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

[CRisolvato]

Threads like this are pure gold. Thank you. The childlike enthusiasm and adult appreciation match my own sentiments. My first car was an '86 GT in Jalapeno Red. 5 spd, 1st year FI and 3.08 rear end. Oh the trouble I go into with that car.

I have finally decided to pull the trigger on a 350 or 350R; it is just down to price and color. Price: I know what I am willing to pay for used and new and will wait for the right deal to be found/negotiated (thank you COVID). Color is causing me some consternation because I don't have many 350s around me and am having to rely on pictures...which rarely do any color justice. Red w/white stripe, Performance blue w/white stripe (though I found an R that looks amazing w/black stripe and all the red accents), Kona blue w/white or Oxford w/blue. I would love the Wimbledon w/guardsman blue, but finding a good deal on one of those will be incredibly difficult.

Anyway, I just wanted to tip my hat for the constant updates and the story.

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[raiderjatt02]

Thanks man! Good luck on your search. I'm a little biased but I love the stripeless look on these cars because it sets them apart a bit since the vast majority have stripes on their Shelbys. 4 years on and I still have the same feeling of joy every single time I start it up. I drove it into work the other day through bumper to bumper traffic for an hour and a half and it just solidified my love for it even more. Revving it out in 1st gear and hearing all the pops and crackles made me smile and laugh so much. A 70+ year old guy next to me saw my enjoyment, joined in by laughing himself and gave a thumbs up. I love this car, in traffic, on backroads, on a boring straight ass freeway, on the track, in the garage, in the Safeway parking lot...it doesn't matter. I don't know if any car will be able to match this in the future. The feelings still haven't worn off in 4 years...

 

[nodonut]

Thanks man! Good luck on your search. I'm a little biased but I love the stripeless look on these cars because it sets them apart a bit since the vast majority have stripes on their Shelbys. 4 years on and I still have the same feeling of joy every single time I start it up. I drove it into work the other day through bumper to bumper traffic for an hour and a half and it just solidified my love for it even more. Revving it out in 1st gear and hearing all the pops and crackles made me smile and laugh so much. A 70+ year old guy next to me saw my enjoyment, joined in by laughing himself and gave a thumbs up. I love this car, in traffic, on backroads, on a boring straight ass freeway, on the track, in the garage, in the Safeway parking lot...it doesn't matter. I don't know if any car will be able to match this in the future. The feelings still haven't worn off in 4 years...

Jessie, I'm a Jesse too! I am new to this whole GT350 scene and picked mine up on July 5, 2020. Today, I have 12100 miles on her and all the words you used to describe the joy of being inside and driving this Shelby, are echoes of my very own views of this beast of a car. I special ordered mine and had some very special things happen that make this GT350 VERY special to me. Also ordered mine as a stripe delete option and I love the look. Subtle, yet, still menacing, once the growl of the Flat Plane Crank winds up and crackles and pops for everyone to hear. I just attended the Track Attack 2 day course in Concord, NC and that was beyond belief for me. What an experience! I love it!!! Great write up on all your journeys. Keep up the great work!!!

 

[raiderjatt02]

It's been a while since I posted on here and who knows when I'll have another track day but I realized I never posted any update on my last track day. I went to Sonoma Raceway back in November after not being there for 2 years and it made me remember why I love that track so much. The way it flows and when you get in the zone, it's just so satisfying putting together a good lap.

I started noticing a weird issue though. After every session, I noticed my gas cap was popped out! I think the G forces and body flexing is popping it open during my sessions. I never noticed that before but I'll keep an eye on it and see if it happens at another track. Maybe the car is finally showing signs of aging? You can see it popped open in this picture. I'm not worried about it but it's kind of funny to see.

Traffic wasn't much of an issue and even though I was rolling on worn down RE-71R tires that were on their way out, I was still able to put down a new PB that beat my old time by 4 seconds! This was after a 2 year hiatus from Sonoma and on slower tires than last time. Last time I was on Sport Cup 2 tires. It just goes to show how much my driving has improved over the past few years. I ended up running a best of 1:51.393 with plenty of room to improve. Next time out, with fresher tires and better driving, I'm pretty confident I can get my times down into the mid-high 1:40 range.

