ITS Ford Mustang(s) Build - Stripper Stang Part II

[Ron Earp]

Guess thats saying enough, eh mr Secretive? ;)

Hey, you know how it is - you've got to work hard to get information thus you're not likely to give it up easily. Reliable 3.8L info is quite difficult to obtain and given the large assortment of factory 3.8L parts from 1994 to 1998 you must do a lot of background work before trying to build. And a lot of that work involves procuring parts and making measurements; not terribly expensive or hard to do but definitely time consuming. I've been buying and inspecting V6 stang parts since 2008. There's a lot to look at.

[Steve35]

I've been buying and inspecting V6 stang parts since 2008. There's a lot to look at.


Good for you, that's the way to build a race car!!

Steve

[lateapex911]

Yes, this is a proper build. I will be interested in learning the output and seeing the results on track. Of course, Ron will likely guard the output like a bag o gold, LOL

[Ron Earp]

Nah, I'm pretty open with the results and helpful with folks doing the same car as I am. These are sort of odd ducks though and there probably isn't a ton of interest in duplicating them. I expect power/torque to be outstanding (relative to ITS), braking to be okay, and handling to be so-so. Overall how will it do? don't know but I'm having fun building it and looking forward to running it on track.

[Mark Gray]

I've got the engine back in my old car!:happy204:

So I'll Be "BACK IN BLACK" at Buck Muse @CMP!:eclipsee_steering:

Are you going to have that "STRIPPER STANG" ready so we can have some fun??? :D

[Ron Earp]

Hey Mark,

Great to hear you'll be out in the BMW. Good job!

The Stripper Twins won't make the Buck Muse but they will be at RRR in April, May VIR, and the Memorial Monster. Wish we could get them to CMP in March but with work travel, and lots to do on the cars, we've got no chance.

R

[Mark Gray]

Hey Mark,

Great to hear you'll be out in the BMW. Good job!

The Stripper Twins won't make the Buck Muse but they will be at RRR in April, May VIR, and the Memorial Monster. Wish we could get them to CMP in March but with work travel, and lots to do on the cars, we've got no chance.

R

Work travel!!! Where are your priorities???:shrug:

[Ron Earp]

We took the day off yesterday to head up to VIR to see how Mr. Young made out in ITS. He made out very well with the overall pole and the win in ITS. Great work!

Today work continued with the focus being on Stang #1, the green one. We got the stater reinstalled, pared down a wiring harness, and got the header pipes and collectors on.

Stripping the wiring harness is a pain in the ass, but it is essentially for a 100% build when you're looking for pounds. Pounds add up to tens, and tens to hundreds, so you've got to do it when you're working with a porker. Do you really need that bolt? How heavy a gauge of wire do you really need? There are certainly areas where I can stand to lose more weight off the car but for the first iteration we'll be at 95% lightness.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wiring.jpg

I got the header tubes installed and that was definitely a difficult job. Inline motors are so much easier to work on. The exhaust system has individual tubes that are not connected to a common flange so that makes it nice for positioning, not so nice for installation as it definitely takes longer than a common flange system. All mandrel bent, stepped primaries down to a Burn 3-1 collector, short length, multidiameter with a step ring, then each side into a Burns Y collector. Here are a few shots:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/passfit.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/drivertop.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/

[Ron Earp]

Once I got the primary tubes fitted I put the collectors on.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/bungs.jpg

I've still got a bit of wrapping to do on the collectors but mainly it is finished up.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/headerfit1.jpg

The header system dumps into a single exhaust and you can see the two of the merge collectors in this photo, the Y- and one 3-1. You can also see the steps in the pipes.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/mergeitup.jpg

Pains were taken to make all the lengths equal but that never works out in practice as you need to make some comprises. In this system I went for straighter pipes with less bends over making them perfectly equal. Not all exhaust gurus agree that this is the best method, but that is the way system V1.0 is done. I expect there will be a V2.0 and V3.0 before we're all done.

I also went over to Advance auto to pick up some tie rod ends and brake calipers. You have to like $45 front brake calipers with an essentially lifetime warranty. Working with the Advance manager we also found out that many Mustang parts cross-reference to other Ford parts that are cheaper. We've learned that if it is branded "Mustang" then in some cases the part will cost more than if it is for a Crown Vic, Aerostar, or F150.

[lateapex911]

Two bungs Ron? An extra for just in case? or an EGT and a Air fuel?

[Ron Earp]

There are a couple of extra bung spots that were put in for a wideband O2.

Lots more work last night with the camber plates installed in the green car, camber checked and adjustments made to get the proper range, 0 to -3.5 degrees, cold air block off plates made (legal, the Mustang takes air from outside the engine compartment stock), and a few other things.

The camber plates do not provide enough adjustment stock, none of them do, so you have to either slot the upper chassis holes or use "camber bolts" at the strut/hub interface. Either way will get you plenty of camber at ride height. Jeff G has been heavily investigating some proper hub centric spacers for the front and rear. We made measurements a few days ago that showed that with the long studs in the hubs, and non-hub-centric spacers, the wheels had far more runout that we'd like to see. So, more fab work coming up.

I have looked at the seating position in my car and found I need to drop the rear of the seat down an inch or two for better leg support. This will lower me even further almost to the point where I can't see over the dash. The Mustang is a "big" car by ITS standards and I've a feeling I'll end up looking like a midget driving it. So be it, a midget with a grin on.

[Ron Earp]

A bit more work tonight. Jeff worked on the spacers some more, alternator, wiring, and the coil pack for his motor. We've learned that they are not the same throughout the years, more little nuances that makes you go "yay".

I continued the fab of the air intake. The stock air system has a big air horn and housing that takes air from the fender well. This can all be replaced and since our engine pulls air from outside the engine bay we can continue that on the IT car but in a more linear fashion. We're still passing through the stock MAF and throttle body.


All air entering the intake tract shall pass through the
carburetor or fuel injection air inlet. All air must also pass
through the stock air metering device, eg MAF, or AFM,
etc if so equipped. Air intake source shall be within the
confines of the engine compartment or stock location.

Also left out a collector pic from the other day that I'll link.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/collect.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/intake.jpg

[Knestis]

That fender snorkel is boss. Is there a fender liner in there to prevent water from getting sucked up if it rains?

I love this car.

K

[cjb25hs]

Not quite sure what I was trying to say in that pocket induced post above!

Ron the car looks great. Can't wait to see it at the track. Hoping that its in my rear view mirror! Lol j/k at the rate I'm going with my shoulder surgery and not having an engine, it will be Charlotte before I make it out on track.

[Ron Earp]

That fender snorkel is boss. Is there a fender liner in there to prevent water from getting sucked up if it rains?

I love this car.

K

Thanks guys, remember there are two of these coming out at the same time, not just one, so there is a good chance you'll see a stang on track.

And yes, there is a liner that will keep the filter dry. The filter will end up high, basically at the top of the fender, and the air intake for the filter is supplied via various gaps in the body, front clip, and so on. It shouldn't come in contact with any water unless the front of the car gets submerged.

[Ron Earp]

DST still messing with me for some reason so I was out in the shop early this morning. Managed to press in new ball joints for both lower arms, finished up the bushings, hang them on the car, check lines/sway bar mounts, and start prepping the upright for installation. I'm hoping to get the suspension work done on the green car can catch it up with the red car.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/press.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/lines.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/mounts.jpg

[Ron Earp]

Long weekend in the garage. Both Jeff's stopped by and we accomplished fairly long list of jobs:

*Brake ducts fabricated and installed, job took about six hours all told
*Front arms finished for both cars, all welded up now
*Pinion angle set on the green car
*Tank on green car removed and re-installed with new fuel pump
*Sway bars installed on both cars permanently
*Front suspension nut and bolted on both cars
*Brakes finished on the green car, all lines installed
*All fluids filled in green
*Spare hubs prepped with longer studs

Sunday was an even longer day for some. I had some wonderful food at a local Italian joint near my house on Saturday night and all day Sunday I was emitting variously flavored methane gas at a fairly high rate. Rough day.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/makingducts.jpg

The TIG welder broke and its warranty replacement came this week. Worked great.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/ductdetail.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/ductinside.jpg

We got to talking about brakes and looking around in the GCR the Mustang brakes are actually larger in diameter than the 2nd Gen RX7 brakes. I don't know about swept area though, and we've only got a single piston, but on the other hand lots of cars with great brakes utilized single piston calipers, like the E39 BMW M5.

[Ron Earp]

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/finishedbrake.jpg

The front suspension of this car has been a bear. This weekend we've finally managed to get all the parts on the car, in the proper configuration, and give it a test. We were really pleased with the results. Spring angles are great, ride height is where we want it, and the sway bar geometry is correct. Not sure we could have done much better with what we've got and it is always a pleasure to have things work out the way you want.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/bardetail.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/swayconnected.jpg

The rear has been bolted up for quite sometime but nothing was aligned or adjusted. Making some careful measurements at ride height I've got the pinion angle set right around two degrees which should be a good starting place for adjustments and dyno work. It takes a lot of time to work this stuff out and it can be quite frustrating.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/reardetail.jpg

[Ron Earp]

Shop pic. Things are much improved with way more parts off the floor and on the car than last week.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/shop.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/tank.jpg

Attention will now be turning to wiring and sensors. I've got a number of gauges and data logging to rig up and I suspect it'll take quite a bit of time. However, we're thinking we might get to start on of the cars in the next two weeks. Yahoo!

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/oiladapter.jpg

These projects have taken a bit longer than we have anticipated. These two IT cars are not the only IT cars we've ever built, but they have had more than their fair share of challenges. We've had some great assistance from Dave Brown, Ford man extraordinaire, and he'll be assisting us more in the future with engines, transmissions, and setup. In fact we've commissioned a third engine for the cars as a spare and with all the other Mustang spares we've got we'll be racing these cars for a long time to come. Hope they work well!

[benspeed]

Just a fantastic thread. I sorta tune in as if this was a TV channel!

[Ron Earp]

Plans are being made for a motor start. It won't be this weekend, but we think that we'll fire one up on the weekend of the 30th. Been a long time coming and I hope it works out well. I'm making final changes to our initial tune file now.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/basefuel.jpg
The base fuel table is commanding a 0.842 x 14.6, 12.3 A/F at WOT and a high load factor. I think this will be fine for initial running and break in, but I think we'll want to push it to the high 12s/low 13s for max power, depending on how it behaves when we futz with spark.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/crank.jpg

[lateapex911]

Wheres the popcorn smiley!?
Love this thread. Great shop Ron!!

[lateapex911]

I take it the filter block is a rerouting junction that sends oil to the cooler? I assume a thermostat is internal?
What have you decided to do about front end aero? With brake ducts, oil cooler, water cooler, and the desire for less drag, and possibly downforce (or less lift), I'm sure you done a lot of research.

[Ron Earp]

I take it the filter block is a rerouting junction that sends oil to the cooler? I assume a thermostat is internal?
What have you decided to do about front end aero? With brake ducts, oil cooler, water cooler, and the desire for less drag, and possibly downforce (or less lift), I'm sure you done a lot of research.

Yes and yes.

But front end aero is a big question. The rules don't favor cars with integrated/molded bumpers since nothing can stick out in front of the car profile when viewed from above. And, the lower part is almost out as far as the middle part, that is, the "bumper". If you look at a stang from the side the lower "chin" isn't much recessed behind the bumper. We have some ideas but it is very likely the car will hit the track without a splitter.

Now, if we could use the aftermarket, holy sheet batman, there are 10s, maybe hundreds of integrated splitter designs. Here is just one of many (no comment on effectiveness, just an example):

http://www.bodykits.org/_pics/54_2_products_cobra_r_body_kit_full_promo_pic.jpg

Ford produced some too and a couple worked as they were campaigned on factory cars.

http://www.fastcoolcars.com/images/2000_cobra_r/2000-cobra-r13.jpg

But they are integrated and require cover replacement. We might could cut something like that off and rivet it on.

Here is a stock view of what we're dealing with on the V6s:

http://www.actioncompaction.com/dalamar_96/fav/1.jpg

[lateapex911]

I see what you're saying, but I think you have room for innovation and effectiveness there.

[Chip42]

I'm with Jake, looks liek you have 3-4" of room between the plastic bumper and the bottom of the wheel in that picture. not sure what your ITS example will wind up with, but a recessed area can be very effective, too.

I can't wait to see these things in person.

[Ron Earp]

I'm with Jake, looks liek you have 3-4" of room between the plastic bumper and the bottom of the wheel in that picture. not sure what your ITS example will wind up with, but a recessed area can be very effective, too.


We agree, but we figure they just might not be done for the first track excursion. We're thinking of a splitter/undertray sort of affair tucked up under the nose there.

Looks like tonight we'll be adding some bars to Stang #2's cage. Owner wants a taller door bars on the side so we'll be putting a third bar above the two NASCAR bars that are already there. TIG is a wonderful thing.

[billf]

Ron,

First...great build man. I am bewildered by the work you have done in such a short time.

Second...Be aware that the V6 (stock nose) is designed to be a "bottom feeder", with the area directly under the nose to have a positive pressure to feed the radiator. Putting a spoiler/splitter that blocks off that air to the underside of the nose, may starve the radiator, or even, create a lower pressure and therefore impede the flow thru the radiator (lower pressure in front than expected).

All the good Mustang noses with larger front openings are in the GT, or Cobra as you have shown, or custom, all of which I thought are not legal (different model?).

We had to drop a blade style spoiler at the position of the core support (behind the opening) to force air up into the radiator, with resultant over heating problems when it was torn off. Stock had one too.

Just a thought to share.

Good work,

Bill

[Ron Earp]

Another weekend, another weekend in the garage. The weekend started early on Friday afternoon. My buddy Deon is building a custom chopper and has been using my TIG rig to do the welding. Since he is just about ready for paint I decided to take advantage of the spraying going on at his house and disassemble my Buell to have it painted.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/bikeapart.jpg

Got all the parts off and wet sanded everything for prep. Meanwhile, Deon started work on the last welding he needed to do for part of the handle bars and I joined in about 8pm. Four hours later we finished up that fab project and were bushed.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/deonwelding.jpg

A bit of stang work got done those as I finished the lines for the oil cooler and installed the temperature sensor for the oil. Also, I removed the front bumper to install the air filter and rig up the tow strap.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/cooler.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/filter.jpg

It doesn't look it, but that filter in the fender well is huge. Probably around 10" long and 6" in diameter. Good stuff, it is nice having a car with some room.

[Ron Earp]

Saturday morning we started back up at 830. Jeff G wanted to add in a third bar on his cage for the driver's side and spent the morning cutting and fitting the pieces.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/newbars.jpg

He did some really nice work there. You guys that build your own cages got my respect as it is a lot of hassle and makes a huge mess. I'm still picking metal splinters out of my hands.

Anyhow, round about lunch he got to welding on it and putting it in place.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/tigitup.jpg

Tack it in place, then come over to the bench to weld the pickets in place so you don't have to weld upside down.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/tigitup2.jpg

The party got cut short though when we ran out of Argon. We used a lot on the bike project the night before so we'll have to lay off that until Monday.

While Jeff G was kicking it on the bars I was doing a number of other tasks involving wiring, plumbing, tow straps, and interior of the green car.

First up was getting rid of the Ford OEM connectors on the fuel filter. The fuel filter is well-positioned at the rear of the car but has those blasted push-pull connectors that require special tools, and really strong fingers, to unlock. We're using the same Ford OEM filters on the cars but replaced the connectors with fuel injection hose and FI clamps. That way we can service the fuel system with standard tools.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/fuelfilter.jpg

[Ron Earp]

When I was over at WallyWorld on Friday I picked up pieces for another driver cooling system. We have DR COOL but we'll need another one for Jeff G's car or for mine if the weight of DR COOL is too much for the build.

$8 cooler with screw lid, $19 live well pump, and $20 of dry break connectors. I whipped part of the system up.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/earpcool1.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/earpcool2.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/earpcool3.jpg

w

[Ron Earp]

Also worked on the rear tow strap and cutting a hole in the bumper cover.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/reartow.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/towdone.jpg

And I spent time making the driver floor liner pan and bonding/riveting that piece in. The piece significantly improves the flatness of the floor should improve foot traction for the driver.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/driverfloor.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/driverfloorin.jpg

[Ron Earp]

And work kicked off again this morning at 830 sharp. We continued with the inside of Jeff G's car with the floor panel and I started cutting graphics for Jeff Young's car/trailer. I think I'm going to save some time and go ahead and cut some 2012 SARRC Champ graphics too.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/graphics.jpg

Had a little break for some racquetball at 11am while Jeff G went for a run. After lunch I hope to get Jeff Y's graphics finished up by the afternoon and then cut some graphics for the green stang.

[Ron Earp]

Long day but all the vinyl got cut with assistance from my helper. All the stuff for JY's car and trailer, plus some numbers for a new ITS car that someone picked up....

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/break.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/helper.jpg

[Ron Earp]

Jeff G put in many many more hours and got the third bar TIGed in place on the stang. Looks good and adds safety, but it also adds some weight.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/jeffbars.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/jeffbarclose.jpg

Meanwhile I did some work on the brake duct fabrication. I'm fabbing up metal plates that will bolt into the stock front spolier to which we can attach a standard brake duct from the usual suspects.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/brakeduct.jpg

And on other fronts I'm formulating plans to redo this exhaust. If you look at this picture you can see that the exhaust pipe comes out under the passenger floor pan, which sucks. That'll put the entire exhaust too low. Where it should have come out was about four inches to the left and two inches higher, thus allowing me to use part of the tunnel to house the pipe. So, more TIG work coming up.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/exhaustdiaster.jpg

[Ron Earp]

And we finally got the rear lower arms with the spherical bearings installed. That is good news. The bad news is we essentially have to build two more sets of arms with spring perches and all for the rear. Yay, more grinding, plasma cutting, and welding on the horizon.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/wkd/arms.jpg

Once all this fab work gets done I'm calling Molly Maid. The garage is a DISASTER - a fine black dust coats every surface of the garage, including vertical walls and the ceiling.

[Ron Earp]

We've done a lot more work over the last few days. Jeff G got his bar in, welded and painted. He did a great job on that piece although it took around ten hours of work time to complete.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/wiringredcar.jpg

Wiring has commenced on the red car, hence that big box of spaghetti that has to be put back into the car. The engine harness is in though and the ECU is installed.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/tunnelredcar.jpg

A bit of tunnel and deadpedal detail on the red car.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/deadpedalred.jpg

AC box is gutted and installed on the firewall.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/heaterinredcar.jpg

[Ron Earp]

And of course wiring continues in the front of each car.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/ronenginekillbattery.jpg

We made new battery boxes to replace the plastic "shelf" that Ford uses to mount the battery. The plastic shelf is larger than the battery and is clearly meant for a larger unit that is in V6 Mustangs. We made ours from aluminum, folded and TIGed them, and riveted them in place.

