RaiderJatt02's GT350 story, first 1000 miles and beyond...

[raiderjatt02]

I took a trip up Highway 1 along the Northern California coast and spent 12 hours driving about 500 miles round trip. Such a fun drive and the Recaros were surprisingly comfortable and perfectly suited for some very spirited driving. The car got absolutely filthy but it doesn't even show up on camera. I don't know if it's the ceramic coating or just the fact that Race Red is insanely photogenic. The odometer is nearing 16k and I still love this car as much as I did when it had less than 5 miles on it.

Sponsored

 

[honeybadger]

I remember driving those roads!

I also remember scaring the crap out of international tourists who didn't understand what the pull outs were for

 

[raiderjatt02]

I remember driving those roads!

I also remember scaring the crap out of international tourists who didn't understand what the pull outs were for

hahaha ohhhh man I can definitely relate to that. Luckily, these things looks downright intimidating coming up in your rear view so most of them notice pretty quick and got the hell out of the way. I even passed the same people multiple times because I had to stop to admire the scenery and fill up gas

 

[raiderjatt02]

Another update, another track day! I was finally able to get back out to Laguna Seca after a 2 year hiatus. I skipped out on a lot of Laguna Seca days because of their stupid 92dB sound limit but the day after Thanksgiving, the NorCal Shelby Club had a 103dB day and I jumped at the opportunity to get back. I upgraded my break lines to some Goodridge Stainless Steel lines and flushed the fluids for some fresh Castrol SRF to prep for the day. I ran on 305/30/19 Bridgestone RE-71R at all 4 corners. They were pretty worn after my crazy day at Willow Springs because that track eats up tires like nobody's business. Nonetheless, I put up a PB of 1:42.06! I was proud of that to say the least. I saw a few 1:41's on the predictive lap timer but ran into traffic before the end of each of those laps. My theoretical best after looking at the logs from Track Addict showed that I had a potential to hit 1:38.992! I have some work to do to actually post up a lap in the 1:30s but that's my goal for the next time I'm out there. My camera equipment and external mic were acting up so no pedal cam this time but here's a video of my fastest lap of the day.

 

[TDC]

I like the naturalness and accuracy of the audio in your clip. Were u using the audio from the GoPro attached to your helmet or was the external mic in the passenger compartment?

It never ceases to amaze me how driving on track at 9 or 10/10’s of ones own ability is so exhilarating and then catching slower traffic makes it feel like a casual drive down the interstate in comparison. In particular the end of your vid when u catch the white BMW who is probably wheeling away for all their worth and you are in back probably thinking dam this is slow

Fun vid to watch and the layout looks like a blast. Unfortunately I’ll probably never get to drive Laguna but maybe one day.... At least we have Watkins and VIR in the east

 

[raiderjatt02]

I like the naturalness and accuracy of the audio in your clip. Were u using the audio from the GoPro attached to your helmet or was the external mic in the passenger compartment?

It never ceases to amaze me how driving on track at 9 or 10/10’s of ones own ability is so exhilarating and then catching slower traffic makes it feel like a casual drive down the interstate in comparison. In particular the end of your vid when u catch the white BMW who is probably wheeling away for all their worth and you are in back probably thinking dam this is slow

Fun vid to watch and the layout looks like a blast. Unfortunately I’ll probably never get to drive Laguna but maybe one day.... At least we have Watkins and VIR in the east

My external mic wasn't working this time so I used the sound from both cameras. Most of the sound is from my GoPro mounted on my helmet and the rest is from my rear GoPro in a waterproof case. I turned the volume on the rear down to 50% when I edited the video to get rid of most the wind noise.

And yeah, when I catch traffic it feels so much slower but it's good because it allows me to calm down and regroup before pushing it again. I wear a fitbit during track days and it's funny to see my heartrate go up and down. You can almost see the times I hit traffic by following the heartrate graph.

 

[sox3]

How are you able to put the speed and RPMs on the screen?

 

[key01]

Great video. You are smooth, man! Nice driving

 

[honeybadger]

Another update, another track day! I was finally able to get back out to Laguna Seca after a 2 year hiatus. I skipped out on a lot of Laguna Seca days because of their stupid 92dB sound limit but the day after Thanksgiving, the NorCal Shelby Club had a 103dB day and I jumped at the opportunity to get back. I upgraded my break lines to some Goodridge Stainless Steel lines and flushed the fluids for some fresh Castrol SRF to prep for the day. I ran on 305/30/19 Bridgestone RE-71R at all 4 corners. They were pretty worn after my crazy day at Willow Springs because that track eats up tires like nobody's business. Nonetheless, I put up a PB of 1:42.06! I was proud of that to say the least. I saw a few 1:41's on the predictive lap timer but ran into traffic before the end of each of those laps. My theoretical best after looking at the logs from Track Addict showed that I had a potential to hit 1:38.992! I have some work to do to actually post up a lap in the 1:30s but that's my goal for the next time I'm out there. My camera equipment and external mic were acting up so no pedal cam this time but here's a video of my fastest lap of the day.

Your driving looks great, Jesse! Super smooth brother! I really want to make it back to LS one day. Still dream of it.

. In particular the end of your vid when u catch the white BMW who is probably wheeling away for all their worth and you are in back probably thinking dam this is slow

I had a similar experience at a recent track day, but I was in front. A spec miata was wheelin' it at the local track and I passed him while in attack mode. Then I did a cool down lap and ended up matching his pace during my cool down lap - no real braking or accelerating. I was shocked at how slow/casual that felt, but was likely his "attack" mode. Crazy!

