ITB Mustang

[BruceG]

Any one have any experience/thoughts on the 2.3L mustang in ITB?
Competitive/a dog? Obviously depends on the individual car.

Thanks for any help.

Bruce

[CRallo]

have you seen the white one running this year in the NE? might be a 2.3 capri but same difference I guess.

he does not seem to be very competitive but I know nothing about the driver and car appears to not be very developed...

[billf]

We raced one for many years, just sold it 5 years ago. I have a lot of information on the car, and many opinions.

It is not classed well in ITB considering the low Hp rating of the engine as stock.

Advantage: Its line in the specs has many variations on a theme: From carb to FI (not a good one to use), 16 different heads, admitidly, not much change between them, except for the FI; Very robust short block; One trick differential, not used much; Very good parts availability in wrecking yards; relatively inexpensive to make, since it requires more labor than purchased parts.

The good parts for the chassis are for the GT (V-8), which varies significantly...many good parts are not interchangeable with the 2300 chassis (dimensionally).

Disadvantages: Bad rear suspension; Bad front suspension; Low Hp; Poor trans ratios; High end final weight;

Final thought: Good learning car, mid-pack, but, I'd rather not build one. I'd purchase one already built, and go from there.

If you are interested in MANY more details, not to mention a blue-print of a car to build, write:
[email protected]

Good racing.

Bill:024:

[BruceG]

Thanks to both you guys for your thoughts. I put the cart before the horse and purchased one with a spare r but hasn't been thru 2008 ebuilt engine and a ton of parts. Current SCCA logbook but hasn't been thru 2008 tech inspection. Harness,etc are good till 2010. NO DNf's ever and I thoght might be a good way to start racing(as you've mentioned, Bill....good availability of parts).

I graduated from Skip Barber Race school at Lime Rock in April. I didn't have the car then so that was the only way to get a regional License. I will be racing in the NE region next spring.

Have tried this summer to get in as much track time as possibe(about 200 miles at Lime Rock, so far).

Hope to see you both down the road at the track.

Thanks again,

Bruce

[BruceG]

Sory.. what I meant to type was has a spare rebuilt engine and a ton of spare parts. Current logbook but hasn't has a 2008 tech isnspection.

Bruce:D

[dickita15]

Bruce,
The Thursday test days at NHMS are usually pretty low key if you want to shake down the car this year. NER has two more weekends there in two weeks and in four weeks, even if you are not ready to race it you could come over and get the car teched. The techs are good for 12 months now so if you have ant issues you can find out early.

[Ron]

We have been running one for years with some good success. It really depends on the track. It does take a fair amount of work to get to handle well but it can be done. Give me a call and I will give you some details.

Ron Sattele cell 770 757 1447

[CRallo]

nothing like shooting first and asking questions later!! :D

sounds like you are having a good time with it so far.
what group(s) are you running with at LRP?

RWD>FWD IMHO :D it will be good to see another american built machine out there!

[manny]

Well i run a mustang in the ITB class and i'm still using the factory speed density setup and i have had very good succes and alot of fun with it. When i first started to race it i was very very slow compared to the rest of the field, now with more seat time and better preperation of the car it is a top 5 runner in the ITB class here in North Carolina.

[dlg208]

Another turd polisher....Welcome!

:dead_horse:

You will have fun sliding it around:D

[BruceG]

Hi Dick.

Thanks for the great info! I will try and get to NH and go thru tech inspection. I'm going to Lime rock this thurs(8/21) for a half day in a spec miata(Skip Barber's version). It occured to me that all my track time(except for a SCDA track day in my 2005 Subaru automatic outback wagon) had been in open wheeled cars. Might be nice to get some laptime in in something a little closer to ITB.

I hope to meet you in the near future, Thanks agian for the great info.

Best Regards,

Bruce

[BruceG]

Thanks Dave. I'm full of shit anyway so turd polishing comes easy.