The hub centric spacers that are used on the rear of the car arrived and they are nice pieces.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/rearspacer.jpg

To obtain the track we wanted we would have either had to make two different offset wheels, or, use spacers. When these are bolted up the wheel spins true and much more so than the high quality non-hubcentric units we had on there before.

Rear arms with spherical bearings were installed on the back of the green car so that stang now has the rear completely done and wheels are bolted on. Minor milestone.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/sphericalrear.jpg

And here is a shot of our high tech spring retainer for the rear. It works very well and keeps the spring from falling out of the cavity when the suspension is unloaded or unbolted.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/springretainer.jpg

[Ron Earp]

Wired and functional gauge pod on the green stang.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/gaugesgreencar.jpg

Those are mechanical units with working lighting. Now that those two are in we're ready for an engine start which I anticipate to be this weekend.

Here is another shot of the 85% complete gauge panel that houses the non-essential informational gauges.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/greencarpanel.jpg

Firebomb is in as is the seat harness.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/firebombgreen.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/harnessgreen.jpg

I'm looking forward to trying the belts out. They are narrow Schroth belts and the material feels wonderful and the adjusters are the best I've ever used. Very smooth and better than the Spacro and G-Force stuff I've had before.

[Ron Earp]

And the transponders have been placed on both cars. Hidden up in the driver's wheel well behind a shield to protect from debris.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/transponder.jpg

[lateapex911]

Ron, TOP NOTCH! I had a bit of a spill and am recovering, so can't drive or do much, and this thread delivers! THANK you for the effort in keeping it going. You are a freaking machine! I thought you were married? How do you put that kind of time in??

[CRallo]

Ron, great stuff, keep it coming!

Jake, you didn't break a hip did you?

[lateapex911]

Ron, great stuff, keep it coming!

Jake, you didn't break a hip did you?

Well, they bored INTO my hip bone....but, no, I didn't break it. I did, however, break a bunch of ribs, a few spurious vertebra components, a collarbone and a 10mm compression and 15 degree forward tilt burst fracture of the L3 vertebra. Surgery was done to fuse the L2,3,4 with a bone graft from my hip, and a titanium bridge. I don't recommend it. (the situation, not the surgery...)
(And sorry to junk up your cool thread Ron! The full story is here: http://www.roadraceautox.com/showthread.php?t=39174 )

So, back on topic Ron, the cooler thing looks cool. ANy shots of those dry breaks?

[CRallo]

Well, they bored INTO my hip bone....but, no, I didn't break it. I did, however, break a bunch of ribs, a few spurious vertebra components, a collarbone and a 10mm compression and 15 degree forward tilt burst fracture of the L3 vertebra. Surgery was done to fuse the L2,3,4 with a bone graft from my hip, and a titanium bridge. I don't recommend it. (the situation, not the surgery...)
(And sorry to junk up your cool thread Ron! The full story is here: http://www.roadraceautox.com/showthread.php?t=39174 )

So, back on topic Ron, the cooler thing looks cool. ANy shots of those dry breaks?

Holy SHIT!!!!!! What the hell man!? Guess it coulda been worse huh? damn... would have been better off breaking the hip!

but yea... back on topic... I'll check out the post.

[Ron Earp]

Surgery was done to fuse the L2,3,4 with a bone graft from my hip, and a titanium bridge. I don't recommend it. (the situation, not the surgery...)?

Holy sheet! I'm sorry, that does not sound good at all. I wish you a very speedy recovery. I read the thread and I'm now forewarned.

The Earpcool V2.0 (V1.0 was sold with the Z, and this one is not to be confused with DR COOL (http://www.roadraceautox.com/showthread.php?t=32064&highlight=peliter), which still might go in the car depending on weight issues) is project number 7.3.h.4. Which means that it is fairly far down the list of things to complete before May.

The dry breaks did arrive though. Earpcool V2.0 has weight as the primary driver so components were selected with that in mind. I suspect this one will not have dry breaks at the cooler area. Instead the pipe will be hard plumbed into the cooler/pump and terminate with dry breaks near the driver.

[Ron Earp]

Long work session in the garage. Brakes was the word of the day, as in brake ducts.

We started with standard ABS type plastic ducts that we were going to afix to the outside of the bumper and duct in. But that didn't look that good and we were worried about airflow.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/brakeducts.jpg

Openings in the bumper got enlarged and then we used the heat gun to deform the ducts after we'd cut the flange off of them making something like this.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/outsideduct.jpg

These had a straight shot at the inside duct and sway bar where we wanted to attach the ductwork.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/brakeducthole.jpg

Now, while all of that looks simple it took a couple of hours. Before all of that started I got the front suspension installed, nut and bolted, and tidied up for front bumper final install. As well as did some wiring.

Once we figured out where the ducts were going we were able to run hose.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/brakedetal.jpg

[Ron Earp]

And get everything strapped up and out of the way of the tires.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/brakedetail2.jpg

Of course we have two cars to build so everything we did today was done in tandem.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/cuttingred.jpg

And with the heat treated duct installed in the bumper.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/redducts.jpg

We used the green chassis with the red bumper for most of the fab work; Christmas came a bit early.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/xmas.jpg

Fix that up with a bit of silver an bows and we might have a sleigh.

[Ron Earp]

Now the green car is dangerously close to actually doing something other than sitting around on the lift. Engine start is eminent as is running around the neighborhood as she still wears her street tag.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/greenrideheight.jpg

On the other hand, the red car came down off jack stands for the first time in weeks and that was a good sight.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/reddone.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/reddown.jpg

Now, we did get around to one very important thing. The green car is "race prepped" in the sense that it has all of the equipment in the proper place for weighting. Thus, we scaled it. How much do you think it weighs (sans driver and zero fuel, and yes, we laid the glass into the car for proper weighting)?

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/weights2.jpg

[Ron Earp]

I've got the outlaws coming in today for Easter so work is limited. However, this morning I managed to complete the tune for the engine, upload it to my programmer, then use the programmer to download it to the ECU.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/tuner.jpg

This was something of an accomplishment as I've not communicated with the ECU since lengthening the OBDII cable, relocating the port, and tapping some lines off the engine harness.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/programming.jpg

The download was successful so I think all is still good with the harness and ECU. Both engines will start with the same ECU program for a base file. Then we'll use the handheld tuner to make minor changes such as adding or dropping a bit of timing and fuel, or the PC based software if we need larger wholesale changes in the file for something that we're way off on. Hopefully the ECU will take care of itself mostly as the adaptive learning mode is still on, while all the silly nannies are off - nannies that want to pull timing for this and that, enrichen to save the motor, pull spark due to high oil temps, and so on. I'm optimistic that we'll be able to get it done with the stock ECU but if we can't we'll go to Megasquirt or similar.

[Ron Earp]

Got started on the wiring last night and this morning. I like wiring and my goal here is to make the system efficient and easily disconnected at all locations with Weatherpak connectors. This is the back side of the console panel that houses a number of gauges plus the Traqmate, switches, and tire pressure monitor.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/wiringfun1.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/wiringfun2.jpg

The green car went off to the exhaust shop at 7am and the red one goes this afternoon at 5pm. Both need their exhaust reconfigured.

Things are moving along. I've got to have surgery tomorrow and I'm thinking I'll probably be out of action for a few days on the StangWerks. But, I hope to be back on it by the weekend.

[CRallo]

only off for few days?! don't over do it!

oh, I like that 5 round! I must have! I just have flat and square 4's... looks most excellent! Tire pressure monitors? really? damn...

[lateapex911]

Ron, first, good luck with your surgery! Hope it's kinda minor.
Second, I just saw your weight query. I can't remember your target weight. But, I have been figuring that you'll be over about 120 when you're all said and done.

[Ron Earp]

I hope it is minor too - just a tumor removal on my shoulder and it is supposedly non-cancerous. Should be in and out in an afternoon.

Got some great exhaust work done today at R&J in Apex. They made the y-pipe transition flow in a smoother fashion and tucked everything up so that no part of the exhaust is low hanging. I've got 3.5" to 4" plus inches everywhere on the exhaust and that is the lowest part of the car. The car should be easy to load/unload and shouldn't drag anything on the track. Still have to get back under there and wrap everything up.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/exhaustunder.jpg

I also had Robert make me a side exit exhaust with catalytic converter so it can pass inspection. No real reason for an IT car to not be street legal, given we've got dual purpose rules in mind and everyone is driving to the track with their race car.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/catexhaust.jpg

I'll slap that on once a year to maintain my registration. NC just scans the OBDII port and looks for codes, they won't find any since all that stuff is turned off, and they a visual inspection for the cat, which they'll see.

You didn't forget the ITS spec weight is 2470 lbs and of course that is with driver? Nope, we aren't going to come close to that despite our best efforts. I'm not really worried as the motor is a) in a really conservative tune from Ford and should have been around 160 to 165 hp, which would equal 2700+ lbs; and b) I feel pretty confident we'll zoutperform the 25% gain that is the standard.

[Ron Earp]

Since weight is a big concern, and we know we're going to be quite a bit over the bogus spec weight, I've been keeping track of optional items that we could ditch to lose weight.

Here I weighed all the gauges, panel, switches, wire, camera, and so on of the data acquisition/video system. Not nearly as high as you might think, 4.5 lbs.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/extras.jpg

[Ron Earp]

I got most of the main panel done this morning. Tire pressure monitor works, and from a long distance from the tires too, about 20 ft to the furthermost tire. The tire pressure monitor is neat in that you can create set points at which the display color will change, for example, the tire pressure is shown in red over say 40 psi.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/rearofpanel.jpg

Next up is the car harnesses. I've already built them on the bench but they must be installed.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/tirepressureon.jpg

[Knestis]

I'm picturing countermeasure spoofs to turn all of your tire pressures to blinking red zeros when you are lapping me. :)

K

[CRallo]

Ron, what wire crimpers are you using?



LOL


I'm picturing countermeasure spoofs to turn all of your tire pressures to blinking red zeros when you are lapping me. :)

K

[Ron Earp]

I haven't felt all that wonderful after my surgery, but I slept about five hours this afternoon and felt much better. Once I got up I managed to put a few hours in on the car. Nothing strenuous, just a bit of graphics work and wiring.

As far as crimpers and tools for wiring this is what I use. The best tool is that proper crimper there that does blue/red/yellow crimps. Everything else, like the connectors in the weatherpak connectors, I solder.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/crimpers.jpg

Sydney popped in the garage and took a couple of rare photos of me in my natural environment. I wore my PJs all day, including while wiring in the garage. Quite comfy.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/wiringinpks.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/wiringincar.jpg

I like the fact the car is roomy inside and the entire passenger area is open. While it isn't a big car by normal standards, it is huge by IT rule. When it was being off loaded from the trailer the other day it seems that it is a good 6" to maybe 12" wider than most ITS cars that I've been around.

I managed to cut a few sheets of graphics in orange and silver. Logos for Hoosier, engine decals, tow, Buell stickers for my bike, stripes, and some other stuff for the number 57 ITS car that is new for 2012.....

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/graphics.jpg

[CRallo]

cool, just checking ;) :p glad to see it, figured you would be... If you gotta crimp, it's gotta be one of those.

Glad to hear/see you made out okay with the surgery. Nothing like sleeping it off!

[lateapex911]

You look a lot better after YOUR surgery than I did after mine!!!
Not that I could have stopped anyone, (honestly, i couldn't even adjust the darn hospital bed!) but if I could have, there is no WAY there were any pictures to be taken of me!

And if I were putting decals on my car the day after, I assure you they would be illegible, LOL.
Good job, great to see you back at it.

[CRallo]

Oh and nice pajamas! Lol I have been known to do that too...

[benspeed]

Hey Jake and Ron - hoping you guys are feeling better. Fantastic workmanship - I can't wire anything beyond red and black...:-)

[Ron Earp]

Feeling much better, almost 100%.

I got mucho more wiring done and tested. The panel was installed, checked for drains and so on, all good as I knew it would be. So, I continued with the fab work and now it is completely done and tested. Notice the power mirror switch - yep, the mirrors will work when connected.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/paneldone.jpg

I questioned keeping the power mirrors but when I took them off the car I couldn't believe how little they weighed. The entire assembly is light weight plastic with a tiny motor, 1.2 lbs each. The glass is paper thin that is mounted to a thin plastic substrate. So, if you got to have mirrors the stock ones are pretty good. Now, considering aero they might have to go but that remains to be seen.

Still, the mirrors are on our weight reduction at all costs list. Other items that populate that list are the engine fan, data/camera/gauges, wiper motor (EDIT - THE WIPER MOTOR CAN UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES BE REMOVED FROM AN IT CAR, THEREFORE, IT IS NOW REMOVED FROM OUR WEIGHT REDUCTION AT ALL COSTS LIST), fan blower motor, fire system, and cool suit plus some other odds and ends. Clearly some of those things you'd like to have, but if 40 lbs is the difference between competitive and non-competitive we could toss that stuff.

[JeffYoung]

I think we have all seen that 40 lbs is not the difference between competitive and non-competitive. In fact, I would never consider chucking the fire system over weight, and the cool suit (in my opinion) adds competitiveness by keeping you comfortable in the car.

In the past, with the cool suit, there were races where I was dying for the checkered to come out. That doesn't happen now. I'm generally as fresh getting out of the car as getting in.

[Eagle7]

...the mirrors are on our weight reduction at all costs list. Other items that populate that list are the engine fan, data/camera/gauges, wiper motor, fan blower motor, fire system, and cool suit plus some other odds and ends.
Maybe my memory is failing me, but why can you remove the highlighted items? :blink:

[Ron Earp]

I too think that 40 lbs isn't going to make or break a car. And I for sure as heck want those items on the list in the car.

I believe we're going to be racing at about 100 lbs heavier than an RX7. I don't think that is too bad from a power perspective as I think we'll have more peak power and area under the curve than those cars, but that remains to be seen.

But the weight on the stang is not good with respect to tire loading. We do not have nearly the balance of an RX7 but we're running the same size tire. My rough calculations show we'll be loading the front tires about 20-25% more than an RX7 thus ultimately we'll high a significantly higher load per square inch of tire.

A larger tire, like a 245, might help. But I just got off the phone with Rodney at App Tire and he says that size on a 7" wheel is problematic. He indicates they used to put them on the BMWs in ITS back in the day but the weird thing was they would not always seat properly on the wheel, sometimes they would seat off center and there was nothing that could be done to correct it. When that happened they were worse off than the 225s and had a wheel/tire that was basically unusable. He advised to not totally rule them out, but be forewarned if they don't mount properly there isn't anything that can be done. However, at only $8 a tire more than the 225s it might be worth looking into for the larger side to side and front to rear contact patch. I'd like to mount one up and chalk it at pressure and under load to measure the actual contact patch.

I asked him about 275s and he says they won't even mount those up for a customer. They're pinched too much on a 7" wheel and he claims the side width tire contact patch will be no better than a 225, although the front to rear contact patch might be larger than a 225. I told him Jeff Y has used them and liked them, but he wasn't sounding too convinced. So I suppose they're off the table for the stangs since they won't mount them anyhow.



Maybe my memory is failing me, but why can you remove the highlighted items? :blink:

Well.....


D.3.e. Air conditioning systems may be removed in whole or in part.

In my shop manual there is a picture of the air conditioning system and it is the entire manifold, with blower fan, flapper valves, evaporator, etc. I can remove it entirely, or in part. I chose to remove the evaporator but the leave the plastic manifold and blower motor so I'd have some defrost action.

Wiper motors, I've still got mine but I think there is some language coming, or recently put in, that allows removal of wiper blades and systems, including the old faithful washer bottle. Mine is staying, both of them. The washer bottle weighs <1 lb and can become my catch can.

[JeffYoung]

I think Rodney is the best tire guy in teh world, and App Tire one of the best companies I've ever dealt with.

I also think they are dead wrong about the 275 on the 7" rim. I had mine mounted up by NTB since App wouldn't do it. Clearly affected the grip balance of the car. At Roebling, I had so much rear grip I literally scrubbed brand new front 225s clean -- meaning no tread -- in 2 sessions. I had so much rear grip, I'd get on the throttle and work the fronts so hard it killed them. Car at Roebling was much faster and consistent with 225s all around.

BUT, at CMP where you work the rears so much harder on corner exit, particularly in the carousel, the 275s never built up crazy heat and stayed way more consistent on the rear there.

Only track I will run them is CMP but the work like a charm there, mainly in consistency rather than overall grip. I think they handle the heat better and "stay good" longer.

Sounds like you may have the same issue with your fronts. Go 245 or 275 and see what you get.

[Ron Earp]

Sounds like you may have the same issue with your fronts. Go 245 or 275 and see what you get.

I like App Tire too, but you know me, skeptical unless I do the testing myself. So of course we're going to mount some and chalk them loaded to see if we get a larger contact patch than a 225. If we do then we'll use them. I'd also like to do some rolling friction tests with the larger tires and see how that works out.

[JoshS]

Wiper motors, I've still got mine but I think there is some language coming, or recently put in, that allows removal of wiper blades and systems, including the old faithful washer bottle. Mine is staying, both of them. The washer bottle weighs <1 lb and can become my catch can.

Read carefully Ron ... all washer systems, but only a rear wiper system may be removed.

[Ron Earp]

Read carefully Ron ... all washer systems, but only a rear wiper system may be removed.

Don't worry fellows, we'll take that wiper motor off the list. As I wrote, mine is in the car and isn't going anywhere.

Whew, you fellows do read these build threads don't you - not so much for the build but for procedures, protocols, and rules. Eight pages of Mustang build and nary a peep, a mention of a contemplated rules violation and IT rule misquote - bang, five new posts in a day. :o

[lateapex911]

hey! I've been cheerleading right along!

[Ron Earp]

Oh I'm just giving folks a hard time. If someone else had a build thread I was following and mentioned something not quite right I'd call them out too.

Things are coming together though. If I wasn't headed to the beach for some R&R I could fire it up on Saturday, but that will need to wait a few days.

[Andy Bettencourt]

For those of us who have built cars, or scour the rules for competitive advantages, these things have all gone through our minds. It's interesting to hear new takes.

[Greg Amy]

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/reartow.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/towdone.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/outsideduct.jpg



Careful with the straps Ron: if you end up in the kitty litter, they WILL simply connect their tow strap and pull you out sideways, ripping up/off a bumper cover in a heartbeat (or cut the strap).

Always assume the car will be pulled 180 degrees, not just straight on. - GA

[CRallo]

headed to the beach?!?!? get back to work!

uhoh, here come the critics... :p

speaking of which, where in the rules does it talk about something like the diamond plate floor? I'd like to do something like this too... Have a ghetto one in there now, in fact.

[Ron Earp]

The strap is a compromise. It is attached to the "frame" huge bolts, but, the bumper cover hangs down a foot below that attachment point. The bumper just isn't strong enough to handle towing (in my opinion), so we ended up with what we got. Tis true, it'll only work for towing straight +- 15 degrees or so, but we were hard pressed to come up with a better solution.

