Not wanting to go back too far in time, but during the off season between 2020 and 2021 is when the big transformation from a under prepared C-Prepared car to a relatively competitive CAM-T occurred. This also corresponds to the launch of YouTube and Instagram so it's a good starting point.

The first order of business was to comply with the CAM rules, which required a "finished" interior, 200+TW tires, and street legal. Luckily the car just hit 25 years old at the start of 2021, which in Virginia able to get Antique Plates with no state inspection. While the car is rarely driven on the street it does have tags, registration, and insurance. I make sure all my cars are safe even if they don't need a state inspection. I hate being behind a vehicle with only one or no functioning brake lights or other sketchy items.

I created a list of items I wanted to do which quickly grew out of hand. Remember this was 2020-2021 at the time.

• Correct front suspension geometry with Steeda X2 ball joints
• order Falken RT660s
• order Kansei KNP wheels
• Install interior (I still had all panels, but need to buy carpet and build a rear seat delete)
• Remove front bumper structure and build tube bumper and tube lower core support
• Sand/prime front fenders and hood
• Hood vents and quick release hood latches
• DIY vinyl wrap (huge consumption of time)
• DIY front splitter with custom designed/built quick release
• Box in front radiator (required with splitter install)
• Universal fender flares due to tires being pushed outside the body

All of these items have a dedicated video on YouTube.

 

Throughout the 2021 autocross season the car felt faster (definitely looked better) than it did in CP trim with Hoosiers. I think that is mainly contributed to the correction of the front suspension. When lowering a car the roll center will lower using at a greater amount than how much the car was lowered. That was my case when measuring out the front suspension the front roll center was below ground. The CG of the car rolls around the roll center. Since the roll center was so far away from the CG it meant the car had more leverage on the suspension, which resulted in more body roll. By installed the Steeda X2 longer ball joints and Global West Delrin bushings I raised the roll center above ground and the GW bushings added more caster and less suspension flex.

CAM class had more competition, which is also a plus. My local club does bump classes grouping all similar classes together and then competing based on PAX. For 2021 I finished 2nd in Provisional Class behind a GT350R. My girlfriend who also races the mustang also finished in 2nd in Ladies Class behind an Ecoboost Mustang. Her novice year was 2019 and has steadily improved each year.

 

Placeholder for 2022 season

 

I had my third straight weekend of autocross the past weekend. Now have a couple week break to really look things over and hopefully get engine converted over to distributor less ignition. This last event was 2 days at NCCAR, which is a small road course in North Carolina. They set up an autocross on half the track, which was just over 1 mile. After walking the course twice on each day and just the general size of NCCAR, my legs are done. Luckily I just purchased a Turbo Ant electric scooter. However, I made the mistake of only buying one cause I thought between the car and the scooter Ashley and I wouldn't both be needing it at the same time.....a second one was ordered today 😁

Saturday
Only I went out for the Saturday event and it was a wet one. Most people cancelled, which left us with 23 participants. NCR made it work though, but with three heats we had to work two heats and drive one. Safe to say I was quite wet, but I planned ahead and brought wet weather gear except for shoes, but I had a complete set of dry clothes and shoes in my truck just in case. I did not push the car hard enough to tell if the caster increase made any kind of difference. Additionally, I thought I had fixed the fuel/RaceTCS issue by checking wiring and flashing new firmware. But after run #3 the car was running super rich and smoking again. I bypassed the RaceTCS unit again. I think I'm going to have to send it in for them to figure out what is going on. The course was fun although I knew I was driving it slow. It was interesting driving an autocross course on a road course with cambered curves, elevation changes, and narrow roadway (~2-3 lane road). On a good note, I won CAM-T (also only competitor 😏).

Sunday
Ashley came out with me, and the weather was much nicer although still chilly and windy. The course was reversed from Saturday's. This was Ashley's first time to NCCAR. Other than the day before it was my first time back since 2016, which was a time trial event not autocross. Sunday doubled the number of participants but still a low amount and again we had to work two heats and drive one. But it was dry 😁 This course really required looking ahead, so that was my big focus for the weekend was eyes up.

