slalom entry and running the slalom was beautifully executed. You backsided every cone as you should which set you up perfectly for the next one. I feel like you lost .5 second with your slalom exit. I will explain further below with another observation.

The following sequence is where I *know* you lost a minimum of 1 second but probably closer to 1.5 seconds.

Look how close your right front tire is to this cone. If that was the only picture I had seen of you on course, I would have said well done, but that was a key cone to set up what should have been a SUPER FAST element. For you it wasn't.


Untitled by jsnyng, on Flickr

Had you backsided the above cone as if it had been a slalom cone, your car would have been set up much further right for the entry to the next gate. Look how far left you are below. Notice the weight of the car is leaned over on the left front in the picture.


Untitled by jsnyng, on Flickr

In the picture below, notice how the car is now leaned over on the right front in the middle of the gate. In a Mustang on an autocross course, it is VERY advantageous to find as many straight lines as possible. If you'd set up by backsiding the cone prior to this gate, you could have been wide open throttle all the way to that long right hand sweeper. I guarantee your entry to that sweeper would have been 6-8MPH faster (possibly more) which would have equated to have running that entire section of the course considerably faster.


Untitled by jsnyng, on Flickr

Another observation from watching the video... Some of the elements seemed to surprise you. I don't know if that was because you didn't do quality course walks, if you weren't looking ahead far enough, or both. Case in point is the slalom exit. You had what looked like an "oh crap" wiggle. I don't know if you were expecting another slalom cone or hadn't picked up in your vision where the next element was. I didn't see it pronounced as badly in other parts of the course, but I definitely saw several places where you could have picked up another tenth here and there. One last thing... Figure out how to get better audio. You seemed smooth on the throttle which is great, but I also saw a TON of steady-state speed where you should have been accelerating. I'm not sure anywhere but the start were you ever on the floor with the go pedal. There were several places on that course where you should have been flat to the floor and just weren't. Accelerate hard and smooth; decelerate hard and smooth. Audio from your runs can really help you learn where you're being tentative.

I won the ESP SEDiv SCCA championship last year because of good quality audio on my runs. For some reason on Saturday, I just wasn't on the gas. I don't know why, but I wasn't. I was down by a little over a second (which is an eternity) going into Sunday. After studying my runs Saturday night, I studied the course map for Sunday so much that I could have driven that course blindfolded. I picked every place I could put it on the floor and also picked my braking points. During my course walks on Sunday, my plan was solidified. I ended up winning the event by over a second because of my Sunday runs.

Me off the gas on Saturday at SEDIV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAynsvxjkSg

Me on the gas on Sunday at SEDIV (Note the jubilation at the end. I knew that was the run to beat when I saw the time.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VIHrfovXU4

Whiskey11

Thanks for the quality info! I need to rewatcy the runs again and apply your notes and see if I can remember what I was doing/thinking during the runs. I got two quality walks in prior to the race. The shame is that I dont have a second GoPro to mount inside on the runs. I think between my unfamiliarity with the new car set up and lack of seat time with an instructor is hurting me a bit.

There is a Test and Tune coming up in May that I am going to try and get to just to get a crap load more seat time and put some of the things you have said to good use! I doubt I will change the set up any and just focus on learning the cars limits. I had a good idea stock but not the foggiest now.

Funny you mention sound, the one thing I didn't hear the entire day was the tires squeeling. That and the low tire pressures leads me to believe I'm not pushing hard enough and I'm still at the "ohh ****" point that I had developed for when the car was stock. I do need to buy a suction cup mount for my Pentax K-r DSLR and use its video function I just haven't gotten around to it yet. The GoPro on high sound recording makes the worst feedback/crackle/pop noises I have ever heard and I was told it is "normal" by the folks at GoPro so I just leave it on low.

Thanks again for the feedback. If you find any other areas feel free to let me know. I really appreciate the comments and hope I can put some of it to use. Sorry for grammer/spelling errors. I'm on my phone so I proofread the best I could oh this tiny screen.

bakerjd

Jsnyng, I love the "YES!" at the end of your Sunday video! I've been there an know the feeling of a good run so that was cool that you had that on the video!