I had a chance to take some on-track roller shots during lunch time. It was the first time I did something like that and the shots came out great! I think I found a new picture to print out and put up in the garage. Looks like something out of a magazine.

These came out nice too but the first one is my favorite.

A week after this track day, my fiancée and I took a drive down the PCH for a nice scenic trip a day before we were supposed to go to Buttonwillow Raceway. Due to COVID, this was probably the best drive I've ever had in this car. It was about 3 hours of flowing roads, barely any traffic, beautiful views, my woman, my car, myself, and the gorgeous California coastline. Every time I came up behind a car, they pulled out of the way and let me by at the first opportunity. It was like something out of dream. Too good to be true...

As the roads opened up, I started to notice a slight grind going into 5th gear. I was getting worried because as the drive went along, I tried to keep it between 2nd, 3rd, 4th gears but once in a while I would go to 5th to cruise for a bit. The grind kept getting worse...as we approached our hotel for the night, I slowed down and got ready to turn off the highway. As I slowed down, I couldn't get into 4th gear...shit. Slowed down a little more, the shifter wouldn't go into 3rd...uh oh...slowed down and tried 2nd...nope...fuck. My fiancée is looking at me like "uhhh, what's going on?". Luckily the hotel was right off the highway so I was able to roll into the parking lot and right into a parking spot using my momentum from exiting the highway. The car wouldn't go into ANY gear. I shut the car off and fiddled with the shifter nothing. We got out and checked into the hotel. I got back in the car and started it up, struggled to get it into gear and got the car to move, slowly. The transmission sounded like a bucket of nuts and bolts rattling around. No bueno. Shut the car off, took our bags to the room, poured me a drink and called my dad to bring the Excursion because we'll need to tow the car back home the next morning.

The car couldn't have chosen a better spot to die. Right as we got to our hotel so we weren't stranded, got to relax and have some good food, good drinks, and one of the best sunsets I've seen right from our room's balcony to help calm my nerves.

Papa Cheech to the rescue!

Got home and dropped the car off at the dealership to see what the hell went wrong with it. Turns out, my 5th gear synchro blew up or something and fucked up the rest of the transmission. It's still at the dealership after getting a new transmission, clutch, and driveshaft. Dude to COVID messing with supply chains all over, the driveshaft was on backorder which is why it's been taking so long. It's finally all back together so I should have it back within a week or 2 now. They're also fixing my AC which has been broken for over a year so that'll be nice to have.

Now I'm in the middle of wedding planning and house hunting so I don't know when I'll be back on track. Looks like I'll be taking a break for a while and I'll be stuck to sim racing on Assetto Corsa for the time being. So, until my next track day, whenever it is, here's the video of my best lap from Sonoma. It was my second to last lap during the last session of the day. Enjoy the beautiful Voodoo sounds!

 

[honeybadger]

That CA coastline is truly something magical. I still dream of driving it again! Love seeing the dual-use of your car brother.

And congrats the soon-to-be-marriage!

 

[raiderjatt02]

That CA coastline is truly something magical. I still dream of driving it again! Love seeing the dual-use of your car brother.

And congrats the soon-to-be-marriage!

Thanks brotha. PCH is amazing but it's so rare to get a clean road with people that actually move out of your way. Most of the time you get stuck behind someone for over an hour. I got lucky this time around!

And it's days like that that keep me from going full racecar with this thing. As much as I want to, I love being able to jump in and go on a 1000+ mile road trip at any time.

 

[honeybadger]

Thanks brotha. PCH is amazing but it's so rare to get a clean road with people that actually move out of your way. Most of the time you get stuck behind someone for over an hour. I got lucky this time around!

And it's days like that that keep me from going full racecar with this thing. As much as I want to, I love being able to jump in and go on a 1000+ mile road trip at any time.

For sure. There are times I definitely miss it. Weekends like last weekend help squelch it, tho

 

[raiderjatt02]

Almost a year since my last update. I'm doing these mostly so I have a nice little "journal" on my experience with the Shelby over the years. Things will be very slow this year since I got married and now I'm looking for a house so track days will be far and few in between for at least a year or two.

