mattlqx track prep and adventures

[mattlqx]

With the Mach, I've been looking forward to returning to the track on a more regular basis again. So I'll occasionally be updating this thread with progress and adventures. I can't believe it's been over 5 years since I relinquished my GT350. In the middle of that, I raced for a little over a season with NASA in a Mk4 VW Jetta. Big difference of course, but the costs and risks were much lower.

The body is prepped to try and keep it as nice as possible, full PPF and ceramic coated. I also had my guy coat all my wheels and hoping that makes dust maintenance easier or at least the oxidizes the finish less. But speaking of wheels...

My original intention was to replace the handling package wheels as I didn't really like them in the photos before I got the car. Now having seen and handled them in person, I kinda like them so I'll probably keep them for road use (debating selling the Cup 2s now while there's only 500 miles on them and getting something more sane). I picked up a set of APEX EC-7 wheels before I even got the car to use for the track in square configuration. Wanted to go with 18" wheels for better tire options and slightly better costs. Not having the car yet, I did my some research and went with what I thought would work given that.

So the wheels themselves are 18X10" ET40 APEX EC-7s. They fit the GT PP brakes well with not a lot of clearance. With enough track use, rocks will inevitably find their way between there and scrape the barrel a bit, but that's life. Having always been a fan of the iconic Subaru color scheme of World Rally Blue and gold wheels. I decided to give a finish other than black a try. Got these in Satin Bronze. Have to say, it works for me.

With the test fit looking good, on to rubber. With the inside of the wheel being so close to the strut, I was worried about going too wide on the tire choice. I'm also trying to be a bit conscious on cost per tire too. I ran some Hoosiers on my GT350 but I wasn't looking to spend $500 per tire at this time. Looking at sizing options, there's a lot available in 275mm but I wanted to stick closer to factory width. 295mm was where I settled not quite knowing how that would fit and there's basically only two options, aforementioned Hoosiers and Toyo Proxes RRs. The price difference is significant, so I went for what seems to be a bargain at $285 a pop. We'll see how they actually get on on track.

Getting them mounted up, I was surprised they clear without issue. I'll still run a 5mm spacer to bring them closer to where the stock face sits and a little more piece of mind. Rear is fine as far as offset goes. The lower profile tires (295/30/18) makes them look pretty smol in the large Mustang wheel wells. I dig the, shall we say, BBS inspired design and color. Can't wait to get everything on track (but I will have to wait for February probably as there's more prep to do)!

Next up...

GT4 extended wheel studs
Stainless steel brake lines
ATE200 brake fluid

I think I still have that linear clutch assist spring replacement in a box somewhere from my 350.

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[mattlqx]

Hubs with GT4 studs have arrived.

 

[mattlqx]

Well, trying to install the hubs has been an odyssey. The front hubs on my late build 2022 are *not* the same hubs from earlier cars. My stock hubs are 92mm as opposed to the 97mm they were previously. Theory is that they switched over to using 2024 Mustang parts on the front. I'll have some more details on that forthcoming.

In the meantime, my vanity plate arrived.

 

[mattlqx]

The hub saga is now complete and they're now installed! I ordered front and rear hub kits with GT4 extended studs from OPMustang under the assumption it would be an easy plug and play swap. The Mach 1 is a Magnaride car that's equivalent in a lot of ways to a PP2 so I figured I was pretty safe. Unfortunately for me there were several complications.

The rears were completely as expected and an easy swap aside from having to disconnect most of the knuckle linkages to get the axle out to remove the hubs. The fronts on the other hand as I mentioned previously were too large for my vehicles front knuckle. At some point, they switched from 97mm hubs to 92mm hubs and the knuckle bore shrank to match. I have a print-out from fordtechservice.dealerconnection.com that states "Front Wheel Bearing and Wheel Hub - Vehicles Build From: 1-March-2021", so it's possible this was the change over date but it's not specific about part numbers so hard to tell.

They also used different sized bolts. Finding the correct bolts is what ultimate took the longest and suspension bolts are torque-to-yield and need to be replaced for reassembly per the service manual. Ford was useless at being able to tell me what bolts my car was built with. Ordering "front hub bolts" with my VIN gave incorrect older smaller bolts (W714333-S439) that are M10 and they showed those bolts would work with the number on my OE hub (PR3C-2C299-AB, note the P on my "N" year VIN). The bolts that came off my car were M12 x 60mm x 1.25. Further complicating matters is Ford's parts catalog around bolts doesn't describe bolts in these terms usually and if they do, they were incorrect. So there were several rounds of "try this number, wait a few days, discover it's not right". My local dealer said they'd escalate to Ford, but the person supposedly doing that was off most of the time and never got back to me with an answer.

