GT350 Build - Autocross Time is Great but Track Time is Better

[WItoTX]

definitely don't want to use the Full Tilt, BMR or Steeda camber arms. Those threaded bits are major weaknesses. I went for a wild ride back in 2020 with an FTBR arm that broke.

I now use an SPC arm. I've talked to Turner at SPL extensively about their rear camber arm and he assured me that it won't break. He over spec'd it significantly based on my experience. I'd trust their arm if I needed a new set.

The AAD arm looks pretty decent too. Just don't use FTBR, Steeda or BMR

When it failed, did it take out anything else? How did the failure look, like wheel cambered way in? With the fuel line and a bunch of other stuff up there, I could see that being a pricy/time consuming failure.

This was a selling point on the AAD as well, I'm glad you brought this up.

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[mavisky]

definitely don't want to use the Full Tilt, BMR or Steeda camber arms. Those threaded bits are major weaknesses. I went for a wild ride back in 2020 with an FTBR arm that broke.

I now use an SPC arm. I've talked to Turner at SPL extensively about their rear camber arm and he assured me that it won't break. He over spec'd it significantly based on my experience. I'd trust their arm if I needed a new set.

The AAD arm looks pretty decent too. Just don't use FTBR, Steeda or BMR

I went with the SPC arm as well, but my buddy's shop despises the initial alignment phase using their little hex inserts as it's a bit of trial and error to get your car into the "range" of where you can use the eccentric bolts to adjust them correctly. Once done though their fully cast construction eliminates this sort of failure entirely.

 

[webspoke]

I wish there was a full spherical version of the SPC arm. Even without the external adjustment, maybe just some graduated lockout plates for the inner slot. On my heavy street weight car, I worry about breakage from stress .

 

[mavisky]

I wish there was a full spherical version of the SPC arm. Even without the external adjustment, maybe just some graduated lockout plates for the inner slot. On my heavy street weight car, I worry about breakage from stress .

With a little ingenuity I would imagine you could come up with a replacement for the hex units utilizing some sort of more solid solution.

 

[honeybadger]

I wish there was a full spherical version of the SPC arm. Even without the external adjustment, maybe just some graduated lockout plates for the inner slot. On my heavy street weight car, I worry about breakage from stress .

I've thought about this. I agree. I don't really need the finite rotation that the concentric bolt provides. so I've been wondering about machining some lock out plates

 

[honeybadger]

When it failed, did it take out anything else? How did the failure look, like wheel cambered way in? With the fuel line and a bunch of other stuff up there, I could see that being a pricy/time consuming failure.

This was a selling point on the AAD as well, I'm glad you brought this up.

it was a pretty wild ride

No major damage outside of scratching the shock mount and the inside edge of the wheel

 

[honeybadger]

When you run out of things to do on your GT350 (funny like that will ever happen) I gotta take some track car building masterclasses in person from you. Your car is my dream with my own, only using the 6 cylinder powerplant and a supercharger paired with the stock 6r80 and a HTG Tuning sequential shifter. I hope to see you in person sometime.

always happy to help share info and answer questions. just ping me whenever. and if I don't reply, its because I read it at a bad time (like when I first wake up or when someone says my name in a meeting) and then got distracted and forget to reply. so just ping me again

 

[icecreamtruckz]

Interesting read. I love living on the beach, but man I wish I had a garage to park the car in and work on it.

 

[WItoTX]

It took me a week to get back to it, but figured the car deserves some good action shots. Long story short, CotA should be on everyone's bucket list. From CotA two weekends ago....Here we go!

Day 1, we started in the wet. I couldn't ask for a better way to start at CotA.

In this photo, you see the ass end hanging out. That is because I closed hard on the Porsche in the photo, and was about to take my off ramp to the right. My instructor was impressed with my evasive maneuver, which helped to get me bumped up run groups pretty much immediately.

Day 2:

All said and done, I am absolutely stunned by the braking capability of my car. Through the S-es, I could out manuever any of the Porsches on the track, including a GT2RS. However, the second we hit the straight, they were gone!

I also had a nearly major off:


Here is my best lap of the weekend. I managed a 2.28, before I was completely spent at noon on Sunday. I need to get my diet and sleep figured out, because burning out so early on Sunday sucks, and it seems to be a consistent theme no matter the event. Especially at a fast track like CotA.

 

[honeybadger]

It took me a week to get back to it, but figured the car deserves some good action shots. Long story short, CotA should be on everyone's bucket list. From CotA two weekends ago....Here we go!

Day 1, we started in the wet. I couldn't ask for a better way to start at CotA.

In this photo, you see the ass end hanging out. That is because I closed hard on the Porsche in the photo, and was about to take my off ramp to the right. My instructor was impressed with my evasive maneuver, which helped to get me bumped up run groups pretty much immediately.

Day 2:

All said and done, I am absolutely stunned by the braking capability of my car. Through the S-es, I could out manuever any of the Porsches on the track, including a GT2RS. However, the second we hit the straight, they were gone!

I also had a nearly major off:


Here is my best lap of the weekend. I managed a 2.28, before I was completely spent at noon on Sunday. I need to get my diet and sleep figured out, because burning out so early on Sunday sucks, and it seems to be a consistent theme no matter the event. Especially at a fast track like CotA.

I bet that Turn 9 drift woke you right up! haha. Car looks really hooked up. Balance looks great! and 2:28 for a first run at COTA is SOLID!

