Saturday, October 26, 2024

OLD CROW 3V Mustang: Buttonwillow CW13 The Photo!

 This photo deserves its own post. Cali Photography is out on the track taking photos of every single car on track and you can buy package deals for like $90 or you can buy your first individual photo for $25 and then any additional photo for $15. Most of the photos looked at this basic angle of the car and I liked this one the best because it looked like a good action shot, coming down the small hill, more like a bump, on the section of the track at Buttonwillow Raceway Park called "Grapevine". 

This photo represents the last 20+ years of dreaming of tracking a car, of all the hours watching YouTube videos of cars running CW13, all the planning and scheming and wishful thinking during my ownership of my other cars, especially the last few, the Silver 2002 WRX, the red Civic EK Hatchback, but even the 330Ci BMW that I autocrossed and all the way back to my first 2002 WRX which I modified a good amount and took to Miller Motorsports Park back in like 2010 for a Wide Open Wednesday event. I would say what got me over the edge to actually do a track day was my brother Brent, who paved the way by tracking his red 2005 Mustang GT RED BARON and his encouragement and example. I just copied him and it 100% worked like a champ to get me out there! 

I'm planning to do a Track Day out at UMC (Utah Motorsports Campus) next year! 

Enjoy!



Monday, October 21, 2024

OLD CROW 3V Mustang: Road Trip from Utah to Buttonwillow Raceway Park CW13 for my first Track Day!!!

This is easily the coolest blog post I've ever made in the 17 years I've been doing this blog. Just dig that title! It was an EPIC trip! That word was overhyped out of use a few years ago, but its the best word I can think of to describe this road trip! 

Here was the plan of attack. As documented here in this blog, I have been modifying Old Crow to be a solid street car that can do track days. With this in mind, Brent and I had been talking about doing a track day at Buttonwillow together along with the #stickaxlegang sometime in the fall. I signed up for the Oct 19th Buttonwillow CW13 configuration with SpeedVentures. It was $330 total. $70 of that was to pay for an Instructor, which was required if this is your first track day event. I also rented the transponder, which was like $40, so I could get my lap times recorded through racehero.io. It's certainly not a cheap event. If you weren't aware, I live in Utah and Buttonwillow is in the central valley of California. It's 750 miles away from my house! The nice part is its only about 1 hour and 15 minutes from my home town of Tehachapi, California where my parents and brother live. The plan was to drive down in one day, have a day to do some prep (change diff and engine oil and mod the seat rail to lower the new Corbeau bucket seat), hit up an R/C indoor event at the Mojave airport, then hit the track on Saturday and then start driving home on Sunday. 

Tracking your "daily car" always has some level of risk to it. Adding the fact that I'm 750 miles away and the potential impacts of breaking down at the track, that definitely made me nervous. Add in the other point that I and my friend are the ones who installed every single modification and it was really going to be a test of the car. I'll give you the spoiler, everything went better than expected, the car did amazing and it was an epic trip and day at the track.

This is going to be a long post. I'll run through the trip and the preparations we completed once I got to my parent's house in Tehachapi. 

Pre-trip Preparations

I need to catch you up on the couple of mods I have done the last month or so in preparation for the track day. After doing the front brakes on the Mustang with Corey and then doing the brakes on our Honda Odyssey by myself, I felt comfortable to tackle replacing the rear brakes on the Mustang. The pads and rotors were visibly worn and needing to be replaced. I followed Brent's path here as well by picking up the SVE rear caliper bracket which allows the use of the 13" brake rotor used on the 07-09 or 11-14 GT500/2012-13 Boss 302. This is a nice step up in size from the 11.8" GT rotor. I then picked up matching PowerStop "Track Day" brake pads. Here's a quick before and after shot. I cleaned and masked off the rear calipers and sprayed some gloss black to improve the look behind the wheel.