Ashley ran first and did well. She drove mostly clean and tried to push herself. But I was working on course and she's still getting comfortable with the higher speeds and pushing the car to the limit. But she broke into the 79 second range which we found out was decent. They weren't handing out time slips, didn't have the timing board, but were announcing over the speaker and FM radio. However we couldn't hear the speaker and my car doesn't have a FM radio. We both found it difficult to push harder not knowing any times.

Then it was my turn to drive. First run the course felt fast and I hit rev limiter on section before the finish which made the car feel like it lost all power. Apparently, it doesn't bounce off the rev limiter like newer cars. So for all remaining runs I shifted to third for the final section (which was basically a slalom). Still had no idea what my times were, but I knew fastest of the day was 67s but if you were low 70s you were cooking. Third run someone told me I was 74s and the GT350R codriver was 72s so now I had a benchmark. Last run I just sent it, while trying to stay clean....71.9 sec!!! Which landed my 8th overall in raw for the day. So stoked with that after my poor performances at the other autocrosses. The car still felt a little understeer in the beginning but once the tires warmed up it felt really good. It's hard to say it's perfect now since this wasn't on a flat surface as normal for autocross. And being the only CAM-T car again I won class. Trying to get as many points as I can, because I can't make all of the events and a trophy would be awesome.

Unfortunately, the forward-facing camera got messed up and I have none of my runs recorded and only a few of Ashley's. Super bummed about that. I'll have to see what I can do about a YouTube video. But changed some settings on the GoPro, so hopefully doesn't happen again.

 

I think you need a bigger wing on the back.. I dont think the one you have is going to create enough downforce . I have never heard of NCCAR but Im not into autocross. Is it similar to Solo2 in SCCA?

 

Yea my rear spoiler is not to the max of the rules, I didn't have enough material. It's actually an old road sign. But it gets the job done for now.

NCCAR is actually a road course not commonly used for autocross. It's more often used as a test site as it stands for North Carolina Center for Automotive Research.

Yes autocross is the common name for SCCA Solo2

 

Scribed, by the way nice car.

 

SLA Build
A SLA front suspension is something I have been drooling over for a long time back to the days of Agent 47's offering. The options for a SLA for a SN95 (and fox) have been very limited. There have been companies that have come and gone that offered them. Griggs is still around and the cost can quickly get up to $8k-10k. That's out of the budget for most street cars. But there have been people that have built their own, so it is possible. I now feel I have amassed enough design, fabrication, and other skills to tackle building my own front SLA suspension. A project of this scale is something I have not done before but I knew I could do it. I am not a design engineer or race engineer. I am a mechanical engineer, but honestly haven't used many of those items learned since college (2010).

Design
Griggs does offer their parts on an individual basis which allows one to use some parts without buying the whole kit. Using the Griggs upper ball joint adapter for the SN95 spindle I started designing my own front suspension. This started way back at the end of 2021 with researching, reading books, and looking at a lot of pictures. I picked up a spare stock kmember to use for mock up and to use to make a jig if I went that route. Next I needed design software. Fusion 360 is free, easy to use, and is quite powerful. I had some CAD experience from college (Inventor) and a little from work (Pro-E) that got me started, then used YouTube to fill in the gaps for using Fusion 360.

Some design criteria that I challenged myself to stick within

• Modify stock k-member to save on cost, design/fab time, and reduce complexity/risk
• Use off the shelf parts as much as possible which allows for repeatability and replaceability of parts
• SN95 spindle
• Start with stock lower control arm to save on cost and risk <- wasn't possible
• Completely bolt on. Car can go back to strut if needed. Future design changes can easily be installed
• Lots of adjustability

With those criteria I started getting lots of measurements and transferring those into designs in Fusion 360. Here is the final design which took many revisions to get here.

Designing a suspension requires a lot of compromises and to quantify the design and changes an analysis software is required. For that I went with Suspension Analyzer which is a leading software in this space. It does cost ~$450, but is very powerful. Using measurements from Fusion 360 I plugged them into Suspension Analyzer until I got something suitable. (note: values in below screenshot are for demonstration purposes only)

Build
Now that I have a design plan I can start building. I used SendCutSend for getting a lot of the plates cut out. That service is awesome and very affordable. There is no way I could have made anything remotely close to the quality and consistency of SendCutSend for the price. I used a lot of parts from the circle track world. Parts I designed and built were upper control arm mount, upper coilover mount, lower control arm, k-member brackets. Parts I purchased were upper control arm, coilover, ball joints, rod ends, and spindle upper ball joint adapter.