 

[raiderjatt02]

How are you able to put the speed and RPMs on the screen?

I have a bluetooth OBDII reader that records the data and outputs to a CVS file that I can use to overlay the gauges using RaceRender on my computer.

Great video. You are smooth, man! Nice driving

Thanks!

Your driving looks great, Jesse! Super smooth brother! I really want to make it back to LS one day. Still dream of it.

Thanks brotha. I'd love to see what kind of laps you could out down at LS with your beast. I don't think even the loudest dB days would be enough for you to go all out though.

 

[raiderjatt02]

Thanks to the current shelter in place orders I've been working from home for the past couple months. This gave me the opportunity to slowly install the Verus Engineering rear diffuser from @50 Deep group buy from back in January. As most of you know, this diffuser was originally designed for the regular S550 Mustangs so us GT350 folks need to make some modifications to allow air to still get diverted to our diff coolers. This means cutting up a brand new diffuser as well as pillaging parts from our stock ones. I'm not a very hands on person but I've been trying to do everything on this car myself that I can and not taking it in to a shop unless absolutely necessary (except for the ceramic coating and clear bra. I don't want to fuck with my paint). Hell, I didn't even let the dealership wash my car or take any plastics off when it came in. Anyways, back to my point...I was scared shitless at the thought of cutting things up and making permanent changes but finally took the leap.

Step 1 was to take the original diffuser apart so I can transfer the diff cooler vents over.

After drilling out the rivets and taking the vents out, I started to mock up how it should fit on the Verus one. I've seen just about everyone else's posts about how they went about this and each person did it a little different. I wanted to keep the vertical strakes and also keep the original front mount so I had to get a little creative with my cuts.

This is how the new diffuser looked after cutting it up. I didn't expect aluminum to be this easy to cut up with a drill and a jigsaw.

Then I had to rivet the original vents and front mounting point from the stock diffuser onto the Verus one to get my final product. I was pretty proud of my work even though the cuts aren't perfectly straight. Not bad for basically eye-balling it and tracing. I didn't even use a ruler or measure anything out.

Now on to mounting. I had to bend a couple of the brackets and force them around to make sure everything lined up. The instructions say to use the supplied nut and screw for a couple of the mounting
points but they were such a pain in the ass to get to that I installed a couple of clip nuts on the brackets instead. That way I didn't have to reach all the way around the diffuser like a damn
contortionist to tighten things down. If any of you are planning on installing your own, I highly suggest getting some clip nuts to make your life easier.

Here's a couple Before/After pics. Looking back at the stock piece....it looks so tiny!

And now for a few pics of it sitting nicely on the ground.

As I backed down my driveway, I wanted to see how much clearance I had at its lowest point. I think I'm pretty safe!

Looks so good!!!!

I haven't had the chance to actually drive around with it yet but I'll be taking it to Thunderhill Raceway at the end of the month so I'll get a good chance to test it out then. I can't wait!

 

[raiderjatt02]

So I made it out to Thunderhill for my first track day this year and boyyyyy was it a hot one! Peak temps hit 101F so it was a great opportunity to see how well the cooling systems work on our cars. I drove it like I normally do taking all the way to the redline for shifts, not even thinking about keeping things cool until the last couple sessions of the day when the temps got up to 100. I kept an eye on my oil temps and when they got up to 285F, I started short shifting and dialed back my driving a bit to keep them from going any higher than that. I was still able to keep up with traffic and my laptimes dropped off by a few seconds.

This was my first time back at THill in nearly 2 years but I still killed my old PB by nearly 4 seconds! I could have done so much better if it wasn't such a scorcher out there because I hit my best time on just my 3rd lap of the 1st session of the day while I was still trying to get back into the flow of the track. There were a few places where I slowed down so much that I am sure I can knock off a sub 2:00 time next time I go out there. I hit a PB of 2:01.8. My old personal best was a 2:05.1 so I was pretty happy to see that large of an improvement. By the end of the day, the combination of worn out tires, insane heat, and my own exhaustion moved my best lap back down to 2:05 by the end of the day.

Anyways, here's the video and a few pictures. Oh, and on a side note, I finally paid off the car yesterday! It feels so good to no longer have any car payments. It's now officially MINE!

 

[honeybadger]

Nice stuff as always, J! I think the verus diffuser is perfect on your car. It's underated. Looks a bit comical on big aero cars, but very at home on yours.

By the way, where is your little floating head on your mirror?

 

[raiderjatt02]

Nice stuff as always, J! I think the verus diffuser is perfect on your car. It's underated. Looks a bit comical on big aero cars, but very at home on yours.

By the way, where is your little floating head on your mirror?

Thanks brotha! I agree, I love the look of the Verus diffuser on it. And that floating head (Ikaika helmet) gets removed before all track days now haha. I don't want that thing flying around distracting me and hitting my hands on track. I forgot to remove it once, never again

 

[rjcruise]

Great video, thanks for sharing. Someday I will have to make it up that far north to run Thunderhill, looks like a fun track. Also, wanted to thank you on the write up for the AWE switch path, I installed mine based on your instructions/pictures and one of the best mods I have done so far.

Looks like Mini Nats this year at Sonoma is not going to be quite the same event, I was looking forward on taking my wife and having her ride at speed.

Sponsored