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

[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]

Thanks but I'm sure lots of folks do some of this stuff, it's just people don't post about it. The vibrational analysis is Jeff G's forte. He's an engineer for a large company and that's his daily job, and, his Ph.D. is in vibrational analysis as well. Of course, that makes him extremely sensitive to vibrations but he's not been wrong about that aspect of the development.

Buried back up in the thread is the fact that the red car has a very odd, and sometimes extremely strong, vibration at certain RPMs. The green car does not have this problem, although it has a little vibration but not nearly the magnitude of the red car. We've done many experiments to rid ourselves of the problem: we've changed motor mounts, subframes, transmission mounts, two motors, one motor with a different balance percentage, transmissions, driveshafts, flywheel, pressure plate, pinon angle, u joints, axle shafts, tri-link, and axle housings. Still, the problem persists and the red car has broken three tailshaft housings while the green car has broken none.

We think we have a handle on it now though. We knew from Ford engineering papers that the 3.8 has a primary pitching moment fore-aft. With the measurements we think the moment can be particularly strong and believe the tailshaft became the weak link when the bellhousing would tag the chassis (clearance is extremely tight on the 3.8, about a pinky width at tightest point). So we're resolving some solutions to the problem and the green car will get them for good measure.
------------------
EDIT:
For what it is worth, we now have a third Mustang build on the go and it's detailed on another forum. The car will be built to be IT-legal, but its primary, at least initially, purpose is LeChump so we decided not to build it here. That build thread will be more detailed than this thread since we're building even more items from scratch - panhard, trilink, perches, etc. will all be fabricated from steel by us to keep costs extremely low. On these stangs we paid over $1200 for a rear end setup we ended up only using half of, but with the new build we're spent $16 on steel to make the entire rear suspension, although with many more hours of work. Here is a link to the photo album with build pictures, although for narrative you'll have to go to the other forum.

https://www.facebook.com/Ron.Earp/me...4789574&type=3

[Steve35]

EDIT:
For what it is worth, we now have a third Mustang build on the go and it's detailed on another forum. The car will be built to be IT-legal, but its primary, at least initially, purpose is LeChump so we decided not to build it here. That build thread will be more detailed than this thread since we're building even more items from scratch - panhard, trilink, perches, etc. will all be fabricated from steel by us to keep costs extremely low. On these stangs we paid over $1200 for a rear end setup we ended up only using half of, but with the new build we're spent $16 on steel to make the entire rear suspension, although with many more hours of work. Here is a link to the photo album with build pictures, although for narrative you'll have to go to the other forum


What is the "other forum"

Steve

[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.





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


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


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.



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.



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!


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….




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

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


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.



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.



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.



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.

[Ron Earp]

For what it is worth, we now have a third Mustang build on the go and it's detailed on another forum.

What is the "other forum"

Steve

The third Mustang is very near completion lacking only graphics to be checked off.



The ITS Mustang team did well this year being first and second in SARRC points, up until a week or so before the SIC where a FL based fellow took the lead. We didn't attend the SIC because we calculated that the chances of finishing enough spots in front of the leader for the series win, given the double points situation, wouldn't be possible.

The 2015 season at VIR kicked off with a bang with Jeff G losing his and me putting myself into the wall at T3 and earning a concussion to boot. We've got a lot of work to do.

[Steve35]

OH NO! Is it fixable?

Steve

[Ron Earp]

OH NO! Is it fixable?

Steve

Sure. The chassis is still square, but the tires dented every panel on the driver's side of the car. Beats a solid wall though.

[Ron Earp]

Uh...it's like Fight Club I'm told. I can't link there.

Header piccy. We had the header off the other day for measurements so figure a picture would be worth putting up. Stainless steel, SS collectors as well, all properly sized. Version 3.0 but it was worth it for the midrange and top end gains.