The front one will take side pulling in one direction pretty well, but not in the other. Mustangs do not have great structures for towing. I feel the front radiator subframe is too weak, and the suspension subframe and "frame rails" are too far away from the front to be of much use.

[Eagle7]

Whew, you fellows do read these build threads don't you - not so much for the build but for procedures, protocols, and rules. Eight pages of Mustang build and nary a peep, a mention of a contemplated rules violation and IT rule misquote - bang, five new posts in a day. :o
Guilty as charged :)

But I LOVE this thread. Very interesting and educational. Almost feel like I'm hanging out at your place watching you work. And very much appreciate your willingness to share. :happy204:

[Ron Earp]

Wooo hoo!

Jeff and I did a bit of work on moving cars around and in-between primed the green car and fixed oil leaks. We had a couple of fitting leaks but all is good. Primed it, at high priming RPM pressure would head up to 75psi and then the bleeder would kick in and bleed the excess pressure off. All solid.

I think we're ready for a start up on Sunday.

I don't mind sharing on the internet or the paddock. If you want to crawl around the car, look at it, hell, I ain't shy about letting people I know drive my car - go to it.

[titanium]

The tow strap location on the front is fine.
My STO Mustang has blown-up on-track many times and the tow hook has worked fine.
They have even used it to get the car on the roll-back.

The only thing I added was drilling two small holes in the bumper cover above the strap and a zip-tie to keep the strap from blowing backwards towards the radiator.

Sure the zip-tie breaks whenever the strap is use, but they are pretty cheap.

http://www.titaniummotorsports.com/

[Ron Earp]

The only thing I added was drilling two small holes in the bumper cover above the strap and a zip-tie to keep the strap from blowing backwards towards the radiator.



We did exactly the same so the strap would stay in place. The Mustang isn't an easy car to tow and we've had a lot of discussion about how to best prep it for strapping down to the trailer. It isn't nearly as easily towed or strapped as my old Z was.



The tow strap location on the front is fine.
My STO Mustang has blown-up on-track many times and the tow hook has worked fine.

Now that doesn't sound good! We're hoping to avoid that blow up part.




speaking of which, where in the rules does it talk about something like the diamond plate floor? I'd like to do something like this too... Have a ghetto one in there now, in fact.

True that. It also doesn't say you can cut the floor, but, you ain't getting a modern race seat in a Mustang, level, unless you do something of that nature. You aren't gaining an advantage, unless that advantage is having a off-the-shelf seat and bracket. To me IT is about competing with your friends and your competitive items need to be legal - weight, engine, tranny, suspension, brakes, cage, etc - those things matter. I'm not discounting rules or advocating any such thing, heavens no, but frankly I couldn't care less if you want to delete your wipers, washer bottle, your wiring harness, and all that mess as long as you're legal with the primary things and over minimum weight. It is about power to weight and suspension, make sure that stuff is on the up and up. That said, our intentions are for these two cars to be 100% legal under anyone's definition.

[SPiFF]

The front one will take side pulling in one direction pretty well, but not in the other. Mustangs do not have great structures for towing. I feel the front radiator subframe is too weak, and the suspension subframe and "frame rails" are too far away from the front to be of much use.

I am in the same boat. Honestly, sometimes I'd rather take the yelling from the geezers then mess with these stupid tow straps.

[Ron Earp]

I am in the same boat. Honestly, sometimes I'd rather take the yelling from the geezers then mess with these stupid tow straps.

Truth. Ultimately you are paying for anything that happens to your car regardless.

It is what it is. Hopefully, you'll be around if you need to tow the "SuperHondaVTECYOIntregaIGotNoLowEndHorsepowerBeast ButIBeFast"out of the trap and say "Hell no dude, don't tow my car like that".

When you in RDU for some beers?

[FLATKITTY]

Ron Earp ... "The Mustang isn't an easy car to tow & we've had a lot of discussion about how to best prep it for strapping down to the trailer."

Have you considered running the tie-down straps thru the wheels? I had some 4' straps made up by Deist. I just loop 'em thru the wheels & use the standard tie-down straps to hook 'em up to the trailer D-rings. All for corners done in minutes. Another upside to the separate straps is that they are a lot cheaper to replace when they do get worn. BTW, as an owner of a '98 Mustang GT, do any of you know how they were originally tied down to the transporters? Japanese cars have these really neat tie down hooks, but the Mustang has zip. :shrug:

[Ron Earp]

Have you considered running the tie-down straps thru the wheels? I had some 4' straps made up by Deist. I just loop 'em thru the wheels & use the standard tie-down straps to hook 'em up to the trailer D-rings. All for corners done in minutes. Another upside to the separate straps is that they are a lot cheaper to replace when they do get worn. BTW, as an owner of a '98 Mustang GT, do any of you know how they were originally tied down to the transporters? Japanese cars have these really neat tie down hooks, but the Mustang has zip. :shrug:

That is what we came up with as well. We plan to get straps of a proper length and run them through on the rear wheels and secure with a clip to the trailer. On the front we'll use straps as well through the wheels but have the ratcheting style up there to pull everything taught.

I've got no solid idea how they held these damn things down. As you mention they don't have convenient eyes for hooks and there are no screw in locations for a hook like some European cars. My best estimate is that they were held to transporters using wheel straps.

[billf]

I've got no solid idea how they held these damn things down. As you mention they don't have convenient eyes for hooks and there are no screw in locations for a hook like some European cars. My best estimate is that they were held to transporters using wheel straps.

Actually, Ron, You have been "tripping over" the mounting points for a while. Post number 187 shows a verticle slot in the front frame horn, outboard side. Yes, you mounted your sway bar originally at that point, then moved it a little farther forward.

Two more are on the nearly-horizontal surface just forward of the front chassis mount for the rear lower trailing arms.

Ford uses a "T" shape hook (connnected to a chain) to hook into the oval slot. The "T" sits at 90degrees to the slot, so it won't slip out. Then the chains are drawn down to compress the springs while in transport.

I know they were used in the '71 Pinto that I built for BS, back in; the day. I'm not sure how much earlier they were used.

Good racing,

Love the build!!

Bill:024:

[Ron Earp]

Whooot, we got a running Mustang 3.8L V6 ITS car!

[CRallo]

yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ron Earp]

One down, one to go. I worked on some wiring that needed to be finished and then we fired it up a few minutes before four pm. There were some teething troubles - air in the cooling system and an oil leak, but other than that she fired up within a crank or two and within 10 seconds was smooth.

It has a weird exhaust note though. On the street cars it is muffled via three chambers, but with a less restrictive exhaust you can hear that funky 90 degree V6 action. A warble of sorts, definitely not as smooth as a V8, but not as blatty as an inline four. I've got a video that loaded up to Facebook easily and I'm trying to figure out how to link it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldWD7Unurio


All in all we're damn pleased. One down, one to go.

[CRallo]

Good job guys!!!! I know that feeling and it is a damn good one!

[Ron Earp]

A bit more work has been happening in the mornings and evenings. Wiring is being completed, fire system run, radios installed, and the red car is getting its exhaust plumbing wrapped up.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/ronfirepull.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/roncooler.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/jeffwrap.jpg

[Ron Earp]

Data acquisition is taking a lot of time due to wiring and setup of various devices. For example, on the GoPro camera with the Tmate the housing must be cut in numerous places to allow for the data cable, power cable, and the SD card to be removed and inserted.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/rongopro.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/rongps.jpg

The radio antenna was put in the stock location but I'm not sure how I like that or if it'll be optimal for functioning.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/ronannt.jpg

I've still got mucho wiring to do for getting signals into the Tmate but at least there is light at the end of the tunnel.

We're planning to have the green car up at the May VIR event, at least for the test day, so I've got to get the wiring knocked out before this weekend. Glass has to be installed on Thursday, oil leak fixed, then we've got to spend Sat aligning the car. Hopefully it'll be road worthy on Sunday so we can hit the streets and dyno tune it the following weekend.

[Knestis]

Cameron would probably chime in and talk about antenna ground planes and all that voodoo. Short answer always seems to be 'middle of the roof' for those things.

K

[Ron Earp]

Cameron would probably chime in and talk about antenna ground planes and all that voodoo. Short answer always seems to be 'middle of the roof' for those things.

K

I know, but at least I scraped the hell out of the underside of the hole so it'd get a good chassis ground on bare metal. And it is fairly easily moved. The old Z worked pretty well mounted like this one is, in the OEM hole on the fender.

[CRallo]

nice touch Ron!

[Ron Earp]

A couple of shots showing routing for cable bundles. I know it is boring, but a hell of a lot of work goes into getting the bundles routed efficiently. The big one carries camera data, power, cool suit power, fire pull, 12V accessory line, plus a spare deactivated 12V should the need arise. The little one on the drivers side has fuel pump 12V, fuel level sender, plus brakes, turn signal, and running lights.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/insidepass.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/first/insiderear.jpg

With the exhaust now having been switched to the passenger side I'm not concerned about that cable bundle getting too warm.

[Racerlinn]

Paint the inside rear deck lid flat black......unless you don't plan on using the rear view mirror on sunny days.

[Tristan Smith]

Paint the inside rear deck lid flat black......unless you don't plan on using the rear view mirror on sunny days.


Or better yet, crinkle black paint.

Had that on the old 240sx, and it was great.

[FLATKITTY]

Ron Earp: "It has a weird exhaust note tho. On the street cars it is muffled via 3 chambers, but w/a less restrictive exhaust you can hear that funky 90 degree V6 action."

I gotta ask ... Why did you opt for a single exhaust system? Weight? Or to maintain an OE looking system (w/cat) for street legality? It seems like all that nice work on the headers would have been compromised somewhat w/the two (2) 90 degree bends on the driver's side exhaust pipe.

Also, I am playing catchup on this post tonight & noticed back a bit that someone inferred that the V6 & GT Mustang use different front bumper covers. While the Cobra cover is unique, the V6 & GT use the same bumper cover. I have a '98 GT w/320 RWHP & w/the OE bumper cover & radiator ... & no spoiler &/or additional ducting. And I can guarantee that you will have no cooling issues.

There was also a note about the Mustang being a "bottom feeder" ... this is correct. But that means that most of the cooling air comes thru the lower part of the bumper cover ... NOT under the bumper cover. The air passing thru the cover will form a high-pressure area which would prevent most of the air coming under the cover from going up & thru the radiator. It will, however, pass under the radiator & be drawn up to the negative pressure area behind the radiator ... & this, of course, would have a negative effect on any air attempting to pass thru the radiator. For those (ex- & current) 240Z drivers, you will remember a nifty little factory piece (74810-E4100) from the Euro model that bridged the gap from the radiator core support to the oil pan (if I recall correctly) that prevented the air from flowing up behind the radiator. With the plan for the 2015 Mustang to be marketed globally, maybe these types of crossover parts will be someday be available from Ford ... tho too late to be of any use on the SN95 Mustang (insert heavy sigh at this point).

[Ron Earp]

I gotta ask ... Why did you opt for a single exhaust system? Weight? Or to maintain an OE looking system (w/cat) for street legality? It seems like all that nice work on the headers would have been compromised somewhat w/the two (2) 90 degree bends on the driver's side exhaust pipe.

Check post #303, although you can't see much unfortunately from that angle. The exhaust system has been redone and now has very smooth transitions: 3 into 1 merge collector R&L, gentle transitions into a 2 into 1 merge collector in the center, then straight back to an axle dump.

A properly sized and designed single exhaust can make just as much power, or in some cases more, than a dual exhaust. A lot of work has gone into the collectors, pipe lengths, and pipe diameters of this system. Off the top of my head there are five different pipe diameters used in this system and I hope they'll pay dividends. Don't take my word though, give some of the exhaust design shops around Moresville NC, or Burn Stainless a call, you might be surprised at the system sizing they provide . Also, on the cheap you can use PipeMax; I found that the results it returned were not significantly different from the two exhaust design places I consulted and it is definitely cheaper, $45.

More updates coming - red car was started, green car got more progress, and I'll put the complete photo write up of the homemade coolsuit system V3.0 up as well since folks have PM'ed and emailed me about that.

[JeffYoung]

Burns and the old HeaderDesign software (now defunct) both kicked out a single exit with a y pipe for my car (V8) as well. The exhaust note on my car is pretty mean, sounds very Winston Cupish as I think the basic design is that merge collector system than Runt Pittman put together with them in the early 90s. I have a number of different diameters in my pipes as well, nice smooth transitions, a y pipe and the a single exit.

I'm pretty convinced the single biggest HP improvement I saw on my car was the exhaust as it is tuned to move the torque peak up and thus peak HP up.

[Ron Earp]

First up is the homemade driver cooling system, EarpCool V2.0. A few people have asked me details about making one of these and instead of writing about it I took pictures while I assembled it this weekend.

All you need is a cooler ($8), hose ($5), insulation for the hose ($7), a live well pump ($19, bought the good one), assorted pvc barbs/hose clamps ($3), and to make it like the real deal, some dry break connectors (~$20) that you can purchase here:


Everything else you can get from WallyWorld and you should be under $60 all in, including the connectors. If you spent more than that then you did something wrong.

Pictures should pretty much tell the tale.


http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/earpcool1.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/earpcool2.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/march2012/week3/earpcool3.jpg

[Ron Earp]

Part Two:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler1a.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler2.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler3.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler4.jpg

[Ron Earp]

Part Three:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler6.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler7.jpg

You might need to use tape as a bushing to get that little plastic barb to fit in there correctly. Apply some epoxy and call it a day.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler8.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler9.jpg

[Ron Earp]

Part Four

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler10.jpg

And no, I have not noticed any difference in water temps by bundling the lines. I am sure there is, but these things are plenty cold.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler11.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler12.jpg

Very light. Weight with lines, pump, and lid was just under five pounds.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler13.jpg

[Ron Earp]

Part Five

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler14.jpg

I put rivnuts into the steel floor to mount the cooler. Then I drilled down through the cooler and attach the unit that way. So that the bolts don't become heat sinks I bond foam and silicone over the top of them (not done yet) to insulate them from the ice water.

It was a difficult thing to work in the trunk area for the wiring and plumbing of the fire bottle and cooler system.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-ronincar.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-cooler15.jpg

You can see the bolt heads and the sealing silicone in the bottom of the unit.

And, tada, all done.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/mini-coolerdone.jpg

Now, if you think about it ahead of time you can properly position that spigot on the side so you can drain the water out of it. All I have to to is pull up that rubber connector seal, push the button, and the water will drain out through the bottom of the car.

[joeg]

Ron--You make a great teacher.

The real weight of the device is with the ice water, however.

[Ron Earp]

The real weight of the device is with the ice water, however.

Of course, but, this unit is lighter than the FAST unit we compared it to (it is going in the second stang) by 3lbs. And, this little unit has the advantage of a screw on top. No messy straps, latches, and all that jazz that allow the water to spill out of the cooler.

[SPiFF]

Of course, but, this unit is lighter than the FAST unit we compared it to (it is going in the second stang) by 3lbs. And, this little unit has the advantage of a screw on top. No messy straps, latches, and all that jazz that allow the water to spill out of the cooler.

You need to build one for Jeff Young!!!! :026:

[Matt93SE]

Just for grins, you should have mounted the cooler right next to the fuel cell. Then try to fill them both at once. Ahhhh, things you learn how NOT to do at LeMons. ;)

[Ron Earp]

Hot damn. I think I'm going to "finish" the green car today. I lot has happened over the last week with sorting and fixing various things, putting a rough alignment on the car, rough corner weighting, and tidying up lots of small jobs that needed tending to. the last two items I have to fix before the car can be driven is to mount the harness and oil catch can.

Here is a picture of the working dash. The Aeroforce gauge there can display items off the CAN bus and log them plus sound alarms on two parameters. The wide band is displayed on this gauge as well as the oil pressure. The Traqmate is doing normal Traqmate things plus has oil pressure, wide band, water temperature, throttle position sensor, plus brake on/off, as well as controlling the GoPro HD camera. So far everything has testing as "working", although the sensors have yet to be scaled in the Traqmate.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/dash1.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/fosters.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/dash2.jpg

[Ron Earp]

It is "done". Well, at least it is able to be driven on the street and doesn't leak oil, water, or have other bad habits.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/april/middle/done.jpg

Obviously now the real project actually starts, but at least Mustang One is running and running pretty well. I drove it and put about 0.8 hours on the clock to start breaking in the motor. Jeff Young took it for a few laps around the neighborhood as well. All systems are functioning well and doing what they were designed to do. Next step is getting it to a dyno to make sure the motor is safe to turn up to peak power RPM, then the track.

A bit anticlimactic in that there were no emergencies and so on, but that is a good thing. Actually, it has been a good weekend - Mustang One finished and I sold my F250, so things are on the up and up. I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with the family over the next few weeks and less time in the garage.

[Robbie]

That's a sharp looking Improved Jalopy!

[Mike Mackaman]

excellent work! I am ashamed to say that I haven't touched my car since last year. Seeing what you have done is very motivating, I will get that thing put back together and run at CMS if not sooner.

[manny]

Ron, you have put together a fantastic car. I have been watching and reading every post since the beginning. I am going to my next race this weekend at Daytona doing the Enduro and the SARRC, when done i think i will take mine apart and put it back together using yours as an example, thank you. Yes im a Ford nut too but only in the ITB ranks. I like showing that if you can drive good you can finish good too :023:. Keep us informed as to how they run.

[Ron Earp]

Thanks for the encouragement fellows. Again, this is a group effort and the Jeffs and I have many, many months into these two Mustangs. Frankly, we're tired of working on them but at least the end is in sight.

Stang One got graphics and dyno time, yahoo!

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/number.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/dyno.jpg

We had about two hours of dyno time today and it was very productive. I'm pleased that we performed all the tuning and modifications ourselves and sort of know what the hell we're doing. What we've got is a safe initial tune, but in no way have we exploited the full features of the tuning nor have we run through the complete multivariate optimization of parameters. I suspect there is another two to five percent in getting that all sorted but we'll work on that in the future. For right now I'm very pleased with what we've got and we're going to try and hit the test day at VIR on Friday.

[Butch Kummer]

"complete multivariate optimization of parameters"

Wow - THAT's a mouthful! :rolleyes:

Good luck this weekend...

[lateapex911]

Good luck at VIR! How many going? You Jeff and Jeff? Both stangs?
Out of respect I won't ask about the power numbers ;) But good luck keeping it from the ITAC!!! LOL>

[Ron Earp]

Thanks for the wishes guys. We've got just the green one going as the red one isn't going to be quite ready. We could get the red one done with a couple of late nights but we think it'd be a bad idea and we'd trade off some preparation in trying to get it ready. We'll have our hands full dealing with the green one, I'm sure.

Of course we're not posting up our first effort dyno sheets, but we will do so eventually. Suffice to say, it isn't an ITA car by any stretch of the imagination as some posed a few months ago, and as long as it'll handle it has power to be somewhat competitive in ITS now. And it'll get better with development.