Here's a view of the billet aluminum bracket made by LMR.com (SVE brand) to allow the use of the larger rotor with the stock GT caliper. Pretty slick mod which helps in the braking but also in the visual looks department to fill  up those 19" wheels better.
I flushed the transmission fluid and replaced it with Mercon V ATF, which is per the OEM specification. Kind of funny that the manual transmission uses automatic transmission fluid (ATF). It took exactly 3 quarts. The trans fluid had been changed at 30k miles, which was 100K+ miles ago. Another yikes!

In September, I drove down to the Corbeau warehouse in Bluffdale, Utah and test sat in a few of the FX1 line of seats. Brent has the FX1 Pro on the drivers side and the FX1 Wide now in the passenger seat (previously the drivers seat, moved over to the passenger). I had driven Brent's car with the FX1 Pro about 2 years ago when I went down to help Poppi get his engine and trans back in his Sally SN95. I was pretty set on that and was about to buy it online. When I found that the websites I was going to buy from were going to take a few weeks to ship/arrive, I went straight to Corbeau's website. They offered since I was local to come down and sit in some seats to test them out. What I found was that the Pro was the most narrow (up to 34" waist), the standard FX1 was in the middle (up to 36" waist) and the FX1 Wide was... you guessed it, the widest (up to 38" waist). I sat in the Pro first because I thought that was the one I came down to buy. Uh, whoa that's reeeeeally tight man. That got me thinking haha Can I live with this on the street year round? Bruuuhhh... that's tight. I sat in the standard and was like, oh ya, I think that's it. I sat in the wide and in a couple of other models, but went with the standard FX1 in the end. Here's a pic above of the final look once installed. The hardest part of the install was actually the removal of the stock seat's wiring harness. To get the one plug you need to connect to the seat belt sensor, so your audible alarm doesn't go off continually, you have to retain the whole wiring harness for the factory heated and adjustable seat. I'm not ready to cut up the oem seat harness so its stuffed underneath the Corbeau for now. 

Day Before Trip Start

On Tuesday, October 15th, I packed up the car and my suitcase. I filled up my small red tool box with some basics, torque wrench, sockets, screw drivers, flashlight, windex and paper towels, a park chair and some snacks. I left with a full tank of Utah's best 91 octane at 615am on Wednesday October 16th from Farmington, Utah. The sun was not up and wouldn't be for like 2 hours. My first stop was Cove Fort and the new gas station on the Cove Fort exit. 

Day 1

After going about 2+ hours, I made a stop at the Cove Fort gas station. There was some rain clouds threatening in the area. I escaped with only minor sprinkles. Stopping here allowed me to make it to Las Vegas for a final gas up.


Day 2
After going for my morning walk, we started working on removing the rear diff cover. After looking in the maintenance records I have from the original owner, I realized the rear diff oil was original to the car. Yikes! 16 years and 134k miles. I was planning to replace it anyway, but man, that's a long time. After watching a YouTube video of changing diff fluid on the 05-09 GTs, I quickly saw that there was no drain plug. To remove old fluid, you have remove the diff cover, which means replacing the gasket too. So, I went to LMR.com and found they have the GT500/Boss 302 cast aluminum cover which is finned for better cooling. The cover also has 1/2 a quart more fluid to the capacity, making for 2.5 quarts total. The cover was like $190 shipped plus a gasket for like $25. So, I quickly ordered it up and actually had it shipped to my parents. It arrived on Tuesday before I arrived Wednesday afternoon. 
The Ford OEM GT500 diff cover came with some nice stainless hardware along with a plug for the diff vent which is not needed on the Mustang GTs because the GTs vent through a vent in the axle tube. The rear diff fluid wasn't horrible, but not great either. We inspected the bottom of the bucket and didn't seen anything scary in there (shiny metal bits). I used Valvoline 75w90 (regular temp conditions) synthetic gear oil which is made for "limited slip" diffs from Walmart. Luckily, by buying 3 quarts, if you spill 1/2 a quart, you still have enough to top off the diff LOLOL. Ask us how we know! We used Poppi's funnel and tube contraption to gravity feed the oil into the diff. I'll have to take some time this winter to put some black paint down on the rear end to improve the looks a little. Kinda rusty lookin'.