Now I am in the test phase, which may or may not lead to redesign. But right now I am very happy with it, but I've only driven 3 events so far.

If you want more details there are several videos on my YouTube channel or just ask here.

 

I've thought about trying to adapt Corvette stuff to fit. I haven't ever looked into it to see if it's even feasible but it's been in the back of my mind for a couple years.

 

I looked into it as well and it is very feasible. There are cars that have done it. For me I didn't see it as a valid option to pursue further for these reasons

• Wheel bolt pattern is different. I don't want different bolt patterns front to rear. I don't want to buy new wheels/brakes. I don't want to modify hub to mustang bolt pattern as that is now a custom piece.
• Major fabrication to either build new kmember or incorporate Corvette crossmember, which then changes engine placement and steering
• Upper and lower control arm lengths and fitting them under mustang body?? Or have to go custom control arms??
• Chevy parts on a Ford!!! Just kidding, that doesn't bother me.

The Corvette spindles look like great pieces and would fix so many issues, I just didn't want to take on that project.

 

EEC-V and Distributor-less Ignition System
As many are aware the 302W 5.0 use the EEC-IV ECU/PCM/ECM (whatever term you want to use), which is pre-OBD2 and uses a distributor. Well this isn't very useful for looking at or logging engine parameters nor up to todays standards. Distributors have been phased out of all production cars for at least the last 20 years. I don't see why so many of us 302W lovers continually put up with having to use a distributor and other old technology. Additionally getting rid of the distributor allows more space for a screw type supercharger In my opinion individual coils look better as well

The 5.0L was discontinued in the Mustang but lived on in the Explorer for a few more years until 2001. These 5.0L were EEC-V and distributor-less ignition systems (DIS), however they used coil packs instead of individual coils. But this provides a good starting point to acquire sensors from. Then comes EFIDynoTuning.com that promotes for engine swaps the best ECU to use is a 03-04 luxury sedan (ie crown vic, grand marquis, town car, marauder) and use the RZASA strategy. But everything would need to be DIY and figure out as I go.

Yea....there are several aftermarket ECU's that can run DIS and have better features than OEM such as Holley, Megasquirt, Haltech. But those cost a lot of money. You'll need the ECU, a new harness or adapter harness, other adapter harnesses for DIS, sensors/hardware, and other items I'm sure. It quickly adds up to thousands of dollars. Now I'm not saying an aftermarket ECU isn't worth it, I really want and will probably upgrade to a Haltech one day. But for now it's out of budget and this DIY option is possible.

The plan:

• EEC-V from 03-04 luxury sedan
• Modify SN95 V6 ECU fender harness (already EEC-V, correct connectors for CCRM and engine disconnect, and correct lengths)
• Modify SN95 5.0L engine harness (correct connectors and lengths)
• Couple spare harnesses from other EEC-V Fords as wire donors for modified harnesses above
• Ignition coils from Godzilla 7.3L (2 pin dumb coil and has mounting holes)
• LS spark plug wires
• Explorer cam sync (2 wire VR style)
• Explorer crankcase position sensor
• Explorer timing cover
• Custom trigger wheel and mounting
• Custom coil brackets
• Ford OEM electrical diagram books for SN95 and Crown Vic
• Lots of time studying wiring diagrams and rewiring harnesses

I know a lot of people will still be questioning why? Why not, lets be different, let's push the boundaries of what is possible. Plus it looks awesome

 

The engine runs! Working through the tuning steps with Decipha at EFIDynoTuning. Already the engine is running way better than it did with the crappy T4MO tune. It definitely helps to have someone who knows that they are doing tune the car.

 

Lets talk caster, caster can have several benefits. During turning it adds or subtracts camber in the correct direction. It creates a centering force and steering feedback, but if over done can require too much force to steer. It also creates a jacking event by raising one side and thus transferring weight to the opposite rear. This can help make the car more oversteer/less understeer. But for some cars or configurations this can be a negative. But for me I think these are all positives for my car and for autocross.