Just like any car in IT you've got to make your selections on attributes you favor. I wanted a car with a broad power band and I think we got that covered, but I'm sure we'll give up some handling to the lighter weight ITS cars with more sophisticated suspensions. All in all I think the car will work out just fine and be fun to race. And, with the low-revving engine and typically heavily built driveline and suspension pieces, I hope it'll be durable and long lived. It might not ever be "the car to have" in ITS, but I think we'll show it to be a reasonable choice in ITS and with work and luck, maybe a good one in ITS. Hopefully, if ITS continues to be well-balanced there won't ever be a "car to have" in ITS, but if that were to happen my money would be on the new Miatas or a Pontiac Solstice.

But, with the Mustang I'm happy. I sure as hell like the "turn key and watch car start and idle" thing it has going. Doing the Carb Shuffle and Ether Spray dance with the old Z was getting tiresome, plus, I'll not miss the drum brakes. And, I don't feel the need to carry every spare part with me that I could possible use as every Advance/AutoZone/Pep Boys is a Mustang parts warehouse; new parts cheap.

All in all I'm very pleased and looking forward to doing some ITS racing.

[JeffYoung]

Car is a good looking car in person. Meaner than stock by a lot. Drives nice, HUGE on the inside.

A great addition to ITS -- can't wait to see them on track.

[Knestis]

This just flat rocks.

That is all.

K

[Ron Earp]

And coming from a German aficionado that is high praise and much appreciated. We'll get some pictures up from the VIR test day. I'm hoping things go well, but I'm a realist and know test days are just that.

Thinking of a new racing logo for it, like:

http://knoji.com/images/user/cropped%20integral%20function(1).jpg

Area under the curve, we got it.

[Ron Earp]

Test of thread search function

[Ron Earp]

Well the time has come. #38 ITS was rolled out for some logbook photos and loaded up on the trailer. As expected the Mustang is a bit longer, and wider, than the Z so it looks a bit like 10 lbs of pooh in a 5 lb bag when on the trailer.

VIR test day here we come.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/logsmall1.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/logsmall2.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/logsmall3.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/trailerload.jpg

[Ron]

Go and set the world on fire mustang. Your smaller brother in Atlanta is pulling for you.

[Racerlinn]

You're gonna take a lot of shit from people that ask you "what kind of V8 does it have?"

[Ron Earp]

;I’m pleased to write that the VIR test day came off without a hitch. The car ran beautifully all day. Water temps pegged on 180F, oil pressure 75psi, and oil temps right at 210F. In short, we're pleased.

We arrived at VIR Friday around 7am to get unloaded. After a quick driver’s meeting we learned we were in group four for a 10am start. Since we had spent so much time preparing to run the car we didn’t have anything to do but wait, which of course built up a fair amount of anticipation and nervousness. I hadn’t driven an ITS car in about a year so I was apprehensive of climbing in and hitting the track.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised that within half a lap I felt right at home in the car. I ran the entire thirty minute session and gradually pushed the car a little bit more each lap, eventually finishing up the session with some 2:24s or thereabouts. My first impressions were that the car was very stable, much more stable than my Z and the Lola. It turned, went where you pointed it, and braking was flat out awesome. It did pull a bit on braking but otherwise it was all good and a solid car. Steering effort was damn high due to the huge amount of caster in the suspension, something we should have picked up on earlier, but there wasn’t anything we could do the alleviate that problem. Balance was so-so with respect to oversteer/understeer, but as I wasn’t pushing it a huge amount I wasn’t getting very much data for those handling characteristics.

Once I was back in the pits I conveyed as much info as I could to Jeff G and we made a few adjustments for session two, a change in camber and a bit of a change in toe. We bled the brakes, checked fluids, and we were ready for session two.

During session two I was able to push the car harder and get more of a feel for how it would drive under race conditions. Braking deeper into corners, holding down the throttle more in T1 through T5 and pushing more in the uphill esses. I tried to hang with a couple of the fast ITS Integras out in the test session but no dice there. They had more top end power and were handling and driving better, but it was entertaining to try and chase them. The front end did have a tendency to wash out when pushed, but I attributed part of the problem to the tires that were getting too hot unevenly across the surface and ending up with pressures around 41 psi – clearly we need to start with lower tire pressures and make some suspension adjustments. I ended the session with a 2:20.4 and a 2:21.0 as my best laps. Being as how this was Test Day #1 with Mustang v1.0 I was pretty pleased with it. Back to the pits and a change to ride height, toe adjustment, bar, and camber and we were ready for more action.

For session three I decided to only drive three laps and then convinced Jeff G to get in and take the wheel for the remainder of the session. The session went well and back in the pits we compared notes. Jeff G had a very different impression of the car – he felt the steering effort was too high to be drivable, the front end understeered too much, and the car felt too heavy to drive well. Basically, two sides of the same coin and I think he was pretty disappointed in the way it felt. Now, there is a difference in perspective – I’m comparing everything to a Z car whereas he’s comparing it to a perfectly setup Miata that he owned and raced for years. He wants the car to feel light, precise, and razor sharp, whereas I’m just happy if it brakes without shaking the car to pieces, runs well, and makes it around track without a failure. Clearly, he has the right vision and is where we want to be, but that might be an unobtainable goal.

So, by session four it was late afternoon and Jeff Young had finally arrived at the track. We decided to give him a session in the car to see what he thought about it. He got no forewarning about our experiences as we wanted him to be unbiased about the experience. Mr. Young belted in and off he went for the session. He stayed out the entire time and from what we could tell he was pushing the car hard straight out of the gate in typical Mr. Young fashion. We clocked him at a string of 22s and 21s, then a few 2:20s back to back. Once back in the pits his verdict was “Great, very racable, needs more power but it’s ready to go!” I’ll let him chime in on the thread about the car but his impression was favorable, maybe not as favorable as my rose tinted analysis but not as pessimistic as Jeff G’s. Also, Jeff Y is going to like it better than Jeff G since the Mustang is far more TR8-like than it is Miata-like.

So there you have it. The day was very successful in my opinion and we learned a lot about where we are, and, more importantly we’ve learned a lot about where we want to be. We know what aspects of the suspension we want to change and develop, and we’re planning to apply those changes to Jeff G’s Mustang that will debut at CMP on Memorial Day. Therefore, we didn’t stick around to race the car today and tomorrow. We had our data, we knew we had a somewhat competitive and racable car, but we also knew we had a lot of work to do to both cars if we wanted to have a chance of making the CMP Monster Memorial. So we packed up Sleestack Lightning and rolled back to the lair.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be working hard on all fronts – suspension, setup, engine tuning, and exhaust. We feel the car has very strong S potential and had we had another 20 hp this weekend we would have undoubtedly turned some competitive ITS times. And I don’t estimate that the 20hp will be hard to obtain given the extremely conservative ECU tuning we’re running now and the unexploited power we have in the ECU. We also feel we know pretty well what we need to do with the suspension to improve turn in, reduce steering effort, and improve the balance of the car.

I have Traqmate data for sessions but the damn video portion only worked on Jeff’s session, and, it is out of synch for some reason. If I can get the video/Tmate to line up I’ll upload the data later today or tomorrow. If I can’t get the Tmate data to synch I’ll just upload a few laps of Mr Young’s drive in the car.

PS-Ron, thanks for the call and the tips with the panhard.

[Ron Earp]

Allrighty, I got the video up, but I think the sound/data/video is a bit out of synch but I'm tired of trying to fix it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dByf3kLWNKw&feature=youtu.be

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/youtube.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dByf3kLWNKw&feature=youtu.be)

Mr. Young's lap as the video for my recorded session is SOL, but we were both within 0.4s of each other. Not too shabby of a sound from a six pot! Outside the car thought it is unbelievably quiet, by far the quietest car in the session. We suspect that our system is costing us some horsepower (not just due to how quiet it is) and have some plans in store.

[Knestis]

It sounds tough!

K

[billf]

Sounds tough, and looks like it corners flat. Great job. I have envy!!!!!

Good racing,

Bill

[JeffYoung]

It's a great race car, I loved it. I only got 6-7 laps since we had a black flag all and just had enough time to get comfortable in the car. By the time I did, and could turn 20s, I had killed the front tires. More on that in a minute.

In short, in looking at the vid, I gave up a lot of time in 3, 4/5/6, 10 and Oak Tree. And ran a 2:20.1 I think the car does 2:18s as it sits now, maybe more with newer tires.

The really good: Sucker has great basic handling characteristics. Corners flat. Good balance. When tires are fresh, slight bias towards oversteer (perfect), when the fronts get worked it goes to under though (need to work on that).

The brakes are freaking awesome. Whoever seemed to think these cars wouldn't stop be WRONG. Car ran four sessions and when I got in it, the pedals was high and hard and stayed that way.

The good: Tranny shifts nice. I like the steering feel, it's heavy but not terribly so with good feedback. Power is I'd say average to above average for ITS right now, but here's the kicker. It's awesome in 2/34th gear. Or at least really good. More on that in a second.

The needs to be worked on: The car clearly works the front end too hard and kills the front tires too fast. I had nice 35 PSI pressures all around on it the first few laps but working the car hard in 3/4/5/6 quickly pushed the left front to 41. Not good.

You can see it in the vid. What kills this car right now is the shift to fifth, which is like a .62 overdrive or something. The car enters the esses at good speed --109/110 and then can't accelerate up them like mine does. 122 or so on the back straight is about 5 mph too slow and I am positive it is the gearing.

This car will be a winner in ITS. Needs six months to a year of development and might need a rear end that allows it to run 2-3-4 rather than 3-4-5.

And yes, the motor sounds awesome on the inside.

These guys did a great job with these cars. I think they will be fantastic S cars and I hope we see more of them out there.

[manny]

if i may ask, because im just learning about it also, what program are you using for tuning?

[chuck baader]

Ron, you might want to try the NASCAR boom tube setup on your car. My 6 cylinder registers 97-98db everywhere without a muffler. Chuck

[Ron Earp]

if i may ask, because im just learning about it also, what program are you using for tuning?

SCT Advantage. Some of the V6s ECUs are "cracked", which means Advantage gives you full control over all Ford parameters which are OEM. The OEM ECU can even do individual cylinder spark control as well as a host of other features, so in that regard it is on par with the some of the best stand alone units. The downside is that the the interface is somewhat obtuse compared to Megasquirt, however, it does give you access to everything you'd need to change while still leaving intact as much of the OEM programming/logic/enviroment/development for things like cold start, hot start, and so on which you know Ford has got down pat.

Ron

[Ron Earp]

The really good: Sucker has great basic handling characteristics. Corners flat.

The brakes are freaking awesome.

Power is I'd say average to above average for ITS right now, but here's the

The needs to be worked on: The car clearly works the front end too hard and kills the front tires too fast.

These guys did a great job with these cars. I think they will be fantastic S cars and I hope we see more of them out there.

I we agree on most of these points. The brakes are really damn good, despite the weight, and if these are "bad" brakes on a 27XX lb car then I envy the folks that have even better brakes in ITS. Coming fom the Z background of having to worry about brakes all the time, these are fantastic.

Power is definitely average, but we have the dyno sheets to show that in comparison to the other cars we know. It has a broad power band but it is shy of the power brokers or base cars in ITS - RX7s, 280Z, TR8s, etc.

Right now we're understeering a fair amount but I think we can dial it out, as well as the steering effort and vagueness. Development will continue and we'll get them right. Still, I'm pretty damn happy a couple of days later and optimistic that we'll have a strong running ITS car later this year.

These cars are particular though and like any ITS car take a lot of time to develop, so, while the initial buy in of a Mustang isn't expensive I don't want someone to think that these cars are inexpensive to build and develop. The truth is they are probably more expensive to work with than other ITS cars that are better known quantities.

I fell into that trap somewhat as the Mustang parts are cheap, that is the replacement parts are cheap, but you don't use many replacement parts, or, off the shelf parts for suspension and so on. And, the Mustang outfits are of little use to a road racer, plus, specific to these cars, V6 engine work and development out there is basically of no use since it is geared toward drag racing and illegal modifications. So, what I'm trying to say is I like the cars because I like Fords, Mustangs, and fabrication work, but, if you don't like that then beware. There isn't an outfit that you can call that can tell you exactly what to do like you can with a Z, RX7, Miata, and some other IT cars. Fair warning, you might be in uncharted waters....

[Steve35]

As I said before Ron, you need to write a book on the build. I'll buy the first one. You are the new source on V6 Mustangs.

thanks for the great thread

Steve

[spawpoet]

How many times did you have to adjust the rear drums out Friday? Tune the carbs? Lock down the rocker arm adjusters?

On the serious side congrats. Friday must have been very satisfying. A couple of questions. Obviously you find it more driveable than a Z, but by comparison does it feel like a heavier car? Only Stang I ever drove was Tim's Cobra, and it was very heavy and felt that way. Also I'm curious as to how far your times were from what you normally ran with the Z at VIR.

[Ron Earp]

As I said before Ron, you need to write a book on the build. I'll buy the first one. You are the new source on V6 Mustangs.

Steve

Heck no, there are folks far more knowledgeable than we are - we're learning from Dave Brown, Ron, and all the ITB Mustangers, as well as all the AS guys, AIX folks, and so on. Fox/SN95 are really similar, except for the tiny little cosmetic differences, and the basic principles apply. We appreciate all the help that folks have given us.


How many times did you have to adjust the rear drums out Friday? Tune the carbs? Lock down the rocker arm adjusters?

On the serious side congrats. Friday must have been very satisfying. A couple of questions. Obviously you find it more driveable than a Z, but by comparison does it feel like a heavier car? Only Stang I ever drove was Tim's Cobra, and it was very heavy and felt that way. Also I'm curious as to how far your times were from what you normally ran with the Z at VIR.

None. None. And None. That was a good day.

Mustang V1.0 is a mixed bag. It is heavier than my Z by a couple hundred pounds, but, while you can feel that the times don't show it that much. The best I ever ran in my Z at VIR was a 2:17.x, Jeff Young a 2.17.1, and while we have a slight power advantage on the Mustang we're dealing with a huge handling deficit - Mustang V1.0 simple isn't as tuned and developed as the 260Z. And, comparing lap times from a Z in 2010, dyno results from 2009 and 2012, well, none of that can be good science. That said, I'm pleased we were able to turn times that were somewhat competitive and I feel we can best those times with development.

We're looking forward to doing more development and getting the cars competitive. Next up on deck is Jeff G's Mustang that already has changes, ones we put in this morning, that we think will improve it over Sleestak.

[Ron Earp]

The red car went out for a 30 minute shake down run. All is good. We did discover a radiator hose with a leak of some type that we'll fix. Being able to run a car on the street is a valuable thing, especially with new cars.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/reddrive.jpg

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/insidered.jpg


So, I'm thinking Jeff G will make the CMP Memorial Monster, at least for the test day. Sleestak will be there as well. Oh, BTW, someone asked where that name came from and it is easy:

Green = Lizard
Orange = 1970s = Land of the Lost
Lizard + Land of the Lost = Sleestak

[PSherm]

I would think maybe "Godzilla" would be a better name than Sleestak... :D

[Ron Earp]

I would think maybe "Godzilla" would be a better name than Sleestak... :D

It might be, but then the expectations are raised considerably. Steestaks just walk around and hiss a lot. We can live up to those standards.

[Ron Earp]

Mustang #2 is now done and sporting a few graphics for its logbook photos.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/stang2small.jpg

Both cars got out for a bath this afternoon and then a little Sunday driving on the street. Stang #2 has to have a fuel line repair that we learned about on the drive, but better here than CMP on Friday morning.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/twostangs.jpg

[cjb25hs]

Ron, either of you guys running on Saturday. If you are add me to your crew list, i'd be glad to help you guys out. Since my car is still apart and a no go on driving till August I have some free time on my hands. TIA Chris Braunlich


Mustang #2 is now done and sporting a few graphics for its logbook photos.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/stang2small.jpg

Both cars got out for a bath this afternoon and then a little Sunday driving on the street. Stang #2 has to have a fuel line repair that we learned about on the drive, but better here than CMP on Friday morning.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/twostangs.jpg

[JeffYoung]

I'll let Ron do the heavy duty splainin' but let's just say that the Roostang race debut was extraordinarily good.

I drove a test session and then practice/qual/race for the Carolina Cup race and these cars are FUN to drive. Handle great, really good brakes (who said Roostangs couldn't stop?), fantastic midrange.

Have some issues to sort but this cars will be very, very good ITS cars.

Que Ron....

[seckerich]

I would say based on CMP results that the Mustangs are going to be a force in ITS. Very nice builds, well driven, and getting faster every time out. It was good to see Ron run so many races and not be on the trailer Sunday morning. :smilie_pokal:

[Ron Earp]

Thanks fellows, Jeff G and I do appreciate the comments. The cars did draw a lot of attention over the weekend, especially from corner workers and folks who spend a lot of time watching racing. More than a few told us they were really pleased to see something new on track. I'm happy that the cars made it through the weekend and were reasonably competitive on their first outing. There is much work to do now with development, but as Steve says at least they didn't hit the trailer on day one. Thanks for Central Carolina's Region for hosting one of the best race weekends of the year, the Memorial Monster. Lots of racing, good folks, and a real pleasure to attend.

Jeff and I both ran the test day on Friday and we learned much useful information about the cars. We were testing many different things although you might not know it from first inspection. While the cars are similar, there are differences and when driving the cars back to back you can definitely feel them. Among the things we experimented with were rear gear ratio, roll centers, shock settings, tire types/sizes, exhaust system, and of course all the usual suspects like pressures and bar settings.

We had to solve a few gremlins on the red car during the test day, but Sleestak ran without incident and simply behaved like a big Miata - insert gas, turn key and drive. By the end of the day the red car was doing the same thing, therefore, that was a win for the team all around that was celebrated with some grilling and beer.

The Good:
*Brakes - man o man, whoever told me these cars wouldn't stop couldn't be more wrong. Single piston calipers can get it done.
*Rear end - In short, this stick axle works like a champ.
*Predictable - no vices, snaps, or bites. The car is very honest and lets you know a bit ahead of time what is going to happen. You decide if you want it to happen or not.
*Midrange power - lots of it. The red car has more top end than Sleestak and we know what needs to be done there. Both motors run at 190F, oil pressure around 70psi, and keep doing their thing lap after lap (except for that missed shift Jeff G had on Sunday).
*Stability - the platform is big with a longer than average wheelbase, a bit heavy, but that lends itself to being stable. This thing loves itself some curbs.


The Bad:
*Front suspension tuning - We have lots of learn about setting up the front and getting it to do what we want. I think Jeff is a bit generous when he says they "handle great" - they handle decently, but great, well, that might be a stretch. We think the basic pieces are there to improve them, but we'll need to spend a lot of time tuning in order to learn to get the maximal effectiveness out of it. Welcome to race car development.
*Oink - The minimum weight on this car is akin to the main chorus in that old En Vogue song, You Ain't Never Gonna Get it.
*Size - These cars are large and they do feel that way. Heavy might be the wrong word, but large is more of a proper fit. Jeff said I eclipsed the Miata in one section of the track, the Miata disappeared, just like a magic trick.