Tim at OPMustang did a ton of parts buying from the catalog just seeing what my car actually had on it and was able to source the correct hubs and get it out to me within a week. He ultimately was the one that provided me with the correct bolt number. The correct bolt had no description or photo at all in Ford's catalog; in fact, it has no results at all on parts.ford.com.

So the conclusion as best we can tell was that my 2022 Mach 1 (10/2022 build) uses some of the same parts on the front suspension as the 2024 Mustang. If you ever want to replace the hubs/wheel bearings on your cars, keep my story of woe in mind. Maybe Ford will fix their catalog someday.

Part numbers and spec
Rear Hub to Knuckle Bolts: W718188-S439, 98 ft/lbs
Rear Axle Nut: CCPZ-3B477-G, 98 ft/lbs plus 45 degrees
Front Hub: PR3C-2C299-AB
Front Knuckle: NR3C-3K171-AA (Left), NR3C-3K170-AA (Right)
Front Hub to Knuckle Bolts: W721525-S439, 111 ft/lbs

Smaller front knuckle bore:

Smaller OE front hub:

Naked knuckle:

Right: the "HB1" bolt for my VIN per Ford
Left: the actual bolt that came of my car

Etching on my original hub

After 3 weeks of parts roulette, finally a match!

And all back together with the OE wheels. No spacer pictured, but I figure I'll probably run a 12mm or 15mm spacer.

 

[mattlqx]

First track day with the Mach 1 was last weekend at Radford Racing School (formerly Bondurant) here in Chandler, AZ. This was a NASA event. It's a fairly short and tight track that I've actually also driven karts on before. There's multiple configurations and the one we ran that day was the "looper" configuration that transitions over part of the Wild Horse Pass drag strip. That and a few other areas are quite bumpy and unsettling to the car. Combine that with the fact that walls are everywhere and only around 20-30 feet away in most cases, it can be an unnerving place to drive. My intent is to eventually do Time Trials in this car, but until I get dyno'd for classing and get back into the swing a bit, I'm just rejoining my friends in HPDE.

It's been about 4 years since I've had a high horsepower car on track, so I was taking it a bit easy. No one wants to wad up their car ever, let alone on its first day out. Harry's Lap Timer totally let me down, never engaging to get a time despite being "ready". I figured I could at least get something out of it without an external GPS but it was not to be. I've ordered a Racebox for the next event next week so I'll have some data to analyze. Judging from looking at some of laps from my dashcam. I was doing 1:14s which isn't very quick, but I'll have a target to improve on next time at this track.

The car felt great. Balance is very neutral. Any sliding was predictable and I was never surprised by anything. Due to my concern about the walls, I had it in Sport mode for the first half of the day. I could very noticeably feel the traction control lightly kick in all through out the lap. That led me to think it'd be a huge disaster if I ran it in Track mode. That fear turned out to be unfounded. When I had some clear track ahead of me, I kicked it into Track and oh what a difference. I wasn't fighting anything during acceleration anymore especially at the apexes when applying power out. The car wasn't tail happy at all either. It was a wonderful transformation.

This was the first time on street or track that I've run these APEX wheels. Holy smokes, it was like a boat anchor was lifted from the chassis. I knew the stock wheels were heavy and the car always felt weighed down, but I didn't expect the change of wheels to have that dramatic of a feel. They're wrapped in Toyo Proxes RRs which held and seemed to wear nicely. For under $300 a tire, I feel they're a great deal. This really did a lot to push me into the wanting to ditch the stock HP wheels and tires for the street. I also need to get a weight on these wheels and tires to quantify it officially.

Had a great day on Saturday, worked flagging on Sunday. Going to do the same combination coming up next week at the new-ish Podium Club track in Maricopa.

 

[Traffic22]

Following….Hope to get my Mach on the track this spring. Still trying to figure out how to fit with my helmet.

Good info in here…Thanks.

 

[mattlqx]

Front wheel and tire combo weight: 47.8 lbs

Which according to one of the other threads I saw here, 11.4 lbs lighter than stock HP.

18X10" ET40 APEX EC-7
295/30/18 Toyo Proxes RR

 

[mattlqx]

Track day #2 for the Mach 1.

Podium Club in Casa Grande, AZ. Pretty new track, about a year old, my first time there. I worked lookout/spotter on top of two stories of shipping containers which function as the offices, race control and members lounge. A day in the sun, but a pretty good view of all of the track.

For Sunday, I ran DE4 and Time Attack, which I hadn't taken part of since 2018. After last event when I had zero luck getting Harry's Lap Timer to do anything with the internal GPS, I purchased a Racebox standalone unit for getting some lap times and speed data around the track. The companion phone app offers ability to download data from the box and compare lap-to-lap times so you can get an idea of where you were faster given the other lap as a reference. Peak speed was 135mph on the straight. The long sweeper in the middle is my favorite part of the track, was able to take that corner at 85mph at one point.