Since I got my car back from the shop last May, it's been mechanically perfect. New transmission feels great and has been flawless over the past 10 months. The guys at Walnut Creek Ford did the warranty work and I have a new transmission, clutch, flywheel, driveshaft, and rebuilt rear differential. Over most of the summer, I just drove it like normal and took a couple little cruises across California. Drove down to San Diego and LA to add some miles on the new components to break them in. After about 1000 miles or so, it was time for a track day.

In July 2021, I made it out to Thunderhill West for the first time in my life. I wasn't sure how well our cars would handle THill West so I downloaded the track on Assetto Corsa on my PC to get some practice in and get a feel for the layout before I went out there in real life. It's hilly, has off camber turns, and is pretty tight and compact. It's one of the cheapest track days you can get out here in Northern California at around $200 for the day. It's a smaller track and best suited to Miatas and lower HP cars but I needed some stress relief since wedding planning was taking its toll on me. Pro tip: Get a wedding planner! It's way too damn stressful planning everything yourself.

I was running on 4 year old Pirelli Trofeo Rs so the rubber was getting a little hard but they still held their own. The weather that day was a brisk 105F so getting crazy lap times was out of the question. I still had a goal to hit based on my Assetto Corsa times on my PC and was curious to how close I could get. On Assetto Corsa, I was able to run in the 1:24 range and down into the 1:23 range if I pushed like crazy. In real life, I was trying to see how close I could get to 1:24. Ended up with a best time of 1:25.179 on a hot day, on old tires, on my first time on that track. I was more than happy enough with that!

I brought my friend with his first ever brand new car, stock, V6, manual out to his first track day too. Got another one hooked and addicted!

Since this track is smaller, slower, and does not have many walls, I wanted to try turning off all the driver aids. I usually run in Track Mode so that means no TC, but AdvanceTrac stability control is still active to keep you from killing yourself. For my second session of the day, I held down the TC button to turn AdvanceTrac completely off...after a few laps I came into a little chicane a bit too hot, bounced off the curb, upset the car and went off into the dirt. Needless to say, I stuck to regular Track Mode for the rest of the day.

Here's a quick clip of that overlanding adventure with my fiancée along for the ride. Even though I knew she was a keeper before, this solidified it. Her first words after we went off "Let's go see if we have any damage".




Because of the heat and the wonderful reliability of GoPros, my fastest lap didn't record properly. The front facing camera died and missed out on the entire session but here's my fast lap of the day. I probably could have gotten down into the 1:24 range if I didn't go off track earlier in the day and shrink my balls a bit but that'll have to wait until my next time out.

 

[honeybadger]

Watching this, as soon as you turned in with the brakes on and kept the wheel turned in, I started yelling "no no no open up the wheel!"

I know this exact situation from personal experience (last clip in the video below)



Glad to see the Shelby is treating you well! Can't wait to (hopefully) catch up later this year!

 

[brokenblinker]

Cool update! I've been trying to get myself to thunderhill for my first ever trackday since I'm in San Jose and I've heard it's tolerant of new driver goof ups.

I also got a sim racing rig recently and got ACC and AC, though I haven't spent much time setting up AC. Do you have a mod for the gt350 specifically or so you practice with other cars? How accurate did you find the track mod?

Also, what is your camera setup to get the feet cam? I'd love to do that.

 

[raiderjatt02]

Do you have a mod for the gr350 specifically or so you practice with other cars? How accurate did you find the track mod?

Yeah, I have a few GT350 mods and one of them is pretty accurate. The combination of the Thunderhill track and GT350 mod made for pretty close laptimes to real life and honestly helped me get used to the track much more than watching videos did. It helped with trying out different lines and even which gear to use coming out of certain corners. I can't find the car mod online anymore but if you send me a private message, I'll see if I can upload it to my Google Drive for you.

Also, what is your camera setup to get the feet cam? I'd love to do that.

The pedal cam is just a GoPro mounted upside-down under my steering wheel with 3M double sided tape. It took some trial/error to find the perfect spot for the mount but I finally got it in a place where my knees don't interfere when I heel/toe.

 

[raiderjatt02]

Quick little update before I do a few Springtime mods:

I recently got married and the Shelby was a central part of the festivities!

Once everything was over, I had to have a little bit of fun

And here's a video. I tried to do the line-lock feature but got stage fright and couldn't get it to engage while everyone was watching so I had to just do it the old fashioned way.