The Ugly
*Nothing really ugly about the cars, just that we've got a lot of work to do to be in the hunt at places like RRR, VIR, Daytona and probably RA, although the latter I've never been to. CMP might be the best track for the car but we'll see how it goes. We know we have engine development to do, but more importantly at this stage is chassis tuning. It basically turns and stops, but we want it to turn and stop well.

I don't do so well in writing up race details and Jeff can comment on his experiences in the CCPS. Basically the car ran well and was competitive, although not at the top tier ITS level where Steve, Jeff Y, Steve P, Chuck, and others play. On Saturday I qualified in 2nd place for ITS and finished second. Chuck Hines and I had some good battling going on in that race and everything was clean and smooth. Good racing with Chuck being glued to me for most of the race around the track. He got around me twice and I was able to get back around him and take second place, far behind Steve E in the extremely well-driven and prepared RX7. Jeff G kept his Mustang in the race but wasn't able to keep it in the top three, however, he's never driven CMP so I think he was doing exceptionally fine.

Jeff Y and Ron M ran the CCPS on Saturday and did well with it. They were on the pole for ITS and finished first in class, down only a place to the overall leaders of the race. Sleestak got a little metal on plastic love though in T11 with a slower Miata, but the damage was minimal and didn't hamper the car from returning to the track.

For the Sunday SARRC I didn't qualify to potential. I wasn't driving on my marks and was slower than Saturday. Steve E and Chuck H did well though, with Chuck picking up a couple of seconds over his times on Saturday and Kent T also improving, so those three fellows had spots 1-3, while the two Mustangs started fourth and fifth. I followed the leaders for many laps until eventually Chuck and Kent's battling for second allowed me to catch up to them. I couldn't get around Chuck, but, patience prevailed and I was able to get around him when he made a mistake, but there was no way I could catch him or Kent. I didn't drive well and know it, late on throttle, early on braking, too much lifting, so if you watch the video keep your comments to yourself! :-) Finished third and was very happy to even be in the hunt for wood. Jeff G had to retire the red car due to a money shift, but we don't know how much money that cost - yet.

Here are some pictures from Rob Bodle and in car from the race on Sunday. I'll try and get part two from Sunday up and maybe some from Saturday too. But these damn Traqmate conversions and uploads to Youtube take some time.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IId91QeZoI&feature=youtu.be

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may//cmprace.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IId91QeZoI&feature=youtu.be)

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZWm96vL7UI&feature=youtu.be

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may//cmprace2.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZWm96vL7UI&feature=youtu.be)

[Cobrar05]

I was impressed. I was pretty focused on these two cars for professional reasons and i am already trying to find a way to wrangle one for myself.

I've got about a hundred more shots of these cars. I'll post more when I get time.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b40/txpd/IMG_3468.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b40/txpd/IMG_1912.jpg

[spawpoet]

Congrats on the great results first time out Ron. It's always nice to see hard work pay off like that. Watching the video it's interesting to see where you were strong vs. the two Mazdas. You definitely have a lot of midrange. Also the car sounds great on the in-car. It's weird watching your tach though :-). How many IT cars are up-shifitng at 5300 rpm, and NOT going for a lower gear at 2700 rpms?

[JeffYoung]

TR8....325e.....

Great vid. Again, these cars fun and do handle great if you keep the tires under them. I think I turned my fast lap in the CCPS 11 or 12 laps in, a 52.2 or something....

More later.

[spawpoet]

TR8....325e.....

Great vid. Again, these cars fun and do handle great if you keep the tires under them. I think I turned my fast lap in the CCPS 11 or 12 laps in, a 52.2 or something....

More later.


My bad. I forgot about your TR. Also didn't realize the 325 didn't rev more. Anyways it's pretty impressive for you guys to be running towards the pointy end of the field so early in the Mustangs development.

[CRallo]

Great stuff!!!

[cjb25hs]

Ron, Jeff and Jeff, just wanted to say that you guys have done an awesome job on these 2 cars. I am glad I made the trip down Saturday, it has given me some much needed motivation to get my car ready for CMS and get my shoulder closer to 90%. Let's just say these cars are making me raise my car and driver development. By the end of the year, not counting the few strong 3 series that usually only play at RA, there will be at least 5 or 6 cars at SARRC's that could easily win.

[SPiFF]

Unlike the Miata that had several tank slappers and great saves.

That is just Chuck's style. He almost crashes about 10 times every corner.

[Mike Mackaman]

Ron, Thanks for the inspiration! My Z has an engine and trans for the first time in 2 years. Hope to fire it tomorrow and get the last bit of "alignment" done. Alignment is in quotes because it will take a large chain and a truck to perform said alignment!

See you at CMS!
Mike

[Ron Earp]

Finally had a few minutes to upload a file or two. This is the start of the Saturday CMP race. Lots of familiar ITR, ITS, and IT7 cars in that mix.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/may/cmpracestart.jpg

[callard]

15 cars total? Summit Point had 16 IT-S out of a 33 car field. C'mon up.

[JeffYoung]

Light turnout for some reason. We usually have 10-14 ITS cars. Four of us in ITS (Me, Parrish, Munnerlyn, Miller) were out with mechanicals.

This year has been good for ITS at VIR -- 15-16 car fields. Down at Roebling adn CMP, up at Sebring and Daytona.

[chuck baader]

Wat Wrow....looks like another excuse for Jeff not to show at RA in July!!! Chuck

[JeffYoung]

Wat Wrow....looks like another excuse for Jeff not to show at RA in July!!! Chuck

Course, I've never seen you at VIR.

[chuck baader]

And probably won't...too damn far. CB

[Ron Earp]

The VIR locals need to be more adamant about the non-VIR locals coming to the track. We need a "VIR Hassle Group" like RA has.

That said, we're planning to bring two Mustangs and I hope one TR8 to Road Atlanta in July. I've never been to Road Atlanta as a racer and look forward to giving it a go.

[SPiFF]

And probably won't...too damn far. CB

You are missing out!! Best circuit in the SEDIV.

[JIgou]

Any updates, Ron? You guys going to make the ARRC with one or both?

[Ron Earp]

I haven't posted any of the development stuff we've done, which is a huge amount. Lots of spring changes, setup changes, MAF curve modeling and programming, dyno work, exhaust changes, axle development, front suspension work, and so on. Anyhow, the cars are doing well. We just raced them at Charlotte Motor Speedway and had a ball. Before that one of them was at RRR but we that we treated more like a test day weekend than a race.

Our next planned outings are the SIC at RRR and Goblin's Go at VIR. We might bring them down to the Atlanta Road Race Competition just to have somewhere to race, but that one is still up in the air. I want to race Road Atlanta but the ARRC has no specific appeal over any of the other Road Atlanta races. 2012 is all about development but we're hoping 2013 will be a good solid year of racing for us with a couple of competitive ITS cars.

I'll get the CMS video up here in the next couple of days. It was the first time in an ITS car for either of us at CMS and at least we finished with perfectly running cars. I did enjoy dicing a bit with Zsolt, he's nice and clean to race with. I managed to take home a third place finish because some the ITS front runners got knocked out by another driver or spun themselves out. With more seat time and a bit of tuning plus good driving I think the Mustangs will be tough competition at CMS.

Here are a few pictures from CMS:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/ITSMustang/IMG_0133.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/ITSMustang/IMG_0286.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/ITSMustang/ron.jpg

[Ron Earp]

I've got a video of the SARRC#1 race on Saturday. Don't laugh, I can't drive that place to save my life. Toward the latter half I got a bit better but the start and for the first couple of laps I was really bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa1WvZHCGyk&feature=youtu.be

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/cmssmall.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa1WvZHCGyk&feature=youtu.be)

By the time I sorted out some driving the lead ITS group was long gone. The cars have decent power but we've yet to sort out what gearing we'll ultimately wish to use for them. Both of them handle very well though. We've done enough work there that we're pleased with the driveability, ultimate grip, front rear balance, and steering. Yes, they're still heavy but you don't feel it so much. Both cars are progressing and based on what we learned at CMS a few more changes are in progress. We feel like we're getting close to a good solid baseline setup though.

[Steve35]

Great work. What's the air dam you are using?

Steve

[Ron Earp]

Great work. What's the air dam you are using?

Steve

Basically none. We haven't progressed to that area of development. That little piece you see there is a $89 part from some Mustang outfit that bolts on. We envision an undertray as well as something with a front lip and some more duct options.

Ron

[Ron Earp]

There has been a considerable amount of work on the cars with setup and also with getting tools and trailers straight. We're signed up to hit the SIC and looking forward to a good weekend.

We've made a few minor changes:

Rear wing installed on both cars to perform wing/no wing experiments at RRR.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/july2012/wing.JPG

Made some sunblock visors for the cars out of vinyl. These things take longer than you would think.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/july2012/block.JPG

And installed a rear facing camera to record what's happening back there. It isn't synched with the Traqmate but will be if they ever release their dual camera sync cord and software. GoPro cameras got slashed (basic HD units) to $125 so they are a heck of a deal right now. These two are rigged into the dash switch and Tmate so they are charged when the car is running and both sport 16 gig cards ($12 each at Target) so they don't need to be changed often.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/july2012/cameras.JPG

And made a couple of changes to the dash layout and got everything 100% functional. We're all washed up and ready for the trailer.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/july2012/washed.jpg

[FLATKITTY]

Ron Earp ... "Rear wing installed on both cars to perform wing/no wing experiments at RRR."

Just an FYI, according to the Ford guys at the PRI show, the amount of downforce for the SN95 rear wing is exactly what the wing weighs ... about 10 lbs. With that said, a # of years ago, during a Firehawk practice session at Daytona, we taped up a similar style OE wing on the backside of a Nissan 240SX/S14. In other words, laying duct tape on the rear deck up to the leading edge of the wing. Once up to speed coming off the bus stop, both top speed & rear end adhesion thru 12 was noticeably improved. Most likely, the latter lead to the former.

[Ron Earp]

Just got back from the SIC race and had a great weekend. Although only two guys had enough points to claim the championship we had a good field of ITS cars:

Four Miatas, TR8, 280Z, two Mustangs, RX7s, Integra, and I'm probably missing something else in there. Kip, Chuck, Jeff Y, and Ron M had a good race upfront in ITS with some low 22s being the norm for that group of cars. They were fast, clean, and ran a tight nose to tail race. Chuck Hines drove a smart and clean race to claim the SARRC points title, congratulations to Chuck, while Jeff Y and Ron M tried hard to run him down. I botched my start and then got held in one lap by some traffic, so I wasn't close enough to them to give much chase. That and being slower than those fellows, I managed to end up in in fifth in the Mustang and Jeff G finished either sixth or seventh with his.

The video is a bit washed out due to an improper metering setup with the camera. But it sort of works.

http://youtu.be/zZXkI8zQb6Q?t=2m24s

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/rrrrace.jpg (http://youtu.be/zZXkI8zQb6Q?t=2m24s)

I enjoyed the track and driving the car there. I believe Jeff Y said my best time was a 1:22.7 and I think I can better than by a few tenths for sure with driver and we've got some ideas of what to change with the car setup to improve it as well. Overall the car is still very predictable fairly easy on the driver.

Off to VIR in two weeks and after that maybe the ARRC.



Just an FYI, according to the Ford guys at the PRI show, the amount of downforce for the SN95 rear wing is exactly what the wing weighs ... about 10 lbs.

I think we're too slow for downforce anyhow, at least at that size of a wing. I was wondering if it might detach the airflow from the car as that is what spoliers do, but, technically this piece has a gap between the body and the plane surface so it is constructed as a wing and probably won't do that. In the end we didn't have time to do the experiments so it is coming off my car and headed back to the parts bin.

[Ron]

Looks a lot like my car going around the track. You a really smooth and comfortable in the car.

[Ron Earp]

Smooth and comfortable is all relative.

[JeffYoung]

Mustangs did really well. 23s on the test day and a 22.7 for one lap in the race.

I think it is going to take low 22s from here on out to get teh ITS pole at Roebling adn consistent ones during the race. Next year is shaping up pretty awesome.

[Ron Earp]

Mustangs did really well. 23s on the test day and a 22.7 for one lap in the race.


With no draft either. I think if I'd had the benefit of the S-car train upfront then I'd be a bit faster. And if I'd man up and just hold the loud pedal down everywhere, well, that would help too.

[spawpoet]

Pretty impressive that you have your cars within a half second of the frontrunners at any track in your first year running the Mustang. Congrats!! I would imagine you are far from done developing it too. Good stuff.

[Ron Earp]

Thanks for the kind words. It has come at a price though, probably over 900 man-hours in the garage for us with lots of on-track testing followed by many changes based on the data collected. I don't know, but I suspect we've got the IT record for the most hours of building, development, and testing in the shortest amount of time for these two cars. Wife doesn't like it.

So, with that in mind I'm leaning toward VIR being the last race for the cars. At least, it will be the last race for both cars as the red one is going to sleep for the winter. It could be we still take the green one to the last SCCA Road Atlanta race for the year but that sort of depends on my tire situation after this weekend. My tires are getting near the end and I won't buy a new set this year as the budget ist kaput.

[Steve35]

Care to estimate what you've spent building the car? Or is that like asking a woman's age? :rolleyes:

[Ron Earp]

Care to estimate what you've spent building the car? Or is that like asking a woman's age? :rolleyes:

Unfortunately, I know exactly how much I've spent as every part number, cost, and source are in a spreadsheet. I have written before on this thread, and I've said it to folks in the paddock that ask, if you wish to build the car like we have built it is not cheap, at least not by my standards. Factoring in what we know and the cost savings from that knowledge I still feel the build will be around $20k-$23k with a decent donor car. However, I'm sure an ITS Mustang could be built for $5k, $8k, $12k, - you pick the number.

I don't think a 95%+ Mustang build will be a low-cost-leader in ITS. There are a lot of parts that simply cost a certain amount and will require that initial investment to obtain. And, regardless of the cost, you can't get around the time component in anyway, except with the checkwrench. There is a lot of work and development to be done, lots of detailed engine tuning that needs to happen, and so on. You pay for that with time or money, we chose time, and still spent a lot of money. If we'd used the checkwrench it'd have cost more.

There are simply many other well-developed chassis in ITS that are known quantities which can be built to be faster than the Mustang based on known formulas. Everyone gets attracted to the Mustang because "There is a V6 5 speed on Craigslist for $750", and that is true. But one might be better off starting with a $3000 E30/RX7/Miata/240Z/280Z etc. if they're interesting in skipping the learning curve, going fast, and racing.

[Ron Earp]

Team Mustang had a pretty decent showing this past weekend at VIR. We entered the two Mustangs into the Saturday ECR as "Team Ron" and "Team Jeff". Team Jeff was Jeff Young and Jeff Giordano, Team Ron was Ron Munnerlyn and Ron Earp.

Both teams finished and did well, second place for Team Jeff and third place for Team Ron.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/woodecr.jpg

Ron Munnerlyn turned the fastest lap for the Mustangs with a 2:17 and ran consistent 2:19s with some traffic and aging tires. Nice job Ron and as far as I'm concerned a 2:17 shows me that we're in the hunt and with more development and driving we can get to the pointy end S times. Ron's fastest lap is here:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/ronfastlap.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJBrCW_DL1A&feature=youtu.be)

I didn't drive very well throughout the entire weekend. While I did okay in the enduro with some 19s once I settled in, it took me a long time to settle in. I also didn't qualify too well for Sunday's SARRC race either which put me starting 5th or 6th.

And, my driving didn't improve for Sunday. I ended up pinching Scott Finlay off in T3 which resulted in me being bumped off the turn. Fortunately Scott and the other cars were able to continue and no other cars received any damage.

https://vimeo.com/51889655

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lUfOvK6DlM

After the impact I felt the rear end had a weird vibration and my head just wasn't in the game. The vibration, of course, turned out to be two huge handfuls of gravel/tire buggers which got scooped up into the inside of the wheel in the off, no big deal. But, since I'd not had any metal to metal contact in over six years I was a bit shook up and came in.

The weekend was successful for R&D though. As usual, we had experiments underway and collected more data on yet another rear end ratio for the Mustangs. I think we're close to selecting the right ratio but we'll need to have a closer look at what we have.

Anyhow, that ends the season for Team Mustang. Off-season plans are already underway and we've got a fair amount planned to do before 2013. Time to get to work, but before the Mustangs get new trannies, engines, etc. I'm going to finish up that Torino that has been languishing in the background for awhile...

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/paint1.jpg

[RacerBowie]

I thought you were coming to the ARRC?

[Ron Earp]

I thought I might, but the family situation at the moment is not conducive to me obtaining a kitchen pass. The SIC / Goblin's Go / AARC is hard to do with only a weekend in-between each one. Throw the 13hr in there for consideration and there is just too much racing in five weeks.

[SPiFF]

The ARRC ITS Entry list is looking the strongest it has looked in years! Not coming down would just be a bad idea!!!!

[Ron Earp]

Work progressed at the Mustang ranch this weekend. The red car developed a strong lifter noise after the ECR at VIR and since it was slated for Engine V2.0 this winter we went ahead and pulled it. It's sitting on the stand in front of the Torino.

Using the data collected from VIR Jeff G put together a MatLab simulation to model the cars accelerating down the straight at VIR to help us with gear selection. I believe the right gear ratio has been sorted out so we'll have to build up two new axles for those. The gears are cheap and the axles inexpensive that it makes sense to use the ones we have for spares and just build new one with a different ratio.

Sleestak is also getting motor V2.0 for 2013. I'm fairly certain we can get a bit more power with a new engine build and new exhaust design. Maybe as much as 3-5%, but it is hard to predict.

A major weight loss program for the cars is also being assembled. We think that we can re-design some of our added suspension parts to drop a significant amount of weight. Also, there are numerous other places to drop a few pounds - eliminate wheel spacers, new seat, exhaust, etc. and we estimate a 4% reduction in overall weight. 4% less weight and 4% more power would be alright.

Currently the green car is shod with street tires and exhaust with catalytic converter so we can take it for NC inspection and make the registration current. With new motors going in during 2013 a street tag will greatly facilitate engine break in and shake down. After that occurs the green one moves to the house garage and the Torino takes over the workshop.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/torino/garagetorino2012.JPG

[nlevine]

...
Using the data collected from VIR Jeff G put together a MatLab simulation to model the cars accelerating down the straight at VIR to help us with gear selection...


Finally, justification for reading IT.com at work! I'd love to see the models and MATlAB code you guys are using (always on the lookout for interesting user applications here at MathWorks)..

[Ron Earp]

Matlab code is up to Jeff G so he'll have to chime on on that. We do know this, the differences with the ratios are so close you'll never feel it. You'd have to have solid track data or simulation results to pick the best ratio, at least for our cars. I think a peaker motor would make it easier, but with a broad powerband it is difficult.

