2020 GT350R Heritage Build Thread (Heavy Build)

[PP0001]

Base curb weight of the 2018 gt350r states 3662lbs.

This confirms what I’ve always understood between the base stripped model cars and the fully equipped models with AC, stereo, I’ve always understood there to be a 80lb difference between the models like this.

https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/m...y-gt350-gt350r_ford-mustang-shelby-gt350_2018

At 3620 that is one light car. That’s really cool.

I’m holding on to all the interior creature comforts so far in this build. Once I take every bit of weight I can around the car. I will see how the build progresses this year. If I feel the need to fully gut this thing and go complete race car. Then out goes the rest of the equipment for full weight savings.

I think I will land ultimately around your weight before I add ceramic brakes and rotors.

If I want to hit my goal of curb weight of 3500 I’m probably gonna have to gut it. But we will see

Appreciate the link for the 2018 GT350/R spec's but I am quite certain that those spec's shown (curb weight) were for an Electronics Package optioned 2018 R model and not for a 2018 Base R which there were just 21 cars built for North America in total for the final production year.

For the 2018 model year there were just 19 Base R's built for the U.S. market and only 2 Base R's built for Canada with my Base R being the 1st of the 2 cars built for the Canadian market place just prior to Ford permanently discontining production for any Base R's as of April 30th, 2018.

Good luck with getting the weight down on your 2020 HEP R and know that you will get it all done at the end of the day!!

 

[Hangman77]

Personally, I’d skip the CCBs and out on the brembos from the GT4 mustang - very similar weights and much better performance and pad selection.

I certainly wasn’t very happy with the race brake pads my dad ordered for his gt500. Those pads were terrible. He bedded them in and they couldn’t stop for nothing. I even tried to get the car to slow down and almost crashed multiple times.

We needed up sending the pads back.

Certainly didn’t help my confidence with dropping 12-14k with them on an entire brake package.

 

[Hangman77]

Was doing a rotor swap today and noticed the unevenness of the pads. These pads are ruined unfortunately.

But I’m trying to figure out what caused this.

The pistons at the bottom seem to be pushing and the pistons up top are not.

I did a brake bleed about a 3-4 weeks ago. I have been out on the track 5 times since then.

Should have caught this earlier, luckily nothing else happened.

Anyone experience this or know how this happened?

Maybe an air bubble that was trapped?

 

[Hangman77]

Same thing with the passenger front also.

And it appears the boots around the pistons are cracked and need replaced also

 

[pilotgore]

Same thing with the passenger front also.

And it appears the boots around the pistons are cracked and need replaced also

I thought this sounded familiar so I went into my box of spent pads. This one isn’t as severe as yours, but there’s a noticeable slope to this front pad, along with a few others.

I bleed brakes every 2 track days (5 hrs track time), which may be overkill... but that’s what you do when you’re paranoid because you’ve boiled brake fluid in the past and run off track. Probably not a horrible idea for you to bleed more often regardless.

The only thing I can figure is the pads are wearing unevenly while trail braking. I’m thinking maybe while there’s a side load on the wheel/rotor and the brakes are lightly engaged you’re unevenly wearing the pads.

My first set of pads, which were primarily straight line braking at my home track, were very evenly worn. The next 2 sets included much more trail braking and I noticed more of a slope to the pads.

Just a theory... paging @honeybadger , any thoughts?

 

[pilotgore]

Same thing with the passenger front also.

And it appears the boots around the pistons are cracked and need replaced also

I’m surprised the boots are cracked already, especially since it looks like you have the titanium shims. If you clean the shims up, you can estimate what kind of temp they’ve reached based on the color they’ve turned. I’d be curious what yours is.

 

[Hangman77]

I thought this sounded familiar so I went into my box of spent pads. This one isn’t as severe as yours, but there’s a noticeable slope to this front pad, along with a few others.

I bleed brakes every 2 track days (5 hrs track time), which may be overkill... but that’s what you do when you’re paranoid because you’ve boiled brake fluid in the past and run off track. Probably not a horrible idea for you to bleed more often regardless.