During an after event check of the suspension I found caster to around 4 degrees, which is way to low for what this car is built to do. I noticed in the Griggs SLA installation document it says to start at 8 degrees for an autocross setup. I initially was thinking of starting at 6 degrees, but maybe more is always better 🧐. So lets double it to 8 degrees and see how the car performs. Either way it needs a lot more than 4 degrees.

Caster Change Video:

 

Got to try out the ECU setup and caster changes this past weekend. Ashley and I drove 3 hours south to run with NCR at Cherry Point on Saturday. Car loads off the trailer just fine and drives to McDonald's for lunch with a few drivability issues. But of course right when needing to move to grid the car won't start. I'm supposed to be working on course and Ashley is driving. So she goes to work for me while I try to get the car started. Get it started, no idea what was wrong. I swap out with her and she makes her runs.

Ashley was driving super aggressive and was just on it all weekend. Unfortunately, she didn't get a clean run, just barely knicked the cones, but that placed her 3rd in ladies, which she has never placed with this club before. The course proved difficult for a lot of people with others only getting one or no clean runs. Then it was my turn, I knew Ashley had ran a 56 something. After my second run I hadn't beat Ashley's time (like I said she was on it). I looked at the TrackAddict data, which I decided to run this event again, and saw she was way faster than I in the slalom. With that knowledge I went out and held more speed throughout the course. I definitely overdrove the back half of the course which was super tight. But I was able to manage a 56.9 clean and a 56.5 dirty. This was also good enough for 1st in CAM-T. I know the car was capable of a 55s run which was required to get into the top 10, but I just couldn't get that back half figured out in the 4 runs we had.

Although Ashley didn't get a clean run she was feeling really good about her runs and being so close to my time and I couldn't be prouder. So with that we drove the 3 hours back home, so we could run with our local club Tidewater Sports Car Club on Sunday.

I ran first on Sunday and immediately was setting FTD and FTP (yea I know first heat, but we had some fast drivers in first heat). The 2nd gear pull on the car is amazing. It's definitely quicker than with the old engine setup. That probably comes down to Michael at EFIDynoTuning knowing what he's doing. We only got 4 runs as there were 119 drivers (45 of them Novices!). I couldn't keep my runs clean but doesn't matter because one clean run was able to net me 1st in class, 2nd in PAX, and 3rd in Raw at the end of the day.

Again Ashley went out and just threw it down. Unfortunately on her second run the car just shut off half way through the course and wouldn't restart. Embarrassing having to get towed off track, but wasn't the only car that day. I clean up the battery connection (I need to replace the ground battery connector) and she fired back up. Ashley's third run was quick but again dirty. She had one run left. Her times without the cones were faster than every other lady. On her last run I told her you are faster than everyone else but you need a clean run, dial it back to 90% and the win is yours. Takes off for her last run, hauling ass, makes it half way through no cone calls so far, gets to the fast section where we were hitting rev limiter, goes through the 180deg sweeper to the finish, no cones!! Propels her to 1st place in Ladies! Was slower than her other times, but it was clean and therefore faster.

Ashley is feeling super confident and it won't be long until me and her are going to be battling for fastest in the household. Such a great weekend. Overall we brought home three 1st places (two custom engraved glasses and 10mm socket) and one 3rd place (custom koosie).

Safe to say the caster changes paid off. The car felt amazing to drive, still not perfect but I think good enough for the rest of the season with little to no more changes. 😏

 

Although I have already posted that I have the engine running with EEC-V, distributor less, and coil near plug I just released the YouTube video installing everything and starting the engine for the first time.

I did run into a few issues that I'll list here so hopefully save other people the headaches I went through

• If using the J3 port remember to clean the protective plastic off the terminals
• Verify coil plug wiring, I had power and signal swapped
  • I tried to verify but finding info on the Godzilla coils at the time I built the harness was difficult.
• Install two coil interference capacitors
• Use stock power and grounds as much as possible

 

With the engine running good enough for autocross, I towed the car down to NC to run with NCR at Cherry Point. Before our runs we drove the car to get lunch as there was time. It had some severe bucking which unfortunately I didn't catch on datalog. But that will get tuned out and for now I don't need partial throttle. Then right before needing to bring the car to grid it did not want to start. Changed tunes and had a jump pack on the battery, it eventually started. With that little scare and I needing to work on course Ashley never shut the car off during her heat.