Hate I'm missing the Road Atlanta race this weekend but the Mustang Ranch is still in operation. As previously mentioned, Jeff G's motor developed a nasty tick after the ECR at VIR (2nd place finish, first wood for the red car, woo!). So we pulled the motor last weekend and tore it down last night and today. Thanks Flatout guys for the t-shirt catching oil. It was used up with a huge tear down the backside though and lived a happy life until the end.

http://gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motor/teardown.JPG

These motors are quite involved to extract and take more time to tear down than an inline engine. Most everything looked pretty good on the heads, that is to say, they sealed up nicely (leak down and compression results very good but that was a week BEFORE the tick) although one or two cylinders on each side was a bit wet with oil.

http://gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motor/head.JPG

Exhaust port #3 was fairly soaked.

http://gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motor/exhaust.JPG

Intake dry though. Sorry the picture sucks but you can see the port matching almost an inch in, and after that it was quite dry and just a bit of carbon fluff. These heads flow well without any work needed, which is good, since we can't do anything in IT anyhow. But they are a very different animals from a stock 5L V8 head if anyone here has experience with those.

http://gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motor/intake.JPG

[Ron Earp]

The cam and lifters were at least happy. Don't mind the oil stains and stuff in the valley, lots of turning the engine over on the stand ended up with staining, drips, and unsightly messes left behind. With the heads off we could tell that four cylinders have fairly bad scoring.

http://gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motor/bore.JPG

The pistons too have scoring, of course, and those same four are damaged. Well, fair to say all of them have some marks but four of them are worse than the others. Crosshatching is only visible in two of the cylinders. As we got further along into it and getting the bottom end it became apparent the oil pan had clues.

http://gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motor/pan.JPG

With the pistons and rods out we could tell that all the rod bearings are heavily worn and damaged. One appears to have spun, but they all have seen hard times.

http://gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motor/bearings.JPG

The mains also have bearing damage and the crank, while usable, will have to be turned for the next service. Basically, we've got a motor that is essentially worn out. We have a few theories as to the why but we need to make more measurements and collect data before to know what happened. We think we know what the problem is and it ain't us.

This motor only made it about 24.5 hrs of run time before we pulled it. The oil pressure was perfect, still made power, but it also made a lot of noises. The green car's motor has 30.5 hours on the clock, completely silent, and is going strong though.

So we're off to the machine shop for a few discussions, measurements, and machining. The bad thing is that this block was already bored 0.040" and is now a large paper weight as far as IT is concerned. The good news is that our local Mustang breaker in Henderson has a 96 V6 with blown head gaskets for $100, and, we've got two blocks upstairs and one complete stock running engine up there too. Tomorrow morning we're off to Henderson to do a bit of shopping for spare parts and other rare Mustang treasures.

[Ron Earp]

The motor is apart and all pertinent parts down to the machine shop. Today we checked the rotating assembly for initial balance in the configuration that it failed. It did have a minor imbalance. Also this week, the driveshaft was checked for balance, It was found to be seriously out of balance and definitely contributed to the odd vibrations and failed transmission in the red car. Check and double check the balance of stock drive shafts.

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/543123_4810200062620_1266289295_n.jpg

Two new Mustang motors are underway and we're pretty sure we'll put down more power than we did with V1.0. VTEC Yo! and the Tumbling Doritos best watch out!

[Ron Earp]

Hmmm, the cost of Mustang fun might have just gone up considerably. Ford doesn't have any overbore size pistons available for 96-98 Mustangs, just select fit sizes A,B,C that only clean up very minor differences in bore out in the thousands and ten thousandths. The price is right though, $29 per hole.

The 01-04 3.8L V6 piston is a replacement for the earlier piston but there are only five showing across the entire country and they don't all match in overbore. Clearly Ford isn't interested in you rebuilding a 1998 V6 Mustang engine, I suppose they want you to toss your stripper mobile and get another one. Fortunately there are other piston suppliers and I'm sure we can locate some pistons in the proper diameter.

[adamjabaay]

just read the whole thread. Awesome job guys. Awesome. gave me great motivation to finish the work on my ITA car

[Ron Earp]

Glad you enjoyed the thread and got something out of it.

Not much new to report on the ITS Mustangs. Both are getting new engines although my car seems to have a healthy engine. I figured if we're building one new engine we might as well build two.

We now suspect that neither engine was bored with a torque plate. Why? Well, searching high and low in automotive machine shop suppliers we can't find a Ford 3.8L torque plate. The bore/bolt spacing is specific for that engine, that is it isn't just a 302 or other V8 with two cylinders lopped off. If we can't find one we are starting to wonder if the folks that did the original engines had one themselves. We're not getting a lot of feedback from them once we explained the rotating assembly from one engine was out of balance.

Anyhow, we're having a torque plate made in aluminum and it'll be finished up next week. Pistons were ordered and various parts have been sent out for inspections, in particular a few sets of heads to get some solid numbers of castings and flow characteristics. We're also waiting on some new multiple part crank scrapers and windage trays to replace the simplistic pieces we had in V1.0. And, we have some new merge collectors on order as well as some extremely lightweight Burns mufflers. Onward.

[lateapex911]

Impressive as always. Proper build. Well done, and THANKS for the continued updates. I don't respond every time you update teh thread, but know that I read, learn and enjoy.
Happy Holidays, Ron, Jeff, (And the other traitor w a British V8), Jeff.

(As an aside, you guys have it out of phase: A V6 American race car, and a V8 British race car? So wrong, LOL)

[joeg]

Ron--All your machinist needs to do is use bolts and washers for a "torque plate."

[Ron Earp]

Ron--All your machinist needs to do is use bolts and washers for a "torque plate."

I'm not a machinist, but I suspect of that were the case all the time that there would be no need for the rack of torque plates in the shops we frequent. I can see how washers and bolts would stress the hole/block, but as far as clamping load on the deck and what level of distortion the plate would, or wouldn't, quell and how that distortion would affect the bore - I don't know.

Some engines are reported to benefit greatly from a torque plate bore. Our machinist referenced engines with five bolts around each bore (Chevy 350 etc) and receiving a good benefit from the technique, while those with four bolts around each bore not as much.

Me, I don't know. I know I can get the plate made by calling in a favor and if we have it then we might as well use it.


Impressive as always. Proper build. Well done, and THANKS for the continued updates. I don't respond every time you update teh thread, but know that I read, learn and enjoy.
Happy Holidays, Ron, Jeff, (And the other traitor w a British V8), Jeff.



I don't know if it is proper, but we're doing what we can. There is always more to do. Thanks for the support and have a happy holiday season too!

[chuck baader]

Be sure to put a head gasket und
er that torque plate.

[Ron Earp]

There hasn't been a whole lot of progress at team stang. We received the torque plate and it is pretty.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/torino/2013/torqueplate.JPG

But we're still waiting on pistons, rings, and machine work to be done with the motors. The red stang will have a new motor for 2013, the green one will run using the old motor. I'm thinking we'll pick up some power with the new engine, especially considering that the red car's engine was in such bad shape that the new one has to be stronger based on condition.

So Jeff G and I have been busy working on the Torino since around Thanksgiving or so. The car is very close to being road worthy. A few pictures of progress.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/torino/msdassembly.JPG

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/msdcloseup.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/torino/hvac.JPG

[Ron Earp]

And some more pics:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/torino/garagefull.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/torino/dashprep.JPG


Motor starting party
http://www.gt40s.com/images/torino/party1.JPG

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/6106_10200273046658548_532052475_n.jpg

[Ron Earp]

And more pics

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/frontinside.JPG

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/backinside.JPG

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/shift1.JPG

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/shift1.JPG

[Ron Earp]

And more

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/panels.JPG

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/paneliin.JPG

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/carpet.JPG

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/carpetgoingin.JPG

[Ron Earp]

Interior getting done

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/firstpassneger.JPG

Fitting carpet is a bitch.

http://forum.grantorinosport.org/uploads/2189/dashpoweredup.JPG

It's always fo twenty in the Torino.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/torino/2013/dashinstall.JPG

[adamjabaay]

What's the drivetrain in the torino? Great looking car!

[Ron Earp]

It is powered by a 3.8L V6, the same one we run in the Mustang.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/311913_10200426365611426_1142084754_n.jpg

[Ron Earp]

The Torino got moved out of the main garage and Mustang work is back on. Yesterday Jeff and I swapped out the subframe in his car. The job isn't all that bad and we had it in and out in less than two hours. The subframe is held in with eight bolts and if your engine is already out, as ours was, it is a piece of cake.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/newframe.JPG

The old subframe on the floor. There are subtle differences in subframes throughout the 94-98 MY run that make the swap advantageous to perform. Small, but worth doing if you have the parts and time.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/oldframe.JPG

And Sleestak came back on Friday as well after helping to get a new IT Mustang built. A friend of ours is building a ITR Mustang and the green car went to the welding shop to serve as a pattern for the cage. While it was there it go a new Burn muffler at the properly calculated position after the collectors, maybe it'll make a bit of difference. I used the 4" Superlight repackable version they make, also seen in the GRM muffler shootout.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/sounding-off/

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/muffler.JPG

The green car also got a complete change of synthetic fluids throughout and is now ready for the track. A friend of ours has organized a test day at VIR for Feb 8th and it'll be headed up there to get aired out.

[adamjabaay]

WOW....a v6! Pretty cool if you ask me!

[SPiFF]

A friend of ours has organized a test day at VIR for Feb 8th and it'll be headed up there to get aired out.

Unfair!!! &lt;_&lt;

Will team r00stang run the March ECR?

[Ron Earp]

I think we will. It is unknown as to how much of team stang will make it though. Sleestak will be there for sure, but the red car is unknown since we're having to build a new motor for it. If the red car is there I suspect both Stangs will run the ECR with an expanded driver lineup. If it is Sleestak only then Jeff G and I will probably split driving it for the ECR.

I'm considering running the Cup thing NCR has solo, depending on the timing of the event and the groupings of our SARRC.

The Mustangs have a big advantage over my old Z in that they can run long events without a 1:2, or higher, race/maintenance ratio. It is something I'll have to take advantage of for 2013.

Doh, another Torino picture, dash in all up.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/385183_10200426365491423_1974635326_n.jpg

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/312447_10200430008702501_2725627_n.jpg

Even put the badges on and cleaned up the Garand.

[SPiFF]

I'm considering running the Cup thing NCR has solo, depending on the timing of the event and the groupings of our SARRC.

The schedule is awesome to run SARRC/ECR/TCPS1. Sat morning will bit a busy with ECR Qual group 1, ITS SARRC 3 and TCPS1 5, but otherwise is good. 3 races and done by lunch on Sunday, win!

[Ron Earp]

The schedule is awesome to run SARRC/ECR/TCPS1. Sat morning will bit a busy with ECR Qual group 1, ITS SARRC 3 and TCPS1 5, but otherwise is good. 3 races and done by lunch on Sunday, win!

That does sound like a good schedule. Is registration open?

I'm sure there will be plenty of the Pushrod Posse there to play with. Mr. Young is reported to have improvements for 2013 and is planning on being there. Ron Munnerlyn has some engine improvements for his ITS Miata and maybe Neil Harrison is going to make true on his threat to race the 240sx in ITS.

[Ron Earp]

Finally a lot of long awaited parts are here. The pistons are here as well as lots of other engine bits such as valve springs. Thirty six springs to be checked out for one set of heads, we'll sort through them and bin them up. Thirty six more should be in shortly from another source for comparison purposes, although I suspect they are all the same just packed in different boxes. And 18 were shipped down to another shop prepping a set of heads. Good thing they are cheap, about $2.50 a spring.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/springshead.JPG

It'll be interesting to see if the springs really very that much in open/closed pressure. Jeff Gs engine assembly should be getting underway this weekend with any luck from the machine shop. I hope this multiple iron in the fire approach will pay off well.

[SPiFF]

That does sound like a good schedule. Is registration open?

Open.

http://www.ncrscca.com/events/2013/03/march-memories

[Ron Earp]

Team stang has been very busy over the last few weeks. For various reasons, Jeff G’s Mustang needed a new motor. We have come to the conclusion that his old motor was just not assembled and built well. Now, considering both my car and his car had the same builder that doesn’t bode well for Sleestak, but Sleestak is still running so we’ll stick with it.

We finally got all the parts together for Jeff’s new motor build and knocked it out in a weekend. We ran into a few snags though and learned, the hard way, that Ford really like to change things often with respect to fasteners, part numbers, and these changes generally make life more difficult.

One of the biggest issue we had was the block. We got a block out of our stock pile and had it bored 0.040” over with our torque plate. Line bore checked, decked, etc. everything made just perfect. But when we went to assemble the bottom end we found we couldn’t bolt on our windage tray because the main cap bolts that would be used to do that job wouldn’t fit in this block. Turned out that somewhere in 1995 Ford decided to put smaller main cap bolts in the engine. Our block had the large main cap bolts, so the bolts we were going to use with studs for the windage tray wouldn’t fit. Doh. Out comes the TIG and we took care of business at the cost of a couple of hours.

Anyhow, we got the bottom end together and all was good.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/bareblock.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/weldingstudsoncap.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/crankscrapper.JPG

But, snag two appeared when we tried to fit out IJ crank scraper. We got it trimmed up to fit as in the picture above, but, when we went to put the oil pan on the damn bolts that hold the piece together fouled on the oil pan. Hmmmmm, turns out Ford in their infinite wisdom have a few different castings of oil pans, although they all look the same, and all four of the ones we had laying around were the same "no fit" variety.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/pandoesntfit.JPG

[Ron Earp]

So that was a bag of yay. To make a long story short the motor didn't get the crank scraper.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/pandontfit.JPG

On with the heads and everything went smoothly here.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/headson.JPG

The heads are new, that is to say, Jeff's old heads were no longer serviceable due to some cracks. So these heads were choosen from a stock pile:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/threedifferentheadscheckedout.JPG

And yep, there are vast differences in the types of heads used on the cars. Minor differences, but minor differences add up. The heads got the standard IT treatment - decked for compression, valve job, an port matched 1" in to the intake gaskets. The picture makes the port matching look useful but it really isn't. The modern gasket fits that head wonderfully so nothing more than making the head shiny was done.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/portmatching.JPG

[Ron Earp]

Oh, and I forgot installing the cam, that was done too. A cam is useful to make the motor run.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/installingcam.JPG

Completed short block, well mostly.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/enginevalley.JPG

The rest of the dress out went smoothly and the engine was installed into the car.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/engineonhook.JPG

The install didn't go well though because the old headers no longer fit the engine. The car got a different subframe as mentioned in a previous post, but, things were just enough different that the header pipes fouled on the steering shaft. They touched before, but now there was a 1/4" of interference and, given the old exhaust was crappy, it was time to have a new one built.

[Ron Earp]

So we went from bare block to this:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/motorv2/enginein%20car.JPG

In somewhere around 30 hours or so, roughly. Actually, that is a bit long. Of course there was some beer drinking in there somewhere, got to have time for social activities.

After consulting with all the exhaust gurus we settled on a new exhaust design. It was fabbed up by R&J in Apex NC and we painted, baked, wrapped, and installed it last night. It has proper sized primaries, collectors, and merges unlike the old one that was a hodge podge of design and off the shelf parts. The best thing is that it is 18 lbs lighter than the old design. Always look for places to get some weight off. I'll try to get some pictures of that up later.

I summary, the red car has a new motor to try out at VIR and I'm sure it'll be better than the last one. The old motor didn't have a 0.5 compression hike, was 4 oz out of balance, had an imbalanced drive shaft, had inferior rings, and probably wasn't torque plate bored although it was supposed to have been.

[Ron Earp]

Another update from the Stangwerks….

We got Jeff’s new motor in the car and running without incident. And, we headed out to VIR for the March Memories race and test day early Friday morning. On the initial session a problem reared its head, one that we’d experienced before – a driveline vibration. Jeff reported it was very bad and since the motor was new, and we knew it was properly assembled, we immediately figured it was the driveshaft. So we swapped the driveshaft from the green car, which has never had a problem, and put it into the red car for testing. Next session out the problem was entirely eliminated and the car ran well. Smooth, powerful, good water temps and oil pressure, so all was good with the motor.

So Friday noon I took the old drive shaft down to Russell at Triangle Driveshaft in Durham and they fixed it while I waited. It was horribly out of balance due to a poor balance job at a shop in Raleigh from Fleetpride. Anyhow, Russell fixed it up and I returned to VIR to install it into my car. A couple more sessions out in the red car for the test day, some adjustments to rear roll center and shock dampening, and we decided we were on for the weekend.

Saturday morning came a bit too early but we were ready for qualifying. The ECR group qualified first with Zsolt’s Acura Integra taking the ITS pole. The Mustangs were not far behind though in second and third, although the field was a bit light. The SARRC qualifying order was a bit different with Jeff G. putting the Mustang on the pole I think, but I can’t remember the rest of the field. I think I started third. Anyhow, we were pretty happy with the results although again, the field was pretty light on strong ITS competition. Jeff Young had a problem with a front wheel hub disintegrating and got no good time, Chuck Hines was not racing on competitive rubber and wasn’t running as fast as normal, and a few others had dropped out.

The ECR on Saturday was a lot of fun. Jeff G and I were in the red Mustang, Robert Mitchell and Jeff Young in the green Mustang. Zsolt’s co-driver Trevor set a strong of smoking laps at the start of the ECR. Not one, but five or six 2:14s and I think one of them was a 2:14.0 according to my RaceMonitor app. Smoking, and says a few of things – prep matters, driver matters, and FWD can flat out get it done – kudos to them for building such a fast car and driving the hell out of it. The ECR progressed with the red stang second, the green one third, and then Zolt’s Acura had a hub failure and was retired from the race. That left the Mustangs with a one-two ECR finish, but I can definitely say if Zsolt hadn’t had the wheel failure they would have won the race as we were tuning no higher than 18/19/20 in ECR trim. Also in there was a smoking fast ITA Ford Focus by Mike Sperber so the Fords had a pretty good showing in the ECR.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/ecrpodium.jpg

After the ECR we retired to the paddock to work on the TR8 which was still laid up with a bad hub. We also worked on Chris Dercole’s Mustang and trying to help him sort his oil control problem, however, it was pretty reasonably clear he had bad rings and no amount of work was going to help. Car work done we retired to the Tavern with the crew and had a bonfire party later that evening. Unfortunately we forgot about the time change and Sunday morning came quick. Ow.

The SARRC came and went pretty quickly. A sprint race ain’t no ECR and it was over too fast. At the green it was Jeff G, Ron E, Chuck H, and Russ B., but at T1 Chuck got a clean pass in T1 on me and assumed second place. Later that lap or the next, Chuck passed Jeff G and was in the lead, Jeff G second, Ron E third, and Russ fourth. However, I could tell that Russ had more power than me and was gaining on the back straight so I figured it was a matter of time before he got me. Mustangs have good brakes, great midrange, but on the top end the RX7, TR8, Acura, etc. seem to do better. Russ got by a few laps in and it was Chuck, Jeff, Russ, Ron with me dropping.

