S550 Road Race Car Build

[RobBodle]

I have a few minutes to add some information on our progress. First I want to mention some things that are clearly working and making this process of developing a new car easier.

Out base suspension components come from STEEDA. Our sway bars, our bump steer. Our adjustable links and so forth. The Mustang started out very stiff with our starter spring set up and that made the car loose and uncomfortable to drive. Going soft on the sway bars helped but we needed to make a bigger swing with the springs.

Once we did that we found a comfortable place to start trying to go faster.
That is where we are for our next race at Watkins Glen.

We haven't talked much about it, but the TR6060 with the MGW shifter has been wonderful.

The stock brembo PP brakes are really good with Carbotech brake pads in them. Its the best braking car that ive driven. We are going to convert to a two piece rotor mostly to eliminate heat transfer to the spindles. We are thinking about changing to a racing caliper because its just easier and quicker to change brake pads with a race kit. But for anyone that is going to track day their Mustang, the PP brake package is more than enough.

We have this week off. Joe is finishing up making adjustments to our fuel cell to make fueling easier. The passenger side quarter window blew out during out test. We were not using the fender liner and air was getting in the car and that blew out the quarter window. We made a new one and installed that.

I want to clean the car up nicely first part of next week. We will load up for Watkins Glen and travel next Thursday. Load in at the track late Thursday. Practice and qualifying are Saturday and we race on Sunday. I have very little time at The Glen. We have pretty modest expectations. Maybe the car can help me thru this one.

The next race after Watkins Glen is NJMP which is a good track for me and maybe I can help the car there. At the Glen maybe the car will show me the way a bit.

We will try and find some time to shoot a video walk around of the car for Instagram at this event. Watch for that.

Any questions??

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[RobBodle]

Loaded for Watkins Glen. 12 hours in the dually.

 

[HushH]

Good luck! Will have to come out and support you guys at NJMP.

 

[RobBodle]

Watkins Glen was just weird. We got literally no practice. 2 laps is all that were available because of circumstances. Qualifying was to be dry. We sat on the grid with our dry tires on. When it started to rain. As cars were released to the track my windshield was covered in rain.

My hope was that the heat in the track would keep the track dry. That turned out to be wrong. It was wet. We chose to run used tires while most of the rest were on brand new tires. The new on their tires made the track even more slippery. The result was that we had our best qualifying in years. 4th in class and top 10 overall.

Unfortunately, I suffered some weird medical episode as my 2nd lap started and had to pull off the course. The track doc and then the er doc thought that something life threatening was going on when the symptoms within an hour faded and disappeared.

I was released from the hospital but out of caution I was not cleared to race.

So, we had our best qualifying in a long time and couldn't enjoy the race. Which might have been a blessing. There was a big crash on the first lap that I could have been caught up in and late in the race came a driving snow. yes, snow.

I see my doc next week to get cleared to drive for NJMP in a couple weeks.

Here are a few images from Watkins Glen.

 

[apex15stangPP]

subd

 

[apex15stangPP]

Rob..can you share your spring rates or is that a secret? I'm currently at 425/600 and I think I need to soften things up

 

[RobBodle]

Rob..can you share your spring rates or is that a secret? I'm currently at 425/600 and I think I need to soften things up

400lbs front. 350lbs rear. this is not supposed to work but these are the rates where the car settles down.

 

[apex15stangPP]

Cool thanks. The car has.. ill call "loaded up" and sent me for a ride twice and it didn't go so well for the body work..LOL

 

[RobBodle]

what do you mean by "loaded up"

 

[apex15stangPP]

We used to use that term in motocross... after you hit and few bumps in a row and the car unloads its energy and takes you for a ride.

 

[RobBodle]

Spin or straight off?

 

[apex15stangPP]

spin, but that I'm still learning too. Once its cools down and track days start back up over this way I have a list of items to really want to nail down this year.

 

[RobBodle]

what do you mean by items to nail down?
Did you lose the car because of the bumps? Like the rear tires were off the ground with the front wheels turned? was it on or off the throttle?

 

[apex15stangPP]

Nailed down as far as a driver, goals I want to accomplish.

I was on throttle both times, not sliding in a oversteer situation just on throttle. Both times it was on less then ideal surfaces.

On both situations I was pushing it too. So it could just come to calming down and knowing when and where to go fast.

The car is just so heavy and underpowered, I think I push to hard to make up for it .

 

[RobBodle]

Nailed down as far as a driver, goals I want to accomplish.

I was on throttle both times, not sliding in a oversteer situation just on throttle. Both times it was on less then ideal surfaces.

On both situations I was pushing it too. So it could just come to calming down and knowing when and where to go fast.

The car is just so heavy and underpowered, I think I push to hard to make up for it .

Still in street car configuration then? I dont drive my race car at 10/10ths.
Were you on the throttle as in getting back to the gas and it broke loose or carry speed on the throttle and you lost the rear? Just trying to understand what happened

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