Best Regards,

Bruce

[BruceG]

Hi Manny

My car came from James Hunt in Huntsville, Al. You may have raced with him from time to time. The car appears very well prepared and I wasn't expecting a rocket, just reliable and easy to get spares.

Thanks for you kind words,

Bruce

[BruceG]

Hi Thanks for the kind words. I was at LIme rock 2 weeks ago(as a spectator). Some thunder storm at lunch time!! Those showroom stock drivers did a great job on the track just after lunch on a really wet track.

I was at a SCDA track day at LRP this week. Hugh field that included a brand new Nissan GT_R(sounded like an electric car) and 2 brand new Porsche gt3(hammering. Must be nice to be rich(oh,well).

Hope to see you at LRP soon. Last race for SCCA is in late sept at LRP, I think.

Bst Regards,

Bruce

[BruceG]

Hi Ron. I'll call you! The car came from James Hunt in Huntsville, AL and seems very well prepared. Jim is one hell of a nice guy and really has taken care of the car.

Hope to talk to you soon.

Best Regards,

Bruce

[924Guy]

Lots of those up here at Waterford Hills - must be 'cause we're so close to Dearborn. ;)

Still, they're all mid-pack ones, nothing all that competitive, but they're plentiful and the better-built ones appear to be quite reliable, like any other racecar.

Best of luck...

[dlg208]

In the last 40 races I've only had one DNS & no DNF's
(Cracked rotor & no replacement)

The 2.3 is too dumb to die.
And the rest of it is built like a tank.
(You don't need fear a confrontation with anyone...Even a 142:D)

Come on over to skid row (Pinto paddock area) next time you see Team Welfare Racing and we'll give you some pointers on engine stuff.
You want to squeeze all the juice you can outta that turd in order to keep up with the VW *spit* scourge.

[BruceG]

Hi Dave. I hoped I had purchased the "sherman tank" of ITB(along with the 142). Sounds like my dream may have come true!

Looking forward to meeting you down the road, Dave.

Best Regards,

Bruce:024:

[dlg208]

Looking forward to meeting you down the road, Dave.

Sure...I'll give ya a little bump sometime and:006:

(Or vice versa:o)

[BruceG]

Hi Dave. No problem on a bump. Neither of us will be in a spec pinaeta!!

See you at the track.

Bruce

[CRallo]

Hi Dick.

Thanks for the great info! I will try and get to NH and go thru tech inspection. I'm going to Lime rock this thurs(8/21) for a half day in a spec miata(Skip Barber's version).

Bruce


small point but i felt it was important to point out: the Skip Barber MX5's are new cars and are based on an MX5 cup car, not a spec miata as those are built from the earlier cars...

good luck with the car! it will be good to see another american car out there!! :happy204:

[BruceG]

Yes....Definately must be some differences from a spec miata. Since my only closed wheel experience during appr. 200 miles at LRP had been in my 2005 Subaru automatic outback wagon at SCDA(lot's of left hand finger pointing over the roof on the front and back straight), I thought it might be a good idea to try the miata! I beat a smart car and a poorly driven mini..and chased a 911 on the uphill turn, blah, blah.

Will look forward to american cars, as well in ITB.

Bruce

[RedMisted]

The 2.3 is too dumb to die.
And the rest of it is built like a tank.
(You don't need fear a confrontation with anyone...Even a 142:D)

Come on over to skid row (Pinto paddock area) next time you see Team Welfare Racing and we'll give you some pointers on engine stuff.
You want to squeeze all the juice you can outta that turd in order to keep up with the VW *spit* scourge.


You guys are really funny. Already met you and Aaron at Nelson and M-O.
It was my crewmember who took some pictures of your cars at the IT Fest. She did so because her old boyfriend used to race Pintos back in the day. Suffice it to say she got real nostalgic when she saw your cars on the track!
I'll be at M-O with OVR in September and probably in Oct. Hope to see you guys there!