For Ashley's runs she pushed herself to drive as fast as she could and boy did she deliver. Although never got a clean run her scratch time was super quick at a 56.979, as comparison I ran a 56.913 and I was 14/73 raw time. That's the closest in time we have ever been. Even with not having a clean run she finished 3rd out of 5 ladies.

For my runs I had two back-to-back off courses and found myself chasing Ashley's time. I had to review the data and see how she was so quick. I got it together for my 3rd run and just barely topped Ashley's time. For my fourth run I picked up almost 0.4 s but also picked up a cone. My 3rd run was still good enough to net me 1st in CAM-T. The car definitely had more in it, but the last 1/4 of course was very tight and difficult to figure out. There were some people that didn't get any clean runs, who are usually getting FTD. But that's the fun of autocross.

Video for this event:

Results:

 

Autocross Week is fast approaching. I need to leave Sunday for the 7 hour drive to Pennsylvania. I've prepping the car but at this point I haven't really driven much on the street and definitely not long periods of time. I'm a little worried and stressed about it. But I am confident in the car and my abilities, just a lot of unknowns.

To add to it, I thought it would be a good time to make a small change to my alignment....bad idea. I wanted to get a little more negative camber, which I got but then I needed to readjust the caster. That's when things went south. The rear suspension tube on the front lower control arm is threaded and adjusts in/out to change caster at lower control arm. Well the threads apparently got screwed up at some point and the tube would not adjust outward anymore. I was able to get it off and use an impact to get the tube off the rod end to find only a couple threads chewed up. I'm waiting on parts that should be delivered soon to get the car back up and going. But I have basically zero time for shake down before loading up.

For those unfamiliar with Autocross Week its a race and drive style event similar to the drag and drive events they have been doing for years. There are 3 venues and 4 days of autocross. The car has to drive to each venue, which by the end of the trip will total around 500 miles. It sounds like a fun challenge and way for me to get new competition as well.

 

Video for previously described event. This was such a good day that we will hopefully be repeating multiple times this year.

Ladies:

Provisional:

PAX:

 

SLA changes the car completely. These cars are phenomenal with SLA's. I'd like to do one, but I think I'll stay with a conventional coil over simply because I'm not sure I'll have the patience or time to build a proper SLA set up myself and I don't want to pay someone else to do it.

The SN95 would have been a game changer if ford put an SLA style front suspension in them stock.

GREAT work by the way!

 

Thanks. I agree, I can't believe how great the car handles right now.

 

Haven't been great of keeping this up to date. My YouTube is closer to realtime, but I'll try to bring this up to date.

CAM rules for 2023 had a line stating horns are required equipment, which I had removed long ago. Additionally Autocross Week also states a horn is required. I installed a universal horn in the factory location and used factory wiring, relay, and horn. But instead of using the steering wheel button as I don't have a clock spring I ran the interior wire directly to a push button in the center console.

Since I changed to EEC-V the engine fan has not been controlled by the ecu. The EEC-V outputs a PWM signal to a fan controller, while the EEC-IV just controls a on/off relay. I've been using a switch to turn the fan on and off, but that doesn't control it very well as it can overcool or if gets switched off (which is has) can quickly overheat the engine. I used a fan controller from a crown vic fan, a fan motor from a taurus fan, and a fan blade and housing from a SN95 mustang. Overall it works, but at recent autocross with 80-90 ambient it's still getting into the 220-230 degF range although I have it set at 202 degF. I don't know what the temperature was with the EEC-IV setup, but I might need to start looking into other cooling upgrades. I still run a stock radiator and I don't know what thermostat is currently installed.

Lastly, I'm deviating from my every Friday release schedule to get the Autocross Week videos out. Day #1 dropped today. First day is check in and Summit Racing paid for a go kart session for everyone. We did a "qualifying" session and then four fastest from each of those sessions did a 20 minute feature race. I just barely made it into the feature race, #16. I quickly made up a lot of places, but got greedy on one corner going on the outside of someone and went off and got beached. After waiting for someone to come push me out I lost almost all of my places. With the remaining time I was able to get up to 13th position. But I definitely had found some pace and my quickest lab was good for 4th fastest overall. Go karts were so much fun and something I want to do some more of. This was really my first time with proper carts other than some amusement park ones when younger.