BlackBetty

I've been wanting to post this video ever since I swapped my h pipe for an x, but it also illustrates a bit about tire squeal. I've always felt that (on street tires at least) you want a little bit of a low moan. No sound = not pushing it enough; squealing = overdriving it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GULXqifWZc

Obviously there's a little bit of all three in there. Always learning...

Sam Strano

Let me chime in.

1. Power isn't the problem unless you can just floor it and it never spins a tire. More might help, but not that much.

2. Tires matter, HUGE. You aren't on the widest tire, you aren't on the widest wheel. And you aren't on the shortest of those tires (which is free Cg drop, no geometry issues). Also the gearing gets shorter without a gear change, helping power. As for the Z1's vs. RS3's, and RE11's. Can't speak to the direct difference. I know I wasn't a big fan of the Z1's vs. AD08's on an Evo in STU trim, and that isn't the best ST tire going.

3. Jason knows of what he speaks when he talks about car placement and such. The biggest thing that will make a car slow is doing the wrong thing and there were definitely a few times you go sucked in (the walls that Jason took a snapshot off being one).

4. That course is pretty wide open with a lot of big sweepers. That helps little cars a lot as they can get up to a higher speed and stay there, our advantage is in slowing down and having torque to speed up. That course was big enough that some more juice wouldn't have hurt that's for sure. Granted it's a wide angle lens and I can't for some reason hear it....

5. There is someone here with vast (and much more proven) experience with the S197 in Autocross use. That's me. I've won National events in them, both in FS and ESP. In fact more than once I've out run Super Stock in ESP trim. And fwiw, the only think that had my car in ESP was the wheels and tires, the rest of the car was STX legal and far from fully prepped. No stupid 10" spoiler, etc. In fact last year at the Pro Finale I let one round on Saturday morning, was about .4 back Saturday afternoon (still beating SS), then my magical electrical gremlin came back and rendered my goose cooked for Sunday. It's funny that only now are others finding that issue in their cars, that's because they haven't been putting the same kind of loads into the car that cause the issue. Ford couldn't find it, so I had to sell the car. This doesn't mean I've forgotten how to make them fast, just that I was forced to do something different.

6. STX in a big heavy car is always tough... you have more limited grip, which is why the tires and wheels matter soooo much. That's not a help with the weight or the power.

7. How did you come to the tire pressures and bar settings you ended up at. You should not with the setup you have, have to run a higher rear pressure to make the car turn.

Whiskey11

Let me chime in.

Yes please do! I was hoping you would. Thought about calling but didn't want to take up your time with my rather trivial questions! I appreciate the response.

1. Power isn't the problem unless you can just floor it and it never spins a tire. More might help, but not that much.

Yeah I don't think I can say I have driven hard enough to quantify this one. I thought I would ask though. I can get on it pretty hard in second coming out of a corner but I tend to avoid wheel spin when possible. My friend says I'm better suited to a miata than a mustang for driving style...

2. Tires matter, HUGE. You aren't on the widest tire, you aren't on the widest wheel. And you aren't on the shortest of those tires (which is free Cg drop, no geometry issues). Also the gearing gets shorter without a gear change, helping power. As for the Z1's vs. RS3's, and RE11's. Can't speak to the direct difference. I know I wasn't a big fan of the Z1's vs. AD08's on an Evo in STU trim, and that isn't the best ST tire going.

The Z1 was chosen because it was rated a better tire for living with day to day. Was good in the rain and good in the dry, not necessarily the best at anything. I can't, sadly, afford a set of tires specifically for autocross (if I could I would have just got A6s or V710s). The size was chosen because it was a closer match to the OEM tire size negating the need to visit the dealership to fix the gearing and to negate having to buy a tuner to do the same thing. It was also convenient that the Star Spec came in that size. I didn t go for 265s as I feared on the stock rims (again, not being able to afford new wheels light enough to justify purchasing) the 265 would be cramming a wide tire on a narrow rim. My hope is that by next season start I will have cash to get both the 9" wide rim and 265 RS3s. It just wasn't there this year. It seems this and my lack of driving experience are the limiting factor in my times.