Five or six laps into the race we were all coming into Hogs Pen and someone had tracked mud and straw all across the track. It had just happened and was in a place you couldn’t see well, therefore, Chuck had no choice but to hit it first and he went off track. The other cars managed to stay on track but the mud reduced everyone’s speed through that corner for a couple of laps. The race finished Jeff, Russ, Ron – first SARRC race win for a Mustang, although not for Jeff G since he’s been racing for 10+ years. We didn’t have the fastest cars on track for that weekend by a long shot but it was reliable and most importantly fun. And, as mentioned, we were missing a lot of regulars with two of them at the track, Zsolt and Jeff Young, not being able to race because of broken or wrecked cars.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/SARRCpodium2013marchvir.jpg

Now, what was fast was the Mazda MX5s – have a look at those times, they were running 2:12, 2:13s, 2:14s all weekend, fantastic. Now the track was fast for the March VIR race, but those cars are getting it done. At the start of the SARRC they blew away the field. Jeff and I were right behind the two MX5s when the green flag dropped. I thought for sure I'd pass one on the start because they wouldn't have power. Nope. They dropped the stangs like a bad habit and gapped us all the way to the braking zone. We managed to follow them around but they moved out on the straights.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/t1srartsarrc.jpg

[Ron Earp]

And on the technical side, work continues at Stangwerks. We’re putting together motor number four, the second motor for the green car. The green car’s engine is still running well but the build is not of the quality of the engine in the red car. Len Hoffman from www.hamheads.com is doing the flow work and head prep for this new engine, while the block prep was done by a local machine shop. There will be a number of differences between this motor and what is in the green car: max 9.5:1 compression, good head work, torque plate bored, piston clearances, aftermarket OEM pistons (required, Ford doesn’t supply a 0.040” over), better ring package, carefully selected rods, different strategy for setting up the pushrods/lifters, and a few other changes.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/enginetable.JPG

We hope that this engine will perform better than the one in Sleestak. The red car’s engine is doing very well, although we are not generating any more top end speed at VIR. The mid-range we have is fantastic and we are probably in the upper percentile for off-corner power. But at the end of VIR’s back straight we won’t be doing much more than 123-125mph. I suspect the frontal area and Cd is just something we can’t get around. We are contemplating one more rear gear swap and avoiding fifth entirely because we can clearly see that when we have to use fifth the game is over, but that would cause us to have to use second in a couple of places on track and containing wheel spin with the high torque multiplication of second is going to be an issue. Anyhow, for the time being I think we’re going to struggle a bit on tracks that require a high top speed – VIR and CMS come to mind, we got nothing for the Acura and TR8 unless we manage to make some time in the short bits.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/enginecrank.jpg

Lately we’ve been having a lot of problems with the red car and communicating with the ECU. We think we have it figured out, but in doing so we created a test rig for the bench where we can hook up an ECU outside of the car and program it. Dr. Giordano was the major motivation behind this job but it’ll definitely help us out for the future. We’re planning to mount it on a panel with switches, not this rigged up mess here, so that all you need to do is connect it to 12V, connect the laptop, and you can do whatever you want with the ECU. Programming the ECU in the car is what we generally do but this will help us prepare spares and test stuff out. We’re also planning to equip the ECU with an external EPROM so that we can load five pre-defined tunes into the ECU and switch them with a rotary switch, no laptop or reprogramming needed. The ECU program we’ve developed fuels very well but every now and then it needs a tweak. If we had four tunes with air fuel and timing targets, like 12.4, 12.8, 13.1, 13.3 we could quickly adjust up what was needed based on visual info off the wideband.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/ecu.JPG

Work on DR COOL is progressing too. DR COOL is getting a dual peltier device engine, better insulation on all lines, a much better R value water reservoir, and an overall much lighter package even in comparison to the traditional water/ice cooling system. The goal is to have DR COOL in the car and functioning for the April RRR race.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/drcool.JPG

[Ron Earp]

And we did a bit of clean up in the Mustang parts warehouse. I think we have enough parts above my garage to build another Mustang.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/frame.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/rears.JPG

Took some different head castings apart for exploration. There are a good number of heads to work with on these cars, although the differences among them seem to be minor. Len has the "best" heads from what we can tell.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/valvejob.JPG

The number of blocks Ford has used, now that is a pain in the ass. We have discovered at least three different types of blocks for 94-98 MYs. No advantages among them that we can tell, but you've got to keep them separated because their critical bolts are not interchangable. We have sorted them into:

A - large coarse man cap bolts, short head bolts

B - small fine main cap bolts, one row short head bolts, one row long

C - smal fine main cap bolts with provisions for windage tray, long head bolts on both rows

We prefer "C", but it appears we've only got a pile of As and Bs, with both new motors having to be built from As.

And we got the Torino fired up and ready for the street.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/licence.JPG

However, the Torino could not hit the street. We worked with a local Ford guy in Mebane NC to have this motor built. But, he went too racy on the cam and what we've got is a big block Ford with all forged internals that wants to rev to 7k+ but won't idle worth a damn. We worked with the carb for 3-4 hours on adjustments to try and get it to idle but at 2k, running smoothly and purring along, it only generates 14" of vacuum. When the RPM hits 1500 that drops to 10", and as soon as we try and go lower the vacuum becomes non-existent and she won't run. Timing, fuel, idle, it seems that nothing will do the trick. But holy hell, rev this thing up and it sounds flat out awesome, like a NASCAR screamer. Anyhow, new cam and intake manifold on the way that is reported from a BB Ford builder and guru to cure this issue.

+------------------------------+

I've had a couple of people comment to me on the huge amount of time put into these cars and the relatively rapid development. No doubt, we spend a lot of time on the cars but having two cars being built at once provides more that twice the amount of development data. And it is less than twice the work. In looking back over the last 16 months we have disassembled three SN95 cars for parts, taken apart seven 3.8L Ford V6s of various years, built four race motors, built five rear ends with four different ratios, tried two different traction devices, tried out three types of brake pads, developed 20+ ECU tunes, dyno tuned at least five times, rebuilt two transmissions, run multiplr track widths, changed out springs rates four times and always going up in rate, Lots of changes in camber/caster/toe/corner weighting and had three separate exhaust systems built plus a lot of other things that I can't remember. For a single car/single driver team, in particular an oddball, this might normally take much, much more time. All I know is you're never at the end of development for an IT car although we're looking for the pace to slow down a bit.

But not yet. I'm out to Henderson at the crack of dawn to get a 2001 dual port 3.8L V6 as used in the ITR cars. Got an idea.....

[Ron]

Ron keep up the work. My parts area looks like yours. I have rows and rows of tried and failed parts. And the different motors, the 2.3 is just as bad. We have 3 race motors in development all the time and every block is different from ford. No real difference in "power" just little things that make them all their own.

I have had to take some time off from the car. Kids in college demand a ton of $$$$$$$$. I mean metric tons of $$$$$$$$. But we will be back, maybe with a different car powered by the same motor.

I am very lucky that I have great friends who have offered rides in their cars while mine is dormant. Wonderful friends.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Best build thread on IT.com

[Ron Earp]

Best build thread on IT.com

Thanks, we're trying to keep the fans happy.


Ron keep up the work. My parts area looks like yours. I have rows and rows of tried and failed parts. And the different motors, the 2.3 is just as bad.

Man, Ford is bad with parts. I just was reading through some of my info last night and Ford had used, up to 2001, ten different blocks for the 3.8. The variations are slight and mean little (other than the FWD/RWD distinction) but can create headaches for building engines and using parts on hand.

The 1999+ split port 3.8L engine is one hell of a motor. We got one yesterday and disassembled it to have a look at what it is all about. Mostly it is the same as the 3.8L single port motors like we have, but the heads on this engine can really breathe. They have two intake ports and larger valves to boot. The exhaust ports are tiny, but, they are way undersized for the gasket and unless the water jacket is a problem they could be improved even under IT rules. The motors are internally balanced therefore the crank is different than our engines.

Anyhow, for ITR I think these motors could really put down some power. They are rated at 190hp from the factory but they would see significant gains with a proper IT build. However, my main reason to purchase it didn't pan out so well. I wanted the windage tray from this engine since the 94-99 units are NLA from Ford and we're out of them. But, this motor is a 2001 and Ford decided to change the windage tray unit to be a stud girdle/windage tray that I can't use. At least the front cover was the same though and I can use that. Front covers are fragile and we've a pile of cracked ones.

Ron come to one of the race weekends and you can have a drive of the Mustang on a test day or race. I think you'd find it to be like your ITB car, just with a little more power. After all the underpinnings are essentially the same, very honest handling and fun to drive.

[Ron Earp]

Best build thread on IT.com

Thanks, we're trying to keep the fans happy.


Ron keep up the work. My parts area looks like yours. I have rows and rows of tried and failed parts. And the different motors, the 2.3 is just as bad.

Man, Ford is bad with parts. I just was reading through some of my info last night and Ford had used, up to 2001, ten different blocks for the 3.8. The variations are slight and mean little (other than the FWD/RWD distinction) but can create headaches for building engines and using parts on hand.

The 1999+ split port 3.8L engine is one hell of a motor. We got one yesterday and disassembled it to have a look at what it is all about. Mostly it is the same as the 3.8L single port motors like we have, but the heads on this engine can really breathe. They have two intake ports and larger valves to boot. The exhaust ports are tiny, but, they are way undersized for the gasket and unless the water jacket is a problem they could be improved even under IT rules. The motors are internally balanced therefore the crank is different than our engines.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/splitengine.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/sploitheads.JPG

Six intake ports, three cylinders. We're going to keep the parts around for the possibility of building an ITE motor for the stang we have, or maybe one day building an ITR car. Anyhow, for ITR I think these motors could really put down some power. They are rated at 190hp from the factory but they would see significant gains with a proper IT build. However, my main reason to purchase it didn't pan out so well. I wanted the windage tray from this engine since the 94-99 units are NLA from Ford and we're out of them. But, this motor is a 2001 and Ford decided to change the windage tray unit to be a stud girdle/windage tray that I can't use. At least the front cover was the same though and I can use that. Front covers are fragile and we've a pile of cracked ones.

Ron come to one of the race weekends and you can have a drive of the Mustang on a test day or race. I think you'd find it to be like your ITB car, just with a little more power. After all the underpinnings are essentially the same, very honest handling and fun to drive.

[Ron]

Thank you for the generous offer. I'm so glad that the car is a good handling beast. I'm sure it still is not light and nimble but perdictable and forgiving. Find the tracks that suit it best and you will continue with your success.

What I enjoy best about your build and development is that you and the team is that you are attacking several issues at the same time. None of this "lets improve braking first" "then fix handling" "Power now". You guys are hitting almost all of it all the time.

I, any many other non-traditional car developers, appreciate the effort in time and money it takes to make a car that doesn't come with a play book become competitive.

Well done boys, well done.

[lateapex911]

Good update, and great thorough work! Andy is right, best build thread here.

[Ron Earp]

Another Stangwerks Update

Both Mustangs made the recent races at CMP and for the most part a good time was had by all. Jeff G ran the red car for the test day on Friday and we incrementally improved our laptimes each session. One of our biggest issues was tires, or lack thereof, as we were trying to use old tires for the testing thus saving the new tires for the racing. That isn’t a good idea because at a tight track like CMP suspension changes can be masked by crappy tires. Anyhow, we got the car down to some high 50s and figured new tires would improve upon those times.

Test Day Arrival
http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cmpmay/sunset.JPG

The weather at CMP was quite nice, 60s in the day and while it was cold at night this took care of that problem.

Fire
http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cmpmay/fire.JPG

We had a couple of enjoyable night sitting around the fire, BSing with friends, and having a few adult beverages. Good times were had by all, even our large furry friend decided to take it easy and not bite Steve Parrish’s leg off and take the beer.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cmpmay/dog.JPG

Saturday was race day and the Mustangs were entered in the Carolina Cup at the SARRC race. Given that we had practice sessions for the races, plus qualifying, it was a busy morning and afternoon with little down time considering we had a few unplanned maintenance activities pop up. The morning sessions were cool but both Mustangs were fueling correctly and hitting a reasonable A/F target. Qualfiying came and went, and I was pretty happy with the results. There were not too many ITS cars entered in the CCPS and I was able to get the Mustang on the overall pole for that race with a 1:49.999, the fastest time I’ve ever turned at CMP. The SARRC qualifying was tight with two cars in the 48s and two in the 49s. I managed a 1:49.564 which became my best ever CMP time and put me fourth in ITS.

Steve E was getting it done with a 48, and Ron Munnerlyn gets my go-fast award by driving the damn wheels off his Miata. We all know the ITS Miata doesn't have class-leading horsepower by a long shot but if the car is driven expertly then it can do the job.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cmpmay/grid.JPG

The Mustang was pretty easy to drive at CMP but in retrospect we wish we had done more to tune the car for that track. We made changes to the front roll bar, front compression and rebound, and changed the rear roll center as well as rear rebound settings. But I wish we’d have swapped in our softer springs too. Both cars were manageable and very predictable, but were looser than we would have liked and our ability to apply the go fast pedal was limited.

[Ron Earp]

The CCPS race was a lot of fun. It is the first race that I’ve started and following a pace car around with an Easter Bunny in the passenger seat was entertaining. Since I was starting I held speeds way down, or shall I say, held speeds down so that I was turning over about 2.8k in third gear, in the meat of my torque band and giving me the broadest RPM range to my 51-5200 RPM shift point. When the green dropped I was able to get the drop and get out ahead of the field. A fast SRF was directly on me though and a couple of laps in I waved him around. He and I weren’t racing and were just going to slow each other up.

The 45 min race went by quickly and I had some good times racing with Rickey T in his BMW and Ron M. in his Miata. Ron was in first place at one point and ended up breaking, so I got the lead and the ITS win for the day. Good times by all and a clean race. Back in the pits and through impound left us little time to prepare for the SARRC. I rotated the tires and did a bit of other car work, finishing just in time to make the grid for the SARRC race, rolling in under the five whistle.

On the grid ahead of Jeff!
http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cmpmay/grid.jpeg

The SARRC was fast and hairy. I got off to a poor start and made a number of mistakes in lap one, something not allowed in a sprint. Steve E took off like a rabbit on the green and quickly set a fast pace for the race. Rickey T went off in turn eight of lap one making that a bit exciting. I should have blocked #59 Tim J into turn twelve but I didn’t and he got around me. Once he was past he and I had to dice for position while the leaders, Steve E, Ron M, and Jeff Y. ran off into the distance. Laps four through seven or eight have us going back and forth three or four times for position. Good stuff. I eventually got around Tim and made it stick, leaving him to dice it up with Russ B., but by then a top three finish was out of the question. Or was it….


http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cmpmay/cmpstart.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toGQFkwdxfw

At some point I come rolling out of T14 and find Steve E on the side of the track with smoke coming out of the hood. Turned out he had an electrical issue and had to retire for the weekend. And, coming into T7 I run up on a green British car traveling quite slowly, which isn’t the norm for the TR8. It pulled off to the side and had to retire as well, having let out all the Lucas Electrical Smoke it could no longer run. That left Ron M in the lead who won the race putting me in a distant second. Again, Ron gets my Go-Fast award by driving the heck of his Miata. Steve E and Jeff Yound both led the SARRC race, but Ron M. was never more than a couple of car lengths behind. Way to go!

Ron M, Ron E, and TimJ
http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cmpmay/cmpmarch20132ndplacesmall.jpg

So the Mustangs had a pretty good showing for the weekend, collecting a couple of pieces of wood for the garage wall. Next time around, in May, we'll be faster. I'm pretty sure we have a good baseline setup and can improve upon it. We'll also be lighter too as some of our new parts to save weight will be in use by then.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cmpmay/wood.JPG

Next races are at Roebling Road and I'm looking forward to seeing how we shake out there. We have a decent setup for RRR that netted some 22s back at the SIC and I am pretty sure we can improve upon that for April 2013.

[Ron Earp]

Things have been busy at the Stangwerks but unfortunately it hasn’t been all fun and games. On the good news, I got a set of heads back from Hoffman machine and he has made some improvements in the flow numbers. Nice new heads, all cleaned up and re-machined for the correct 9.5:1 compression ratio, new valves, valve job, and ready to go on my new motor.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/newheads.JPG

And here are some shots of the different head types that we have to use on the Mustangs. There are a few, and Len has another set of Mustang heads, different castings, that he’s going to flow and work up for us as well. Maybe we’ll be able to pick some winners from our collection. While some of the heads, for example the N39 and N42 castings, look identical and have similar combustion chamber shapes, the E series do not. However, even among ones that look the same, the N heads, there are definitely winners and losers.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/headsingarage.JPG

I’m not sure why Ford changed castings so often, but if one thing is certain to anyone who is a Ford enthusiast, Ford is synonymous with Change. Len at Hoffman heads has been great to work with and I look forward to seeing what data he can provide to help with the development of the motor.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/latechamber.JPG

[Ron Earp]

Work has been progressing on my new engine and now that the heads are here we'll quickly progress on that front.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/ronenginepistonsin.JPG

This engine is the same as Jeff's new motor and has the same improvements over his original motor. My original motor is still going strong, knock on wood, but it has always been my intention to have a spare motor at all times so once this one is finish it'll replace the unit in the car and the old one will be rebuilt to the new specs.

Progress has occurred on other fronts as well, Jeff finished up the bench top Ford EEC-V programmer and it has been successfully used at the track a couple of times. This allows us to program an ECU without the car being present, which is useful for setting up multiple ECUs to be swapped in in dire situations.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/ECUthing.JPG

But the big news is that Jeff's new motor, with less than ten hours of racing on the clock, decided to shit the bed. Yep, it's done and we're now in the middle of a rebuild on it.

Jeff's car did fine at CMP, raced all the entered races and seemed to be doing what it was supposed to do. Loaded on the trailer, loaded off the trailer, nary a sign of trouble. We parked the car at my house while we finished up the cam swap on the Torino, which by the way took way longer than expected. Anyhow, ten days later we go to put Jeff's stang on the scales and there is a puddle of oil under it just where the bellhousing and engine block are mated together. No big deal we figure, we'll put it up in the air, drop the tranny, and fix that rear main seal.

Nope. When we got the tranny out and drove a new rear seal in we noticed this:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/split.JPG

And then a few hours and beers of work later we saw this:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cap2.JPG

Bummer. So we had to have a beer of sorrow. Then a smoke of sorrow. Then another beer of sorrow. After that we said enough and got our asses to work and tore the motor down completely.

[Ron Earp]

And another:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cap1.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/garage.JPG

The engine has since been completely torn down, with a lot of swearing and cussing, and I dropped the block and crank off with the machine shop this morning. We hope to get the newly line bored block back tomorrow and reassemble the engine Thursday night.

What happened?