 

Day 2 of Autocross Week, which is the first day of actually racing. I out classed myself by reading the rules too literally. The rules for Classic, which my year car would fit into, said stock style suspension components. My car doesn't have stock style, but still uses some stock mounting points. But I read that and moved myself to Super Sport, which turns out to be Porsche GT3, Camaro ZL1, C5, C6, and C7 Corvettes. No way in hell I'm keeping up with those cars. Especially without PAX. But I'm up for the challenge if I can't change class.

First event was at Pitt Race on their skid pad which is a large somewhat flat asphalt pad. It does have some sloping that caused some off camber turns. The course was fast and fun, but I just could not get a handle on it and could not break out of the 63s range. To be competitive I needed to be in the 60-62 second range. One thought I had was my mind was probably preoccupied with the 3 hour drive ahead. Which I have never done in this car before and it has had overheating and drivability issues previously.

The drive.....was absolutely fantastic!!! We took back roads to Punxsutawney, PA, which was the required check point. We had a pop up car show in the town center park which was cool. The car cruised perfectly straight and coolant stayed right at 202 deg where I had it set. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect first drive. Huge relief off my shoulders, hopefully I can race better now.

 

Day 3 of Autocross Week was an absolute blast. Best day so far. The autocross was at UMI, which is a circle track with a tight infield. So having grades, barriers, grass, poles were all new to me and took a bit to get comfortable with. Once I was confident in the grip I really pushed those things out of my head and concentrated on hitting my marks and looking ahead. I really noticed in a few spots, namely the lefthander going over the small hill onto the circle track that looking ahead here allowed me to pick up the throttle earlier which resulted in a lot of time gain.

Also, I overheard someone asking why they got bumped up to a higher class. I asked a simple question about being in a higher class with a car that should be lower and they said my car should be in Classic not Super Sport. Yay! I can now race with cars similar to mine and potentially be competitive. I also heard some of the cars in Classic had subframe swaps which is technically different from factory....But I'm happy they moved me without me really asking or pleading my case.

I really pushed the car and myself at this event. I think this might have been the best I've ever driven and I was having fun. All those things led to me winning my class and by a good margin, 0.360 seconds. Which doesn't sound like much but in the world of competitive autocross that can sometimes be hard to find. Again we got so many runs, I did 14 out of 16, which helped to get comfortable and push.

Afterwards, we had a long highway drive from Clearfield, PA to Akron, OH with a checkpoint stop at Summit Racing in Ohio. Driving the car on the interstate sounds like it would be dreadful, but I had the best time just cruising in a convoy with 8 other cars. Highlight moment for me. Not on the interstate yet but here is the convoy, can also see the smoke from Canada:

Next day is at Dragway 42, which is going to be the fastest and longest course yet.

Now for the video:

 

Day 4 of Autocross Week at Dragway 42 was fast. The course was on the dragway paddock roads that form a grid system. It was over a mile long and took forever to walk. I only got one walk but it wasn't too difficult to read. During the drivers meeting they said it will be over 90 second course and if you're at or under 90s then you're flying. I've never been on a course so long, so remember every corner could be a problem.

After the morning session I was in the 90 second range, although not clean. The pressure was on for the afternoon session to get some fast clean runs. The best I could do were some 91 second runs, which was good enough for second in class. I was excited for that and definitely helped my overall position.

I had a great convoy crew with other guys from North Carolina.

The checkpoint place for today was Trick Flow, which I run Trick Flow heads so I was excited to check out the facility. It's a lot smaller operation that I thought, which is pretty cool. Then I got to show off my car some and answered a lot of questions about the engine and suspension setups. I think they should sponsor me

Then I completed the drive back to where we started at Pitt Race. I was finally reunited with my truck and trailer after about a 500 mile round trip. Back on the first night I slept in a tent but Pennsylvania at night gets colder than I thought. Instead of setting up my tent and possibly being cold all night again I just slept in the back of my truck. It was the most comfortable thing, but I didn't freeze.

Going into the last day I'm sitting 3rd in class overall and have the possibility for second if I drive well. However, this is the location that I did the worse at on day 1 and my competition is very good.

Video time

 

Day 5 of Autocross week!!! I was back at Pitt Race skid pad where we started. It was time for redemption on this course. The course was basically the reverse of the one on Tuesday. Which runs better since you start slow and end fast. I felt the momentum was in my court and the car was driving well.

