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

[thill444]

Did the Gtrac brace help with tramline?

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[mavisky]

Did the Gtrac brace help with tramline?

My solution for tramlining reduction has been 3 part and I can't definitively say whether that was the biggest contibrutor.

1. Gtrac brace
2. Alignment - factory alignment left something to be desired
3. Higher cold tire pressure - I tend to start around 37psi for just "commuting work"

 

[mavisky]

Ran through the first test of my new video recording setup today and the audio sounds great. Needs some work to balance it out from left to right, but it's a good first step.

 

[Whitedevil95]

Awesome stuff! I just gave you an Instagram follow.

 

[mavisky]

Appreciate it man.

 

[cgreen5150]

Wow!! Excellent build. I love the attention to details. Looking really good!

 

[mavisky]

Wow!! Excellent build. I love the attention to details. Looking really good!

Thank you.

 

[mavisky]

Finally upgraded my PC to the point that I can actually edit videos. I haven't done this in like 20 years, but here's 38 minutes of pure Voodoo audio bliss from the mountains of north Georgia if you want to watch and listen. Had a fun little run with some motorcycles around the 20 minute mark if you want to skip to that or you can watch the downhill bomb around the 25 minute mark.

 

[mavisky]

So for the most part I've been ecstatic with the car and I've just been driving it. All that driving though led to a set of corded tires. You can see the massive rear 325/30-19's on the car now along with the 305/30-19 front. Stayed with the Michelin PS4S since the car sees both time in the mountains and time commuting. Would have loved R888R's, but would have killed them in half the time. While I was in the middle of replacing them I came across a local deal on a used rear diffuser from Verus Engineering. From the factory Ford includes a "diffuser" that serves to feed the rear diff cooler with naca ducts. The unit from Verus expands the flat bottom across the entirety of the rear of the car blocking off the areas that allowed air to be caught behind the rear bumper. With a little work the factory naca ducts can be added to the Verus diffuser.

 

[mavisky]

Well finally got the car out to it's first real event since purchasing it.

Joined up with the SCCA and the Atlanta region for their CAMC class after reading a great writeup from another site.

Unfortunately my brain fog in the morning and trying to wrap my head around the decade + hiatus I took from competition meant I made a massive mistake early on. Instead of running the tires in the high 30's for tire pressure when hot, I instead spent the first 4 of my 6 runs dropping pressure to what they should be when cold. This lead to 4 of my 6 runs at 28psi hot. Took me a while to figure out why the car was suddenly so "soft". Once I was able to up the pressures to about 34 rear and 36 front (all I had time for before my last run) the car transformed and was suddenly much more planted, fluid, and predictable in it's breakaway characteristics at the limit. Unfortunately I also managed to disable launch control while switching off advancetrac which led to me revving the engine at the starter like an amped up teenager, instead of it settling at a nice 4200 rpm.

Car is still on the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires (305/325) so I know there is time alone in upgrading the compound there alone. I'm also second guessing my line into the back corner of the track and the downshift to 1st I made. It was a greater than 90 degree corner though, and these GT350's don't make much steam below 3,500 rpm. Unfortunately my heel/toe work here was more focused on gettign into first than it was braking as hard as possible which I know left some time on the tables.

All in all I could have done a lot worse for my first time back between the cones in over a decade, but I have a list of "driver mods" I need to perform on myself before our next outing. Fastest run of the day below. 2nd in class in CAMC in a group of 4.

 

[mavisky]

A couple photos from the May 1st event.

 

[shonole]

Parked next to you at Lowe's a few weeks back. Sweet ride!

 

[mavisky]

Lol, spotted the car. Awesome you tracked it down online.

 

[mavisky]

Well I knew this would happen eventually. After purchasing a new helmet this year the only thing that made sense was to actually go and use the thing and that led me back to the SCCA and their new CAM-C class designed for modern ponycars to compete against one another on 200TW tires. My Michelin PS4S setup works great on the street and looks great on the car, but after consistently finishing around 2 seconds behind the local class leader it was time to step up my tire game.

Ended up with a set of 19x11 Apex wheels in a square/rotatable configuration with a set of 305/30-19 Kumho V730's mounted to them. In order to mount these up front I run a 25MM spacer from Apex as well with a set of Dorman wheel studs from an F350 dually for the time being since ARP wheel studs are on indefinite backorder apparently. Looking to give this all a good test in the next few weeks at our August autocross. The new setup is more narrow than my staggered 305/325 street tires, but should give me better rotation in the corners and will also allow me to rotate the tires for more even wear between events. The wheels also happen to match my car's pinstripes almost perfectly and I'm looking forward to getting it down on the ground and getting a glimpse of the car wearing something other than black wheels for the first time in it's life.

 

[mavisky]

New tires worked as well as I thought they would.

New setup is rotatable 19x11 Apex wheels with 305/30-19 Khumo V730. I'd read some reports that these tires like crazy low hot pressures, and I can confirm that based on the 6 runs I got today and monitoring the sidewalls, this is accurate. Best times came with 30.5psi in the front and 27 psi in the rear.

I'm lucky to have a consistently fast local driver in my class in his modified 2014 GT and with the PS4S I had run during my first few events I was typically between a second and a half to 2 seconds behind him as he's on a set of 305 Falkens. With the new setup I was actually beating him until his very last run where he edged me out by a mere 0.087 seconds. My fastest time of the day caught 3 cones (2 minor slalom cones and one that probably cost me more time than it would have saved in raw time) but I did put down a faster raw time with a 65.732. Car is still on stock camber at the front and only slightly more than stock in the rear after lowering so I know I can dial in more front grip with a set of camber plates which could solve some of the understeer I'm fighting and really boost the car ahead in the standings. Time to pull the trigger on the next set of mods. (also looks like Brent, Jordan, and I all need to update our vehicle profiles to list the correct tires, oops)

At the end of the day I was in the top 20 on PAX even though the second heat was able to pick up a couple of seconds compared to our morning times. Typically Brent and his 2014 are top 10 in PAX so the second half got a major advantage on us in today's runs as he was only 15th with a number of cars he normally beats sliding ahead due to the better surface temps and cleaner surface in the 2nd half of the day. Feeling good as this means with a little more front turn-in from a set of camber plates I should be able to fight it out for top 5-10 PAX finishes in our fairly competitive Atlanta region events.

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