 

[MMXX500]

Nice one mate, congratulations!!

 

[526 HRSE]

It's been a while since I posted on here and who knows when I'll have another track day but I realized I never posted any update on my last track day. I went to Sonoma Raceway back in November after not being there for 2 years and it made me remember why I love that track so much. The way it flows and when you get in the zone, it's just so satisfying putting together a good lap.

I started noticing a weird issue though. After every session, I noticed my gas cap was popped out! I think the G forces and body flexing is popping it open during my sessions. I never noticed that before but I'll keep an eye on it and see if it happens at another track. Maybe the car is finally showing signs of aging? You can see it popped open in this picture. I'm not worried about it but it's kind of funny to see.

Traffic wasn't much of an issue and even though I was rolling on worn down RE-71R tires that were on their way out, I was still able to put down a new PB that beat my old time by 4 seconds! This was after a 2 year hiatus from Sonoma and on slower tires than last time. Last time I was on Sport Cup 2 tires. It just goes to show how much my driving has improved over the past few years. I ended up running a best of 1:51.393 with plenty of room to improve. Next time out, with fresher tires and better driving, I'm pretty confident I can get my times down into the mid-high 1:40 range.

I had a chance to take some on-track roller shots during lunch time. It was the first time I did something like that and the shots came out great! I think I found a new picture to print out and put up in the garage. Looks like something out of a magazine.

These came out nice too but the first one is my favorite.

A week after this track day, my fiancée and I took a drive down the PCH for a nice scenic trip a day before we were supposed to go to Buttonwillow Raceway. Due to COVID, this was probably the best drive I've ever had in this car. It was about 3 hours of flowing roads, barely any traffic, beautiful views, my woman, my car, myself, and the gorgeous California coastline. Every time I came up behind a car, they pulled out of the way and let me by at the first opportunity. It was like something out of dream. Too good to be true...

As the roads opened up, I started to notice a slight grind going into 5th gear. I was getting worried because as the drive went along, I tried to keep it between 2nd, 3rd, 4th gears but once in a while I would go to 5th to cruise for a bit. The grind kept getting worse...as we approached our hotel for the night, I slowed down and got ready to turn off the highway. As I slowed down, I couldn't get into 4th gear...shit. Slowed down a little more, the shifter wouldn't go into 3rd...uh oh...slowed down and tried 2nd...nope...fuck. My fiancée is looking at me like "uhhh, what's going on?". Luckily the hotel was right off the highway so I was able to roll into the parking lot and right into a parking spot using my momentum from exiting the highway. The car wouldn't go into ANY gear. I shut the car off and fiddled with the shifter nothing. We got out and checked into the hotel. I got back in the car and started it up, struggled to get it into gear and got the car to move, slowly. The transmission sounded like a bucket of nuts and bolts rattling around. No bueno. Shut the car off, took our bags to the room, poured me a drink and called my dad to bring the Excursion because we'll need to tow the car back home the next morning.

The car couldn't have chosen a better spot to die. Right as we got to our hotel so we weren't stranded, got to relax and have some good food, good drinks, and one of the best sunsets I've seen right from our room's balcony to help calm my nerves.

Papa Cheech to the rescue!

Got home and dropped the car off at the dealership to see what the hell went wrong with it. Turns out, my 5th gear synchro blew up or something and fucked up the rest of the transmission. It's still at the dealership after getting a new transmission, clutch, and driveshaft. Dude to COVID messing with supply chains all over, the driveshaft was on backorder which is why it's been taking so long. It's finally all back together so I should have it back within a week or 2 now. They're also fixing my AC which has been broken for over a year so that'll be nice to have.

Now I'm in the middle of wedding planning and house hunting so I don't know when I'll be back on track. Looks like I'll be taking a break for a while and I'll be stuck to sim racing on Assetto Corsa for the time being. So, until my next track day, whenever it is, here's the video of my best lap from Sonoma. It was my second to last lap during the last session of the day. Enjoy the beautiful Voodoo sounds!

The sound of the voodoo at 8k rpms is like the devil chasing you because you stole his lunch money!

 

[brokenblinker]

Congrats, looks like everyone had tons of fun!

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