This Porsche 944 was also in my class and had a LS crammed under the hood. Since they were basically the same color our cars were nicknamed the Battleships. I had a great time meeting and hanging out with new people.

Now for the racing...Things started off really well. I went into the lunch break (5 runs) sitting first in class. I brought my front splitter but didn't run it all week as I was worried about it hitting during street driving. But now we were at the last location. I asked the guys in my class if they caried if I put the front splitter on, they didn't. So after lunch I installed the front splitter to see if I could pick up any more time. I didn't. Not sure if it was my driving or the splitter. For the last run I removed it again and ran my second fastest run. So maybe the car is faster without the front splitter?

Unfortunately, the other guys in my class were able to find time after lunch. I dropped to 3rd by the end of the day. What was cool was that out of the 4 events we had 3 different winners, so competition was really close. If I had done better on the first day then maybe I could have finished higher overall in class, but I finished in 3rd place in class and super stoked with that. Really gives me confidence that the car and I are competitive outside just my local region. I need to work on being more consistent and running faster times earlier instead of my last run. But I hoping to do more events outside of my local region.

Thanks for following along!
Video:

 

Hot off of autocross week we went to a local autocross. But before we did that we drove from VA to Pittsburgh so Ashley could go to Taylor Swift. I didn't go to the concert as I'm not spending that much on tickets, but I'm always down for a road trip. Plus I got to drive my new daily driver, a 2017 VW GTI. It's a very fun car and decent on fuel (but way better than my Duramax).

The event was at the same site that we ran back in April, where I didn't do so well (finished in the 20s for raw and pax). But I've done some good upgrades since then (lower rear spring rate and more front caster), plus a lot of driving. Ashley has won last two events with this club. So expectations are high for both of us.

We started the day by receiving our 2nd place trophies from the 2022 season. I know a little late but some things take time. This is the biggest trophy I have ever won.

Ashley ran in the 2nd heat and had 4 other ladies in her class. She drove well, but not with the same fire she had at the previous event. She was definitely trying though. She was the fastest lady in raw time, but her class is PAX based. She finished 2nd by 0.069s!! So close but that is still really good point haul for the year end championship.

I ran in the 3rd heat and had 7 other competitors in my class. One of them being a PAX killer (0.793) HCS 911 with a very fast driver. Along with some fast corvettes. But I know my Mustang is fast . On my second run Ashley rode with me and she's my good luck charm. I set a banger of a time which went unmatched in class (based on PAX). But, it was also a banger of a run overall. So I finished 1st in Class, 1st in PAX, and 3rd in Raw. (Note the RX8 was actually a corvette, forgot to change car in software)

I did a little test during this event inspired by my results during Autocross Week where we ran some runs with the front splitter and some without. Interestingly, Ashley and I both ran our best times without the front splitter. Now that could be heavily influenced by our driving. Neither of us are 100% consistent. I felt the car handled better with the front splitter and the rear was less loose, but my times were slightly slower. I do know that my car is usually it's fastest when the rear feels loose. It rotates very well and can get through some tricky sections. The jury is still out if it's faster with or without the front splitter.

Now for the video:

 

This event was at a local circle track and was the first time in recent history that this club ran at this venue. Out of precaution, they designed a very conservative course, which I appreciate. No reason to run the risk of putting a car into the wall. The more they run at the site and figure things out, I'm sure the courses will get faster and stay safe.

For this event it was just me, as Ashley had a prior commitment. The weather was very hot and did cause some very warm coolant. It didn't overheat but it was getting to the 230F range which is wild on a 40sec course. I'll address this later. But back to the event, after seeing the other cars I knew competition was going to be tight. I set a goal of being in the top 5 in PAX, which was going to be tough but doable.

I ran in the second heat out of four total. It took several runs to start pushing the car and figuring out where the time was. My times after the 3rd run were good for 2nd in PAX, but I knew there were some really fast drivers in the third and fourth heat. There was a very tight slow sweeper onto the finish straight. I have always been against downshifting and prefer to just stay in second gear as much as possible. But this turn was so slow that on the 4th I decided to try a downshift to first gear. This netted me some time but it wasn't that much faster than my 2nd and 3rd run. Next place I knew I needed to fix was the infield sweeper. I was going too hot into this turn and pushing wide on the exit. I initially thought maybe I could go wide entry to get a good run out but it just wasn't working out. For my last run I made sure to slow down for the infield sweeper and stay tight to cut the distance. This along with being more aggressive in a few other spots netted over a 1 second improvement!! So at the end of the second heat I was sitting 1st in PAX and 2nd Overall. But I knew that would not hold after the remaining two heats.

