Project LOUDCAR - 2018 GT350 - J0006 - Autocross focused street car

[mavisky]

Tried a new camera location. Had to keep it low to keep it from blocking line of sight from my helmet, but in the end it's a little too low for me to use it again in car.

I will have to setup a sidemounted camera location. Moved the mic to the rear license plate frame and prefer the audio color. This was my fastest raw time, last run of the event, but 3 cones picked up unfortunately. Go Pro was dead for my fastest run and didn't have time to battery swap once I realized. The GPS also failed to record the second half of the lap. Not sure what's going on but this issue keeps happening consistently once we get down to the far end of the parking lot. Perfect recording up til I make the turnaround near the onsite airport and then my GPS dies. Weird, but not my major concern. Need to get more front camber as you can see that even on a square setup the car still defaults to understeer unless it's throttle invoked oversteer.

Sponsored

 

[mavisky]

Photos came in from the last event. Wish there were a few from grid too, but I guess I'll need to take those moving forward.

 

[mavisky]

Added a set of Steeda camber plates before this weekend's double header event. Dialed the camber up to as much as I could get on the factory strut openings for now. Amazed at how much turn in the car has now and ended up dialing the tire pressures back to 27 front and rear are very well balanced now. The car rotates nicely as needed and I really needed the extra grip as the course was very technical. I didn't lay down the fastest raw times of the day for my class, but the other drivers either DNF'ed or picked up a cone on their fastest pass so ended up taking the win in CAM-C for Saturday's event.

Also tried out a new helmet mounted camera view. Doesn't give the best course view, but much better idea of what I'm doing inside the cabin. I need to re-mount the mic as it seems like the connection isn't 100%. Also still having issues with the GoPro maintaining GPS connection so I lose the cool track map overlay as well as the speed monitor it normally provides. Anyone have any advice on this.

 

[mavisky]

As part of my off-season upgrades I stumbled into a few good deals and this was the first one I came across. A member of another GT350 group had this Trackspec GT4 hood vent kit new in box for only $350 vs $400 new. They're not as functional as the Race Louvers hood vents in the wind tunnel, but these look better in my opinion and I'm ok with a slight tradeoff in aero.

Scary? Sure, a bit, but this also isn't the first time I've cut a hole in the hood of a Mustang. Luckiyly my photography and cutting skills have improved over the last 10 years.

Also built this to help keep rain from getting in on the filter, and yes I often find myself using the lids to my garbage cans as additional workbench space far more often than I'd like to admit. Still need to get this over to my dad's woodworking shop to clean it up on the belt sander a bit to level off some of the outer perimeter.

 

[mavisky]

More splitter progress. Rounded the lower half of the nose profile on the leading edges and also countersunk the top and expoxied in the GT500 style wicker splitters. I know they carry a drag penalty with their extra downforce, but wagering the tradeoff is worth it at autocross speeds. Up next is using raptor liner to seal and provide some impact protection.

Chassis mounts

Rounded leading edge profile.

Splitter feed ramp profile sanded into splitter trailing edge. (not perfect, but needed to allow for flush mounting surface)

Splitter wickers recessed and epoxied in place

Overall photo

 

[mavisky]

After the machining and epoxy cured I used raptor liner to coat the entire setup. Came out great and you can barely see the blend line between the individual pieces.

 

[mavisky]

Race tires and aero on the car for the first event this weekend. Splitter is about 2.75" off the ground up front and mounted at a 0.5 downward angle. Total invested is probably around 500-600 between the mounts and the splitter and the coating. Holds my body weight easily. We will see how well it lives over some of the dips on course. I expect to remove some material until I get the new Steeda springs on the car.







Looking at this photo makes me realize how badly.i need to treat the factory plastics after 5 years of ownership as they're all a little less rich and shiny than I'd like.

 

[mavisky]

Swapped out the Ford Racing spring and swaybar kit for a full Steeda Suspension.

Dual Rate Magneride Springs
Compeition Swaybar Setup
Adjustable Endlinks front and rear
Front strut mount opened for further camber adjustment with Steeda camber plates (plates were already on the car)
Rear camber adjustment mount

At this point the entire suspension and bracing setup is all from Steeda.

Unfortunately we're boarding a cruise ship next weekend when our next event would take place but trying to get an alignment next week to get the car ready for when I get back.