Again, I wasn't overly fast, but was with the median pace. After running low 1:48s for most laps of the day, I pulled out 1:47.1 for one of the two Time Attack laps, my best of the day. I haven't been able to get over to the dyno for official classing, but most of the TA field hasn't either. As a result, the TA-R class (un-dynoed, tire out of compliance, etc) had 12 competitors. I "podiumed" in that coming in 3rd. Series rules state that I can't run the Toyo RR as they require 100TW rating or greater.

I put my stock HP wheels and Cup 2 tires up for sale. So I'll get another set of wheels and may put 100TW tires on them for sake of compliance. Or, I guess if I can't sell them, I can just run them being 180TW (somehow, no idea how, they're ridiculously sticky).

Great day on a great track though. I'm excited to go back.

 

[Traffic22]

Track day #2 for the Mach 1.

Podium Club in Casa Grande, AZ. Pretty new track, about a year old, my first time there. I worked lookout/spotter on top of two stories of shipping containers which function as the offices, race control and members lounge. A day in the sun, but a pretty good view of all of the track.

For Sunday, I ran DE4 and Time Attack, which I hadn't taken part of since 2018. After last event when I had zero luck getting Harry's Lap Timer to do anything with the internal GPS, I purchased a Racebox standalone unit for getting some lap times and speed data around the track. The companion phone app offers ability to download data from the box and compare lap-to-lap times so you can get an idea of where you were faster given the other lap as a reference.

Again, I wasn't overly fast, but was with the median pace. After running low 1:48s for most laps of the day, I pulled out 1:47.1 for one of the two Time Attack laps, my best of the day. I haven't been able to get over to the dyno for official classing, but most of the TA field hasn't either. As a result, the TA-R class (un-dynoed, tire out of compliance, etc) had 12 competitors. I "podiumed" in that coming in 3rd. Series rules state that I can't run the Toyo RR as they require 100TW rating or greater.

I put my stock HP wheels and Cup 2 tires up for sale. So I'll get another set of wheels and may put 100TW tires on them for sake of compliance. Or, I guess if I can't sell them, I can just run them being 180TW (somehow, no idea how, they're ridiculously sticky).

Great day on a great track though. I'm excited to go back.

Is your MyLaps transponder just zip tied to the lower grill? Didn’t have an issue picking up the course with the splitter in the way?

Love this thread….so much good info. Getting jacked to get mine out soon.

 

[mattlqx]

Is your MyLaps transponder just zip tied to the lower grill? Didn’t have an issue picking up the course with the splitter in the way?

Love this thread….so much good info. Getting jacked to get mine out soon.

Thanks, happy to share.

Yeah, it's a good spot for it. I dislike putting it on the tow hook in case the tow hook needs to get used (don't make your tow operator's day harder). The signal has no problem getting through plastic. A lot of folks don't even point the thing in the right direction. YMMV by track of course.

 

[Traffic22]

Thanks, happy to share.

Yeah, it's a good spot for it. I dislike putting it on the tow hook in case the tow hook needs to get used (don't make your tow operator's day harder). The signal has no problem getting through plastic. A lot of folks don't even point the thing in the right direction. YMMV by track of course.

Cool, thanks for the info. Yeah, on our Lemons car we used to use the bracket for the gas tank strap and mount it parallel to be ground, worked fine too, but it did have an unobstructed view of the ground. Once we lowered the car, it was close enough to the ground we switched to a bumper bracket. I had been trying to figure out where to put it on the Mach, good to know the grill works. (I agree, putting in the tow hook is not ideal.)

Thanks for the info. Hope to get out soon and have some info to share. Your posts have been helpful, thanks much for sharing.

 

[mattlqx]

Sold my Handling Pack wheels and ordered another set of APEX wheels. Buyer didn't want the Cup 2 tires and I could use them for a legal tire for Time Attack, so I went with a set of spendy forged 19x11" VS-5RS. Different offsets so its not a "square" setup. Arrived today and they're already getting mounted up right now.

 

[VictorH]

Those wheels are great! Light, strong and look super.

 

[2fast2focus]

Great thread.

Curious to know how you feel the Mach1 compares to your previous gt350 on the track.

 

[mattlqx]

This combo weighs 47.2lbs front, 48.8lbs rear.

19x11" APEX VS-5RS (ET26 front, ET52 rear)
Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 (305/30/19 front, 315/30/19 rear)

So basically a wash between the couple pound lighter wheels and couple pound heavier tires. Should be nice and strong though!

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