As I watched and worked the remaining heats I watched fast times being set and my position tumble. At the end of day where did I end up?? Raw time I was able to stay in the top 10 with a 6th position. Then for PAX I finished 4th!!! I met my goal of being in the top 5. I was sitting in 3rd PAX until the BRZ's last run, so close. But that driver is a national champion in a CSP Miata, so I wasn't surprised when he jumped up the standings once he got a clean run. And the Mini Cooper is winning almost every event he enters (turbo 4cy has more HP than my V8).

This event was so much fun and I'm stoked with my standings.

I finally got around to putting a gopro on the front suspension. Check out run #3 for a full run of just the suspension working. It is a super cool view seeing the SLA actually going up and down, along with seeing the tire flex. It has me more convinced that maybe 285 on 10.5 would be a better option than the 295. Also it's interesting to see the lower control arm rotate some due to the sway bar. That is going to need attention in the future.

Check out the full event video:

 

Attended another local autocross in the drag strip parking lot. The weather was HOT. Which provided another challenge for us. My car does not have AC or even a blower motor (this may be something I rethink in the future).

The course was typical for this location although they changed the start line location and included a loop. But the tight 180 sweeper and weird offset slaloms avoiding bad asphalt were still there.

I ran in the first heat. There was one other CAM-T car but not prepped, just a beautiful 86 Mustang. But the CAM-C GT350R was running with this club for the first time this year. Last event I was able to out PAX him, let's see if I can once again. After my first couple of runs I was fast, but not clean. Additionally, after my second run my car became a dual driver car. One of the other guys that was codriving a Corvette only got one run before that car broke. So I let him codrive a couple runs with me. This was fun but put more heat stress on the tires and engine. On my last run I finally got a clean one but it was 1 second slower than my fastest dirty run and that dirty run I screwed up the last obstacle which caused me to go over the finish quite slow. In the end I finished 5 in class, while my codriver finished 2nd. Him and I both had times which if were clean would have been first in class and top PAX. 😞

Ashley ran in the third heat, so the sun was in full force by this point. She ran clean mostly, but struggled to push herself faster. I rode with her on the 4th and 5th runs. Her 4th run was 2.5s faster than the 3rd run, but with a cone. For some reason she drives more aggressively, when someone else is in the car. I think at this point she was sitting 3rd in class, with one run left. Just needed to repeat 4th run but clean. Fifth run was clean and fast but 0.06 secs slower than 4th run. She had first in class at this point, but one lady left to run. The other lady jumped her by 0.044 secs after PAX. Ashley finished the event with a respectable 2nd place. Since she was so close in time (0.044s) to first place, she still brought home really good points for the year end championship (99.9 to be exact).

I reviewed the TrackAddict data collected for my runs, Ashley's, and my codriver. For some reason I could not figure out the last slalom before the finish. Entering the slalom between Ashley and I, I was only a few MPH faster. But the rear axle came around on me multiple times. I'm not sure if I was braking and upsetting the car? This compromised backsiding the next cone and getting back on the power. While Ashley did it perfecting and was able to get back on the power to the finish right at the second cone. She went through the finish 10mph faster than me, which is tons of time!

Comparing my last run, to my fastest dirty run I lost time in the launch. For those that say the launch doesn't matter that much, it definitely can depending on course design. I bogged bad on my 5th run. I think I rushed and didn't get the car up on 2-step long enough and launched the car when rpm was starting to drop or something. Then that last slalom, which I couldn't get right.

Overall I lucked out for the overall PAX championship, in that a number of the other fast drivers were at another event. I finished 8th in PAX out of 74 drivers. But it was my event to lose. The car was capable of winning top PAX, just I wasn't on that day. I know I shouldn't be hard on myself, but I was super bummed I didn't win since I was so close. True Champions are on it all the time and don't have off days. Still working on it...

Video time!