Was a pleasure meeting you and the rest of the crew! Hopefully see you out there again this year!

 

[WItoTX]

I bet that Turn 9 drift woke you right up! haha. Car looks really hooked up. Balance looks great! and 2:28 for a first run at COTA is SOLID!

Was a pleasure meeting you and the rest of the crew! Hopefully see you out there again this year!

Other than my turn 9 stint where I was over agressive on the throttle and just over-corrected, the car feels fantastic, and the esses through Turn 11 is an awesome series of corner.

I was surprised they didn't flag me. I drove past that flag stand and the guy was tucked way down.

Great meeting you as well. We will be in touch...I've started researching the CPC conversion and what it would actually cost me if I didn't have a ruined block in the first place. And I want to make it back for Edge Addicts July event. CotA is a special place for sure.

 

[NightmareMoon]

probably a little early on the gas at the apex there at turn 9. Glad you came away unscathed!

 

[Biggsy]

COTA is a photogenic track. Goodness gracious.
Great pictures Kyle

 

[WItoTX]

COTA is a photogenic track. Goodness gracious.
Great pictures Kyle

It sure it. Wait until you drive it. It's a ribeye in a world of hot dogs.

 

[WItoTX]

After CotA, my hood vents showed up. Since it's the last thing I wanted to do to help with cooling, I knocked them out. The result is, the car lost the last of it's sweeping lines that I really enjoyed, but certainly looks massively more agressive. Day 1 I was not happy with the change, and disappointed I didn't buy a new hood.

But by day 2, I had come around, and am pretty happy with how it looks. I plan to do fender vents at some point, but admittedly, I haven't done much research on the airflow around the canards and how it affects the airflow out of the fender vents. I do have AJ's video queued for when I get back to it.

Part of the reason I stopped digging into aero was because of the oil change post CotA. I changed the oil, and found the sparkles no one ever wants to see.

The engine held pressure, had no power loss, no lights, but it is a clear sign to me that the motor doesn't have long. This led to multiple conversations, making connections, learning about the weaknesses of the Voodoo, and ultimately, the conclusion that the motor will be swapped to CPC. I had always leaned that way, but was hoping I could get more than 13,000 miles out of the motor, considering I was religious about no more than 6 hours on an oil change.

The rest of this post is the thought process I had with regard to rebuilding. Hopefully it helps others who run into the same issue make their own decisions.

The process of figuring out what to do has been eye opening to say the least. First, my constraints:
1. My wife
2. Two kids under 5
3. Money
4. Time
5. Inability to focus for short periods of time.

After two weeks of weighing whether it would be better to spend my money on a lift and all the tools necessary, vs pay someone to do the work, I realized I wasn't going to get 8-10 hours a day of un-interrupted free time to work on the car for several weeks on each end of the motor going to a builder for 6 (ish) weeks. With the way my brain works, 1-2 hours at a time just doesn't work for me, when I start something, I need to finish it.

The result was, I found a local shop willing to do the work, would ship the engine for me, was capable of doing the work, and had a past history of doing similar projects.

This weekend I will be pulling all my front aero on the car, and taking it in next week. The shop will pull the motor, ship it off to RPG, store my car, order the headers and slave cylinder, install the new clutch, reinstall the motor and repin the harness for CPC, and dyno tune the car.

As for the engine build. I've talked with the gambit of builders, from local guys who said "we've never head of Voodoo's having engine failure issues" (those phone calls were very short) to shops that have done dozens and dozens of CPC conversions across the country, who were a wealth of information. MPR, H Squared, RPG, Fast Forward, Capaldi, LME are the ones I remember off the top of my head, but there were 5-6 more on top of that list. Tim at MPR gave me so much information, I filled up several pages in a notebook on items to research. If money was no object, the motor would absolutely be going to MPR.

Where I ended up, I am going to have a completely new Gen III block with the Predator crank, forged internals, with the only carried over parts being heads, intake valves, intake, injectors, and oil pan. On top of that, I am adding LTH's, the braided clutch line, new slave cylinder, and the Spec Racing mini twin, which should shave about 20 lbs off the car if the numbers I found check out.

I am going to get my old block back, and plan to mothball everything, and eventually rebuild it as a Voodoo, so when track days are done, I can have a more robust Voodoo ready to go back into the car, and that sound can come back to life.

There is another variable here. It's entirely possible they get the block apart, and there are more parts to be thrown at it. I have reserve funds waiting for those costs which I hope I never have to use.

With LTH, I plan to use the stock cat back. There is an issue that stock is 2.75, where the LTH are 3". Assuming no internals need replacing, I will be jumping to the Stainless Works Legend catback exhaust. If valves/springs need to be replaced, I will suck it up and run stock exhaust until funds are replenished.

I always wanted the car to look "stockish", which includes running an exhaust that is not obnoxious, and a car that still feels like it's built solid, retains the classic blue strips on white, but with cool bits bolted on. I am also retaining the magride because I've gotten to a point where it is incredibly functional on track. Doing this doesn't lead to the fastest lap times, nor does my own driving skill. But the car at least can remain a testament to what Ford built, albeit with some functional tweaks to take it to the next level.

Finally, I have reached out to several folks on this forum (thanks for the guidance and contacts @honeybadger, and the build list @Biggsy), and there are others I have missed here. But thank you all for the guidance, and your own thought processes, it has been immeasurably helpful.

If you all have read all this, thank you for reading!

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