Good news is that the car is much stiffer (as expected) based on standing on the front splitter and bouncing the car and it's a bit higher off of the ground too. I was bottoming out bad at my first event with the new splitter and even after adding some Professionally Awesome titanium skid pucks, it will be nice to have a little more ground clearance.

 

[mavisky]

Another weekend of racing, but the weather caused me to shift my plans. Was originally going to attend a fast and open autocross with the Peachstate Porsche Club down at the place I usually run with SCCA at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but the weather was going to call for heavy rain and lightning all Sunday morning. With the real possibility of a complete rainout and potential cancellation of the event due to lightning I decided to look elsewhere. Atlanta Motorsports Park (considerably closer to my house than Atlanta Motor Speedway) was going to host their first AXS autocross series. They run this on a portion of their paddock and their skidpad which means that it's going to be very tight. I knew this going in but figured it might still be a good shakedown event for the changes.

The course was so tight I never had a good place to even change into 2nd gear and instead chose to simply buzz the limiter in the fastest section instead of wasting time changing to 2nd then back to 1st. That being said I was still able to hustle this 3,750lb behemoth through the course faster than all but one other competitor and not only won my class, but put down the 2nd fastest time of the event behind a 1,500 lb Honda CRX on slicks at all 4 corners. Below is the fastest run of the day and you can see just how tight this course is, but the new suspension really helps the car rotate at will. Will be interesting to see how this translates at higher speeds as it may be a little too willing to rotate.



Sadly there was a little bit of carnage with the front splitter as the course contained a fast downhill section that saw heavy braking into the dip. The titanium splitter pucks under the splitter kept the actual splitter free from damage, but I think I may have them mounted a little too far forward and instead the splitter support rods took a lot of abuse. Luckily I have spares at home, but will probably look into some of the alternate options from either AJ Hartman or Professional Awesome.

 

[mavisky]

Over the last month (missed our 2nd event so it's been 2 months since the car has been on course) I made a few updates to the car that resulted in some great results this weekend. With the upgrades made over the last month I was able to not only close the half second gap I consistently had with the guy who wins our class every week, but actually win the class for the first time since getting back into autocrossing with a narrow 0.104 second margin of victory on a short 36-37 second course. Even more impressive is that this full weight GT350 street car (with some junk still left in the spare tire well that I forgot to remove) finished 5th overall on raw time with my in-class-competitor close behind in 7th overall. Given the shortened course the total time gained was probably closer to 7 tenths of a second on a traditional course. All of that with a simple spring/bar change and I have to thank Steeda for all the hard work that they did in developing the following setup as the car is unbelievably neutral and drivable now. The really impressive thing to me is that this time gain was over the already improved handling from the Ford Racing spring and swaybar setup I had on the car previously. Impressive for a bolt on spring and swaybar setup.

Current Suspension Setup:
Steeda Dual Rate Magneride Springs
Steeda Competition Swaybar Setup
Steeda Adjustable Swaybar Endlinks F&R
Steeda G-Trac 2 Point Front Brace
Steeda IRS Subframe Brace
Steeda IRS Alignment Dowels
Steeda Polyurethane Vertical Links
Steeda Camber Plates
Steeda Rear Camber Adjustment Kit
Steeda Low Profile Jacking Rails

Also upgraded to the AWE switchpath exhaust controller. Loving having actual control over the exhaust valves on my own, but it would be sick if I could still run it through the factory switch somehow. May have to look to see if that's possible by tying the wiring into the switchpath on the backside.

 

[mavisky]

Finally got some pics from the car on course and it's really gripped up. Sadly the audio didn't record on my GoPro all weekend and the GPS didn't track either. So I only have awkward silent video without any GPS track layout or speedometer data.

Car leaning in and dragging the outside edge of the splitter. Kind of shocked to see this much body roll even with the massive spring rates in this thing and the bars on the car. Should I be looking to ratchet up the front and rear bar? It's so well balanced I'd hate to risk upsetting that.

 

[CR151S]

This build is amazing!

 

[mavisky]

This build is amazing!

Thank you. It started off pretty tame and i'm still trying to prevent it from creeping into a real crazy build.

 

[mavisky]

After bending the hell out of the Longacre splitter rods, I upgraded to some AJ Hartman Aero custom length splitter rods. They're spring loaded and amazingly well built. Absolutely love the work he put into these.

 

[CR151S]

Scary? Sure, a bit, but this also isn't the first time I've cut a hole in the hood of a Mustang. Luckiyly my photography and cutting skills have improved over the last 10 years.

do you have any more pics of this SN?

Sponsored