[dlg208]

I'll be at M-O with OVR in September and probably in Oct. Hope to see you guys there!
I'd like to go to both but...
We'll probably only run the Oct 10-12 one.
We're going to WOR at the end of the month
And then the pumpkin, if it's at BeaveRun.

Stop on over....We'll have plenty of Natties :D

[RacerBill]

Dave: Make sure you highlight the Grove City, PA. on your entry form. The registrar at the IT Spectacular changed it to Grove City, OH. I got real excited when I thought there was another racer in my neck of the woods. ;)

[EBSNASCAR]

As a first time racer this year, I would have to say that picking a ITB Ford Mustang was the best choice. You made a good pick. Very depandable, even though I have had some problems, but mostly self-inflicted. (New clutch because....well I haven't driven a manual before this year, and this was my first Ford, and a pickup coil went out)
And don't let Vaughan mis-lead you that they all are mid-packers, I know a few that have given Vaughan a run for his money on occiason at Waterford this year. But I really can't keep up enough to see through the windshield to really know...LOL. :shrug:
I would be considered a "rear-packer"
But I know John, Todd and Bob would have something to say to Vaughen. ;) :)

Did I mention Vaughan was my instructor at driver's school?

[BruceG]

Hi Tom

I think your comments were directed to me, as I originated this thread. My car(with a ton of spares, newly rebuilt spare engine,track tent,cool suit, current SCCA log book, curent harness, no dns or dnf's ever was $6000. Came from a great seller, as well.

He mentioned a fender bender down south on track with a miata. The mazda sustained heavy damage:when my friend got out of the turd, thee was barely a scratch on it!!

Best Regards,

BruceG

[Flyinglizard]

I always wanted the 2000 Pinto for a ITB car. ^ The later ones looked way to heavy to be fast.The problem is that no one wanted to rent one. :} MM

[quadzjr]

I have seen ron (rather impressive) and other mustangs run in ITB.. With the Current GCR.. I don't know what thay can do to make it more compettive. I have been a ford guy my whole life (Mostly drag racing). I have kicked around the idea of building one myself.. but it is really hard to get down to minimum weight, low on power, non akerman steering, infereior suspension design. Loweringthe minimum weight from the car.. wont' help.. since most of the prepped cars are not at the min weight as it is.. and they can't allow for performance mods for one car.

I have never built one myself.. but after talking to alot Mustang racer this is what I gathered.. to bad building an AS is finically out of my reach.. and a ITS mustang would be very uncompetitie against the BMWs and Miatas.

However If I found a good ITB 93 coupe already built for a decent price I probably would jump on it.

[Ron]

Thanks for the plug on our car. Our car is very track specific. At Savannah we are really strong. The track is flowing and fairly flat. We struggle at Road Atlanta as there are many heavy braking zones and quite a few uphill climbs. VIR is better but I don't think we have enough for the top guys, yet. You can make them handle pretty well and they are easy to drive you just have to work hard on all the little things. We have threaded spring plates on all four corners so we can corner weight the car and change ride height. We cut apart Koni double adjustable front shocks to change the mounting setup so that they would bolt up to the front spindles. We built a custom NASCAR style front anti-roll bar.
The power is there, once again you have to do all the little things, crank scrapers, windage tray, low drag rings, pan evacuation system, proper headers, I could go on. We have spent countless hours on an engine dyno trying different things to make power. It's there you just have to work at it.
On the weight side we are on our third car. You have to look at every option to reduce weight, including sandblasting the entire bare chassis to get all the old paint and under coating off. That was a fairly cheap ($300.00) item to do and the car was much lighter after we had it done. When our car is set up for sprint races we have rolled across the scale at 2,600 lbs. That is a weight I thought we would never see but we did get there. I was convinced years ago it was impossible but I proved myself wrong. I even think you could get to the minimum but you would have to give up a good cage, use the 4 speed, small front brakes, 13 inch rims, no fuel cell, hell I could go on but you get the idea.
Brakes are another concern, proper cooling is mandatory! I have seen an ITB mustang at Road Atlanta go down into the 10 A/B turn complex and go for the brakes only to find the floor, thank goodness for gravel traps! We have built hats that sit over the rotors for proper cooling and built ducts and backing plates that cool from the center out. EBC makes proper pad compounds, even endurance pads that lasted all 13 hours last year at VIR.
90% of what we have done does not cost a ton of money. I really enjoy trying to always improve what we have. We never show up at the track without trying something new to make the car faster. With 3 kids and running my own business weekends are hard to come by, bu nights in the shop are easy.