We don't know. I called the Ford V6 specialists, Jeff called Ford and Dave Brown, and we talked with the shop. Nobody has ever seen a rear main cap failure on a Ford 3.8L V6. It happens on Ford 302s pretty frequently but only if they are making a lot of power and turned up to a lot of RPM, neither of which apply here. The data doesn't show any over revs, oil pressure issues, or anything that would be indicative of this type of failure.

The engine is relatively un-stressed, doesn't turn a lot of RPM, and all the parts removed from the engine look great. The bearings look like normal bearings with a bit of wear, I'd have no problem using them again. The engine even ran and behaved normally, mostly, although now we know that something was up with it I suspect one could detect an issue. Rods good, the crank is straight (checked this morning), pistons all good, we're a bit perplexed but as we develop theories and test them out we'll sort through it.

Anyhow, our goal is to have the engine back in the car and running this weekend for the RRR race. The removal and installation of this V6 into the Mustang sort of sucks. The old Datsun inline six was so much easier. Unfortunately we're stuck at around 2-3 hours for a removal just because so much has to be unhooked and access is limited around a vee engine in a small engine compartment. Hopefully we'll make.

[joeg]

YIKES!!!

From the Internet:

"A cap broken/cracked in a block --it can be any number of things. A lot of times it can be tracked back to how the cap was installed in the first place in torqueing the caps down. Was that cap checked for cracks before installation? If so,...was it also checked inside the bolt hole?"

[Ron Earp]

The block and caps are being checked now. It was installed and torqued correctly. We've some other theories too but at this point they are just that.

[joeg]

Then have the crank crack checked too...

[Ron Earp]

Already did, in original post. They checked it before I left the shop.

[Ron Earp]

Woo hoo, machine shop finished and engine headed back to the Stangwerks. We plan to build it up tonight and drop it in on Thursday. Damn sure is a lot of work butit is good to have it turned around quickly.

Also got news our new wheels are shipping Monday so we're going to ditch about 9.5 lbs of rotating weight once we get them on the cars. 9.5 lbs down, let's see, about 300 more to go.......

Crank in, pistons in, rods and mains torqued:

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/rebuild.JPG

[Ron Earp]

I’ve intentionally not posted for a good while due to a whole lot of development work on the Mustangs and, the fact that this is the first year anniversary of the Stangwerks cars hitting the track. It has been a long year and I’ll summarize a few high points, some recent developments, and then probably call an end to this thread.

Both of the ITS Mustangs have accumulated quite a bit of track time since their first outing in May 2012 at VIR. The EarpStang has just shy of 50 hours on the meter, probably at least two thirds of which are on the track or the dyno. Off the top of my head I can count seven full track test days on that car and the same number of race weekends, although race participation has varied depending on the weekend. I know it has completed three ECRs, three Carolina Cups, and at least seven SARRC races. The car is still on its original engine, transmission, and rear end; rap heavily on wood.

Jeff G’s Mustang has about the same number of hours and races. Although it made its debut at the May 2012 CMP race, we took it to a race at Roebling during the summer for some additional development time. Jeff’s Mustang hasn’t had an easy life. It is on its third engine, third transmission, and second rear end assembly. It’s been a bit frustrating with the red car because in theory they were built to be identical cars and should have had similar lifetimes of components. Unfortunately that hasn’t turned out to be true ,and since the red car needed additional care it also got additional development, therefore, the two cars are now different in a number of ways.

The development of these two cars has consumed an exceedingly stupid amount of time. I can’t overstate that enough. These two cars have used all of my and Jeff G’s free time, as well as the time of others unfortunate enough to stop by on any day that starts with a M, T, W, F, or S, such as Jeff Young, my wife, or daughter. The latter two have particularly been affected since I’m not always doing what I should be doing when it comes to family time, something I’m going to change.

The Mustangs seem to attract a fair amount of attention on track, probably because they are “new” to IT, and also because a large number of people identify with them. We appreciate the comments from the corner workers, racers, and stewards who congratulate our efforts on bringing some domestic action to regional SCCA events. But, along with those comments are always questions about cost, and to put it plainly the cars are definitely not cheap to build and develop. The construction and development has consumed lots of bucks. Far more money than we’d anticipated and while I do have a spreadsheet with all the costs of building one of the cars, I prefer not to look at it and damn sure won’t be passing it along to the wife.

On a positive note, building and developing two cars simultaneously doesn’t take twice as long or cost twice as much as a single car. I’m not sure what the factor is, but it is certainly less than a factor of two, particularly on the time component since you get better at operations as you repeat them. This is generally true for most activities, drinking beer, womanizing, R&R transmissions, engine building, transmission assembly, and so on.

Since the last post in April we’ve finished Jeff G’s new motor, broken it it in, tuned it on the dyno, raced at RRR and raced at VIR. The new motor is working extremely well and we hope we have cured Jeff’s motor ills for good. If we haven’t, there might be an ITS Mustang for sale in the classified section real soon.

Our RRR race weekend was underwhelming with little to report. We thought we had a decent RRR setup based on our outing at the SIC, but we learned very quickly that we had some ill handling oversteering pigs we couldn’t tame. As far as we could deduce, as we have been changing wedge and basic setup for various tracks we have also been slightly changing the rear roll center in relation to the front and haven’t been keeping tabs on it like we should. Any car is sensitive to roll center, but the Mustang appears to be particularly so and it has a fairly narrow range where it wishes to be located. Anyhow, suffice to say I don’t think we finished in the top five and didn’t turn nearly as good a times as we did back in 2012 at RRR. We did get to meet Ron (Flatkitty) who has an ITS Mustang, the yellow one on this site, and that was a nice happenstance of the RRR weekend.

The VIR weekend a few days ago went considerably better. We already had some good setup notes from the testing races we’ve completed there. The cars have more hours on them at VIR than any other track so we felt we could dial in a spring, shock, and bar package that would do the trick. That, and some new tires, rewarded us with the best times ever for Team Stang at VIR and personal bests for both of us; 2:15s.

It is eye opening to consider that on the first test outing in May 2012 we had the green car down to a 2:20 at VIR and figured it might have a 2:18 in it with setup and driver development. Well, it had more than a 2:18 because the green car is still running all the original equipment it did one year ago (except rear ratio), but with a very different setup, additional engine tuning, and more driver seat time, the car ended up being five seconds faster than the initial tests. Goes to show that in IT you can’t assign enough importance to chassis tuning and we have certainly learned a lot about that aspect of IT racing a Mustang. Thanks to all that have shared their knowledge with us over the past year and a half and supported our efforts, particularly Mr. Dave Brown, The Oracle of Ford. Without Dave's help, and our close proximity to a SN95 parts breaker, work from Mr. Young and other racers, we couldn't have developed the cars to the point they are now.

Development is still continuing at team Mustang and much is in store, although I don’t intend to continue logging it on this build thread. We have a new engine for the green car on deck, new rear end ratios to try, new heads from Hoffman Machine, more exhaust work, traction devices, brake compounds, wheels, and of course we’ll never finish tuning the suspension. However, most days it is enjoyable and at least it keeps us out of whorehouses and strip clubs, so it isn’t all bad.

In conclusion, a video of team Mustang racing to a one-two finish at VIR. I hate that all the ITS regulars weren’t there, although if that had been the case we probably wouldn’t have pulled a 1-2 Ford podium, something that probably hasn’t ever happened in ITS. I finished first on Saturday, Chris Plucker second, and a MARRS fellow that went to the john during the podium shot finished third. On Sunday Jeff finished first, with Chris and I bringing up third and second, so we felt like all the hard work was rewarded.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/first.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/second.JPG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekKUGztFARk

The data in the video is offset a number of seconds so don't pay a lot of attention to the speeds on the gauge.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/2013/cmpmay/sunset.JPG

At any rate, while these cars might not ever be a car to have in ITS or a potential winner at every track, I think with patience and hard work they are enjoyable race cars. I know I'm planning on racing mine for the foreseeable future and look forward to continuing the development. Hope you enjoyed reading the thread as much as I enjoyed posting and sharing.

Ron

[Robbie]

Ron, once again, great thread. Keep the updates coming!

[chuck baader]

Should have said this much earlier...welcome to the "no one else has built this car for IT so I will" club. Took me about 6 years to get reasonably competitive.

[Eagle7]

This has been one of my all-time favorite IT threads. Well done Mr. Earp. :happy204:

[Knestis]

So, the really important question: How many BMWs and other real racing cars have you bashed into with your cheap-o 'merican POS...?

;)

K

EDIT - For those of you not in on the backstory, when I was on the ITAC and it was proposed that these cars would be a good fit in ITS, we ACTUALLY had people object to including them, in public and "official" SCCA communication channels, on the grounds that this would be a problem.

[Ron Earp]

So, the really important question: How many BMWs and other real racing cars have you bashed into with your cheap-o 'merican POS...?

;)


Well, I did have a very minor incident at VIR where I cut off another fellow in T3. He then had to hit my left rear quarter and caused a bit of damage, but nothing to his car.

Yes, I remember those days of discussion around the pony cars. Pure and utter ridiculousness and exposed the bias some SCCA members have against domestic cars. "It'll spoil the look of the class" was the best line I remember from one of the CRB or ITAC, I can't remember which.

I'm not joking about the interest with the cars though. People do seem to like seeing them in a sea of Miatas and Nissans. The only other IT car I've seen gather more interest from passer bys is Jeff TR8. Generally the comments there are from folks who are astonished that a) they are actually seeing a TR8 b) it is racing c) it is winning.

One more picture of more development, finding the fundamental vibration modes of the driveshaft. Measurements were made with the driveshaft in the car and out on the bench using an acoustic transducer, A/D converter, and some analysis code Jeff G drafted up in MatLab.

Jeff G has his Ph.D. in acoustics, specially engineering vibration type work, and his daytime job is as an acoustical and vibrational engineer for John Deere. Jeff G is convinced his car has a bad vibration that we've tried to kill to no avail. He thinks the driveshaft is the culprit and that we can tune it out by properly balancing the driveshaft.

Me, I was just watching and drinking a beer. My car has a vibration that certainly gets to be pretty bad around 5400 RPM, about our max RPM for a variety of reasons. I think he's on to something and he's devised to tests to check the theory out. Ford had a 110 mph governor on the V6 cars and a numerically low rear end ratio so it is likely they would never see the drive shaft speeds we run and thus no problem would ever be observed.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/hammer.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/signal.JPG

[Knestis]

...so you are quite literally tuning the drive shaft?

That one looks like a B-flat.

K

[dickita15]

I don’t think I have posted on this thread before but I have read it religiously. You have done a great service to the community by documenting the builds. Most people have no idea what it takes to build a car that has not been developed yet. When people complain that they have developed their car and it is not competitive I point them to this thread. When people say “I will build the car I have rather than buy a car” I point them to this thread.

[Ron Earp]

...so you are quite literally tuning the drive shaft?

That one looks like a B-flat.

K

Basically. Jeff just sent calculations indicating one of the vibration modes that most affects his car will hit around 4933 RPM and others after that. In consulting with a smart fellow at one of the driveshaft places here in NC it turns out they're already well aware of the phenomenon and have dealt with it on numerous cars over the years.


I don’t think I have posted on this thread before but I have read it religiously. You have done a great service to the community by documenting the builds. Most people have no idea what it takes to build a car that has not been developed yet. When people complain that they have developed their car and it is not competitive I point them to this thread. When people say “I will build the car I have rather than buy a car” I point them to this thread.

Thanks for the thanks, glad you enjoyed it. Somewhere along the way we picked up the "Bag of Yay" phrase which was used to described any situation, subassembly, job, or part that was going to end up causing us a buttload of work and/or make our build difficult. Suffice to say, in building any new car there are lots of of these situations. Looking back it'd be pretty easy to draw a build plan for one of these cars and significantly reduce or eliminate all of these problems so at least we're proving we can learn. But you know, building a car is fun because learning and solving problems is enjoyable and exercise for the mind. Those Bags of Yay, while annoying, are part of the process and milestones for how progress is measured.

[adamjabaay]

I bought a car

I ended up redoing almost everything, at least a little



6 in one, 1/2 dozen in another


this thread is one of my favorite anywhere. How's he doing balancing on the driveshaft?

[Ron Earp]

Race cars are highly personal for most of us. It'd be a bit hard to get a car, even if "perfect" to someone else, and not end up changing quite a bit of it. I know I've had my fair share of that scenario with my old Z. The Z was an old race car, and with many previous owners, so it came with a lot of issues that were solved in some rather unconventional ways.

In the end I think that we got most of the problems sorted out and it went on to become a reliable and fast race car. But it was never *my* car. I tried as best I could to make it so, but unless you're starting from scratch it is a difficult goal to obtain. And, as soon as you're finished building a car from scratch that is yours, it isn't too hard to have a look at it and find all sorts of ways to improve it for V2.0. Such is the nature of race cars.

[Racerlinn]

But you can't tuna fish.

[joeg]

Ron--Did you ever figure out what caused the main cap to crack?

[Ron Earp]

Negative on the main cap. It could have been installation error. It could have had a small crack for quite a bit of time and finally revealed itself. The vibration harmonics could have had something to do with it, but I doubt it. We won't ever know, but at least the rebuilt motor is doing just fine and doesn't seem to have issues. Its making more power than mine and has already survived twice as long as the one with the main cap failure.

[lateapex911]

So, the really important question: How many BMWs and other real racing cars have you bashed into with your cheap-o 'merican POS...?

;)

K

EDIT - For those of you not in on the backstory, when I was on the ITAC and it was proposed that these cars would be a good fit in ITS, we ACTUALLY had people object to including them, in public and "official" SCCA communication channels, on the grounds that this would be a problem.




Yes, I remember those days of discussion around the pony cars. Pure and utter ridiculousness and exposed the bias some SCCA members have against domestic cars. "It'll spoil the look of the class" was the best line I remember from one of the CRB or ITAC, I can't remember which.

yes, it's difficult to be on a committee and hear such utter crap, especially when it's trounced out as a legitimate reason to exclude a car from a class. "Ruin the look of the class". OMG!! After my shock of hearing that, it dawned on me...Who will SEE the class and how will the damage manifest itself!?!? Our 3.4 average spectators at each event!??

That was one of the more disturbing things I heard while on the ITAC.
And I took obvious heat for publicizing that particular comment. In my eyes, you shouldn't say something on a committee that serves the members if you don't want the members to hear it. I still think that the ad hocs should publish minutes, attendance and voting records.


The only other IT car I've seen gather more interest from passer bys is Jeff TR8. Generally the comments there are from folks who are astonished that a) they are actually seeing one b) it is running c) it is racing without long streaks of fluids, and d) it is winning against actual other cars running at the end of the race.

One more picture of more development, finding the fundamental vibration modes of the driveshaft. Measurements were made with the driveshaft in the car and out on the bench using an acoustic transducer, A/D converter, and some analysis code Jeff G drafted up in MatLab.

Jeff G has his Ph.D. in acoustics, specially engineering vibration type work, and his daytime job is as an acoustical and vibrational engineer for John Deere. Jeff G is convinced his car has a bad vibration that we've tried to kill to no avail. He thinks the driveshaft is the culprit and that we can tune it out by properly balancing the driveshaft.

Me, I was just watching and drinking a beer. My car has a vibration that certainly gets to be pretty bad around 5400 RPM, about our max RPM for a variety of reasons. I think he's on to something and he's devised to tests to check the theory out. Ford had a 110 mph governor on the V6 cars and a numerically low rear end ratio so it is likely they would never see the drive shaft speeds we run and thus no problem would ever be observed.

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/hammer.JPG

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/signal.JPG

[JeffYoung]

I can testify to just a small percentage of the hours these guys have in these cars. It's ginormous. In 2 years they probably have close to what I have in the TR8 in 10.

I imagine it is a lot like what Speedsource did with the RX7 and Bimmerworld with the 325, just done after hours in a home garage. Pretty cool to say the least.

The net of it is we have an awesome group in ITS right now in the SEDiv. Guys are turning incredibly fast lap times in cars that 5 years ago were many seconds off the pace. As a group we have 6-7 programs that can run times equal to the near pro efforts from a few years back. Pretty amazing. And the Earpstangs are right there in the mix.

[JeffYoung]

I don’t think I have posted on this thread before but I have read it religiously. You have done a great service to the community by documenting the builds. Most people have no idea what it takes to build a car that has not been developed yet. When people complain that they have developed their car and it is not competitive I point them to this thread. When people say “I will build the car I have rather than buy a car” I point them to this thread.

The thing you quickly learn is development is NEVER done. Ever. Always something to improve.

[Ron Earp]

I figured I’d provide another update on Team Stangwerks.

We’ve had a lot of ups and downs in the last seven or eight months:

*Suspension binding in the rear is now identified and we’re reconfiguring the “trilink”. I think our ability to put down the power we have will greatly improve.
*Green car finally received motor V2.0, which had to be removed last month to fix a crank scraper oil leak.
*Green car finally received the proper rear end ratio to avoid fifth gear.
*Both cars received better tunes, but, they both stopped responding well to A/F targets causing some fueling issues.
*Red car broke three tranmission tail shaft housings; green car did not. We have ideas.
*Proper spring rates were decided upon.
*Chased pinion angles and fixed driveline vibrations.
*Konis went off to Lee for revalving, we were not optimal. We’ll be much better.
*New headers are designed but not yet constructed.

We’re now in various stages of each of these points and winter maintenance is also occurring, all new bearings, brake calipers, and fluids. As usual, we’ve done all the work on everything and are certainly improving our skill set.

We’ve also booked a date here and we’ll take one of the cars down for a proper suspension study:

http://www.morsemeasurements.com/what-is-kc-testing/top-ten-questions-that-kc-testing-answers/


With two cars it is somewhat affordable to split the study, about the cost of a set of tires.

Team Stangwerks finished up the year pretty well with a one-two finish at the SARRC at RRR. We certainly didn’t expect to do that well, but on the other hand we worked hard on the test day and finally got a suspension setup that was somewhat reasonable and gave us some traction allowing us us to get off the corners equal to other cars. Also contributing were the points leader missing qualifying, Steve E not making it, P3 through P6 having a serious dogfight, Jeff Y getting of six once poorly and giving me an opening, but still, Jeff G drove a strong race and won. Here is some in car, although it doesn't include the finish. The finish had me on Jeff G’s rear bumper 0.251 seconds apart. Fun race.

http://youtu.be/hsZDN8VTHnU

http://www.gt40s.com/images/Mustang/rrrstart.jpg (http://youtu.be/hsZDN8VTHnU)

https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1381356_10202136359520205_1381737754_n.jpg

And we had some good racing at VIR in the ECR.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1385572_10202218743099743_1849310423_n.jpg

And a good SARRC race, although Jeff G broke a tranny and had to drop out. Jeff Young drove well and took the win with Plucker a close third.

https://scontent-a-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t1/1374941_10202226910423921_295843558_n.jpg

Looking forward to a great 2014 and fun racing with good friends!

[Andy Bettencourt]

Great stuff