The only thing I can figure is the pads are wearing unevenly while trail braking. I’m thinking maybe while there’s a side load on the wheel/rotor and the brakes are lightly engaged you’re unevenly wearing the pads.

My first set of pads, which were primarily straight line braking at my home track, were very evenly worn. The next 2 sets included much more trail braking and I noticed more of a slope to the pads.

Just a theory... paging @honeybadger , any thoughts?

The thing is, the stock pads did not wear this way. They wore evenly.

I’m under the idea I must have either done something incorrectly with the bleeding process, or I got way to much heat in the brakes. Not sure. I’m going to call Pagid tomorrow and talk it over with them. See if they have seen this before.

 

[pilotgore]

The thing is, the stock pads did not wear this way. They wore evenly.

I’m under the idea I must have either done something incorrectly with the bleeding process, or I got way to much heat in the brakes. Not sure. I’m going to call Pagid tomorrow and talk it over with them. See if they have seen this before.

Very odd. Do you still have your old pads? I wonder if the backing plate on the Pagid is the same thinkness as stock.

Are you dragging the brakes or doing a lot of trail braking? The boots being cracked like that is kind of crazy. How many hours do you figure you have on track in that car?

You’re seeing this on both side, correct? It seems improbable to me you’d have the same issue on both sides due to brake fluid, but it’s entirely possible. Did you use a pressure bleeder? What psi were you using? What fluid are you using?

 

[Cobra Jet]

yes I actually have had the car weighed recently.

with a full tank of gas my car weighed approximately 3920lbs. This was at a certified scale at my local scrap yard. I also had the stock gt350 steel wheels on, NOT my carbon wheels.

my goal is a curb weight of 3500lbs. Or a race ready with fuel of 3628lbs.

16 gallons of fuel is 128lbs

51 lb difference from steel wheels to carbon fiber wheels

if you back those 2 weights off.

That’s 3741 current curb weight.

I have to lose 241 more lbs in the car. I’ve done the math. And with all my planned weight mods. Im going to be around 70lbs short.

carbon seats. I have those installed now.
Just need to get my scale and weigh them. I’m assuming 30 lbs

Carbon body panels. Waiting to receive to get weights. I’m assuming 30lb savings.

Lightweight battery 15lbs,

lightweight k member 25lbs

polycarbonate front and rear windshield 27 lbs

carbon ceramic rotors around 43lbs (this will be last purchase I make)

that’s around 170lbs knocked off. Minus 3741

that’s a new curb weight of 3571 lbs. that’s getting me close to my goal.

Very interesting weight info!

So just curious, for further weight reduction will you be losing:

• Carpet (carpet alone can weigh a lot with the underlayment)
• Factory interior door cards - possibly replace with aluminum sheet or carbon fiber sheet? I mean, if the purpose of the car is mkte geared for track, the only functional item on the door would be the pull handle to open. Unless you go all out to further reduce weight, then you could essentially gut doors using plexi "glass" instead of real glass (if allowed).
• The "stereo" system takes up a lot of weight as well (SYNC screen, amps, wiring and all speakers). Are you considering losing those components or are you leaving in to retain some created comforts?

I don't know if you have seen this thread, it's not GT350 specific, BUT it gives a lot of info to the weight of many S550 components:
https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/threads/the-what-things-weigh-thread.15864/

You could probably ditch that heavy center console as well... and you may make your goal.

I think what some folks are overlooking is the fact that with your vehicle use, you have added a roll cage, which even though you're reducing weight in certain areas, that cage brought in some weight that a standard S550 doesn't normally have from the factory.

About how much weight was added back in due to the cage addition? (Did I miss that info?)

 

[honeybadger]

I’ve experienced this on and off. Here’s a recent pad that showed it. No rhyme or reason to it on my end that I’m aware of

Let me know what Pagid says

 

[Hangman77]

Spoke to pagid today. It’s actually TMD Performance which is the US representative for Pagid. I spoke with them originally when picking out a pad for the car. And I spoke with the same gentleman as the first time.