[quadzjr]

Ron after the last race at savanna that I talked to you and your friend.. It encourgaed me to possibly build one myself. Even though many thigns you have done may be free time and expereince have an unlimited price associated with it.

Have you tidy-up the wiring since then? I remember you were sayign you had issues with the wiring just before the race.

[Ron]

Yes, we sourced the problem to a bad O2 unit that was giving us fits. The reason we needed it was that motor did not get enough dyno time and we were trying to jet the carb, what a nightmare. It poped our data box and tach, every time we went out it was something else, thats why there were wires everywhere tywraped to everything. Mixed into that was the seperate wiring harness for our lights for endurance racing. It is a seperate harness we built so that we could quickly fix lighting issues for VIR. At night that track is DARK,DARK,DARK. Did I say that it was dark therer at night!

[CRallo]

Thanks for the plug on our car. Our car is very track specific. At Savannah we are really strong. The track is flowing and fairly flat... <snip>
...the shop are easy.


wow you guys are serious!! don't you have a life?! lol sounds like a car I gotta see someday...

[quadzjr]

wow you guys are serious!! don't you have a life?! lol sounds like a car I gotta see someday...

Racing is life.. atleast it's mine.

[CRallo]

Racing is life.. atleast it's mine.

i know, i know :D

same here man... same here :cool:

[Ron]

I should say that I have it pretty good. My dad raced in IMSA in the 70's and his old race engineer is still a very close friend of the family. He is the motor guy, thats all he wants to do. I just have to work on the car. Like I said, 3 kids, a great wife, and self employed, time is what I need more of, so I just slip down to the basement a couple of nights a week and work on stuff. It is my escape from life. My family knows that its daddy time. Sometimes its for several hours, others just one. I am very lucky to have a complete workshop with welders, drill press, ect...
Also, we have been at this Mustang thing for a while. I first started with a 1971 ford capri with the 2 liter for a few years. But body parts and such were tough to get. Thats when we got car 1. It was a purchased car off of ebay for really parts, we ran it for a season and realized it was a handful to drive but made good power. Car 2 was a converted AS car that had a very nice cage and many little things done that were great. It was built by Dayton Brooks. Thats where we really started trying to make the car handle, Good shocks and springs the front sway bar, delrin and aluminum bushings in the front, steeda rear end, YES we spent some money on that car. But it was heavy and after having to put 2 front clips on the car we decided to build our own. After looking at hundreds of cage designs and finding and early year donor we went to work on building the lightest car we could. Car 3 is where we are now. It took a year to build in the basement, we skipped a year of racing and pulled off all the stuff off of car 2 and that is how we got here.
We have spent some money over the years and some of the stuff we have is a little over the top but we are having a great time. For those of you that don't know my dad shares the driving duties with me and it is something I never thought I would get to do. I know there are many teams like ours (father/son) but having grown up being dragged all around the country as a kid watching him race it is a treat to share it with him now. 5 years ago, as a fathers day present, I took the car and dad to VIR for drivers school and the rest is history.
Bottom line is this, we have tried lots of stuff over the years. I have read all the books about mustangs, and there are quite a few. In every book you pick up little tricks even in the circle track ones. I would be glad to share what we have done with anyone who wants to know, well 90% of what we have learned. I don't know it all, but god knows we have tried it.