3. Jason knows of what he speaks when he talks about car placement and such. The biggest thing that will make a car slow is doing the wrong thing and there were definitely a few times you go sucked in (the walls that Jason took a snapshot off being one).

Noted! Seat time will always be important and chosing the proper line is still a work in progress for this barely year old autocrosser my hope is that if I see it enough times it will sink in my skull and make its way to an autocross course and help!

4. That course is pretty wide open with a lot of big sweepers. That helps little cars a lot as they can get up to a higher speed and stay there, our advantage is in slowing down and having torque to speed up. That course was big enough that some more juice wouldn't have hurt that's for sure. Granted it's a wide angle lens and I can't for some reason hear it....

I realize that now! I don't think I have found the limits yet with this setup. Part of me is affraid to speed up too much and part of me is affraid to slow down too much. Seat time seat time seat time!

5. There is someone here with vast (and much more proven) experience with the S197 in Autocross use. That's me. I've won National events in them, both in FS and ESP. In fact more than once I've out run Super Stock in ESP trim. And fwiw, the only think that had my car in ESP was the wheels and tires, the rest of the car was STX legal and far from fully prepped. No stupid 10" spoiler, etc. In fact last year at the Pro Finale I let one round on Saturday morning, was about .4 back Saturday afternoon (still beating SS), then my magical electrical gremlin came back and rendered my goose cooked for Sunday. It's funny that only now are others finding that issue in their cars, that's because they haven't been putting the same kind of loads into the car that cause the issue. Ford couldn't find it, so I had to sell the car. This doesn't mean I've forgotten how to make them fast, just that I was forced to do something different.

No doubt about that! A part of me wishes you could be at the regional event the weekend before spring nationals and co drive my car but that is a lot of wishful thinking on my part!

6. STX in a big heavy car is always tough... you have more limited grip, which is why the tires and wheels matter soooo much. That's not a help with the weight or the power.

Its a fun experiment, not necessarily a class killer and I enjoy a good challenge. The hope is that sticking with it long enough may yield better results. There is already talk of opening up the wheel and tire restrictions in ST or modifying them so that larger cars can get a little bit more tire. Still a ways off yet and no guarantee it will happen. Worst case I can jump to ESP easily enough.

7. How did you come to the tire pressures and bar settings you ended up at. You should not with the setup you have, have to run a higher rear pressure to make the car turn.

Ahh yes, to be perfectly honest, bar settings were chosen rather arbitrarily. The tire PSI was left at about 34 psi hot from the last event and was brought down because the wear line wasn't even on the shoulders after the first run. The fronts were dropped 1 psi to fight off the understeer in the sweeper after the slalom but a better choice would have been to do what I did on the last run and run the slalom the longer way and have a better run after the slalom. The PSI seems a bit low as I thought that you wanted higher PSI on street tires but the wear on the tire tread indicated otherwise and down came the pressures. To be honest, I think the best thing for me to do would get out of work on Saturday of the test and tune and go run as much as I can. The seat time would be very valuable. The car setup changed quite drastically and I think there is a bit of shock left over from the change that could use some removing and driving is going to be the best way to do that. I might even be able to get one of the other mustang guys in my car to give me some tips.

Sam I do have some questions about Spring Nationals, mostly in the direction of "I have never been to a national event so I have no idea what is going on" and "is the $108 for the whole weekend or just the solo or just the pro solo?".

parchisi

Everybody has already hammered the big points here, but I'll just throw this out there. Not sure what kind of strut mounts you have, but when I make it to an autocross/track event I have the street camber setting marked and I increase the camber at the track, I've found it to help front end grip.

Whiskey11

Steeda HD plates. Not really all that easy to mark considering the "arrow" is in a tiny half inch (if that) hole. -1.6º is all I could get out of the one side anyway so it is "maxed" if that makes sense? I'd like to not pull these struts again until I move past these D-Specs to something better, either a set of coilovers or Koni Sports. Not sure which direction yet but both are a long ways out.