It’s definitely unusual from his standpoint, he asked allot of questions regarding the setup. What fluid, condition of pad surfaces, how many track hours etc.

He requested the pictures I posted above, and I also sent him pics of the rotors and the shims.

When I brought up the fact I was using shims, he did make a point of saying that there are positive and negatives to running them. This is me second hand repeating back what I heard, but the shims can trap heat in. Then, not allowing the Heat to get out away from the pads surface. With the heat trapped in the shim it doesn’t allow airflow in between to cool the brakes faster. One theory is that the brakes received allot of heat, resulting in the damage to the piston boots and therefore leading to additional failure in the brake pad not engaging properly.

We were basically throwing around some thoughts, but he did mention that it would be preferable for him to receive the pictures and that he would contact Capaldi racing and speak with “Craig” regarding this issue. Perhaps they have seen this before with their mustangs. Overall it’s nice to speak with someone about this who is interested in trying to find out what happened.

I will update when I get more information about this.

As I now see others are experiencing the same issue. It would be cool to get to the bottom of this. The fact that i have damaged piston boots and potential compromised piston seals also, I don’t want to repeat this.

I’ve already ordered replacement seals and boots for the brakes with some other replacement parts to keep on hand. But it looks like no racing this week.

 

[Hangman77]

Very interesting weight info!

So just curious, for further weight reduction will you be losing:

• Carpet (carpet alone can weigh a lot with the underlayment)
• Factory interior door cards - possibly replace with aluminum sheet or carbon fiber sheet? I mean, if the purpose of the car is mkte geared for track, the only functional item on the door would be the pull handle to open. Unless you go all out to further reduce weight, then you could essentially gut doors using plexi "glass" instead of real glass (if allowed).
• The "stereo" system takes up a lot of weight as well (SYNC screen, amps, wiring and all speakers). Are you considering losing those components or are you leaving in to retain some created comforts?

I don't know if you have seen this thread, it's not GT350 specific, BUT it gives a lot of info to the weight of many S550 components:
https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/threads/the-what-things-weigh-thread.15864/

You could probably ditch that heavy center console as well... and you may make your goal.

I think what some folks are overlooking is the fact that with your vehicle use, you have added a roll cage, which even though you're reducing weight in certain areas, that cage brought in some weight that a standard S550 doesn't normally have from the factory.

About how much weight was added back in due to the cage addition? (Did I miss that info?)

Hey there.

I haven’t decided to lose the carpet yet. I want to keep along the lines of a street/track hybrid build right now.

As for doors, I would have gone carbon fiber but like others have mentioned, you lose the crash bracing. So a full track cage would be required. I haven’t. Decided to do that yet. My dad did mention I could just buy some used mustang doors and gut them and put pecan windows in and remove all the electronics and we could switch the doors out for race day. But again, that’s allot of work to do each week to race. So that’s not in the cards right now.

I am seriously considering to remove the stereo system. I don’t find myself listening to much to the radio when I drive. I really Just enjoy the engine as my music. Wondering what the total weight savings would be with complete stereo removal. With the infotainment screen and everything gutted.

The cage added back about 55lbs

 

[09cs]

Did you ever get the auto blip to work, or did you go another route?

 

[Hangman77]

Did you ever get the auto blip to work, or did you go another route?

I never ordered it based off what they told me. A couple other folks have recommended another company to use for it.

I haven’t really gone forward with anything, I’ve been heel toe the whole time. The shifts are nice and smooth.

You have any update on 2020 cars if it will work?

 

[09cs]

I never ordered it based off what they told me. A couple other folks have recommended another company to use for it.

I haven’t really gone forward with anything, I’ve been heel toe the whole time. The shifts are nice and smooth.

You have any update on 2020 cars if it will work?

I sent you a PM with what the company told me. Pretty much forwarded your post, and was told by the guy who responded that he had never heard that, but who messaged you was the founder of the company