After finishing up the diff fluid and cover install, we moved on to changing the oil. Brent recommended I go with 10w30 Synthetic High-Mileage oil either by Mobil1 or Valvoline. I went with Mobil1 because that's what Walmart had. Brent had a spare Ford Racing high flow oil filter for me to use since he now uses a remote filter location due to his oil cooler. Score! The oil change went smooth. Nothing to report there. Normal capacity is 6 quarts. I put in a little more #becauseracecar. 

The final track day prep item was to modify the brand new Corbeau S197 seat rail. Hechtspeed cannot leave anything alone, even mods have to be modded! After installing the Corbeau seat and rail, I did notice my head was closer to the roof/headliner. I commented to Brent about this not thinking much of it and he responded back that he modified his same seat rail to lower it. The seat rail's rear mount design has a 90 degree step in the metal frame. By cutting out the step and welding a piece of steel flat and drilling out a hole, boom, you move the seat rail down a solid 1" in the rear. This has a secondary benefit of leaning the seat back a little bit. It is a little too upright, especially for a performance driving/track day. 

Here's a pic of Poppi using a cut off wheel to remove the stepped portion of the bracket. He estimated the length of the new plate and where the hole should be. 

This pic below is after the first modded bracket is tack welded on. Using the same wheel to cut the piece of plate. 


Here's the finished look after grinding the welds down a bit and putting down some satin black paint. The lower seat and subtle leaned back angle made a noticable difference in the seating position. It took a couple hours but I think was worth it. It's really kind of odd to have a racing seat sitting higher than the OEM seat. It doesn't make any sense. It's probably not a big deal and maybe not even noticable for regular Joe's but at 6'3.5" tall, I noticed it right away and knowing I was planning to have a helmet on, that was going to be even worse. 


We finished Day 2 by catching the Dodger vs Mets playoff game after getting some local Mexican food in town with mom and dad.
I think this was the day Brent and I got the email from SpeedVentures giving us our run groups and schedule. I was in the Beginner group "Purple" with my first session scheduled for 9:35am.

Had to take some pics of Sally the SN95 Family Legend and the Old Crow S197 parked together and mom and dad's place. I got to drive Sally around town and for a rip and it sounds SIIIICK!!! I wish my car had the cracks and pops like Sally does with her 30 year old oem mufflers (not really muffling anymore). The high desert sun and sand have been harsh to her paint, but underneath she runs strong! I know how I'd mod Sally to make her CW13 worthy! You can put some big meats under an SN95 too you know! They're lighter weight too and this one has more power than my 3 valve does. With the right parts, she could sub2 CW13! I digress.....

Day 3
Went for a 7 mile bike ride with Poppi, hung out with my high school buddy Dave, helped my parents shop for a new screen door at Home Depot and then went over to Brent's to watch him replace his rear brake rotors and pads and talk shop. He taught me how to sit in my race seat so I don't wear it out as fast. heh heh Brent came to check out the car and the new seat and immediately noticed the fabric pattern is a little different from his Pro and Wide FX1. Once he sat in it, he was like, oh man, this is more comfortable than his. The seat cushion we realized is a little thicker. So, that was another option if I needed it was to swap in Brent's passenger seat cushion and I could have dropped down lower another 1/2 to 1". 
Brent bought a new full faced race helmet, so he gave me his old open faced unit. I spotted him $40 since it saved me from having to rent one from the track. We loaded up the car with all the stuff we'd need and hit the hay.
Sick sunrise pic from Buttonwillow's pit area.

Day 4 - The Track Day at Buttonwillow CW13!
Brent was in the Black run group which was first to get out on track at 8am. His Drivers Meeting was at about 715am. So, we planned to get there about 645am which meant our departure from Tehachapi was for 530am! Yikes! This is vacation!? hahaha Poppi and I got in formation with Brent and Bentley in the Red Baron Mustang and headed down the hill to Bakersfield and on to Buttonwillow which is about 20 minutes beyond the outskirts of town on the 58 freeway, then up the 5. We got through a short line at the gate where we had to pay $10 each (geez, $330 isn't enough to get me a parking spot?). I found Brent and the #stickaxlegang parked up on the northwest area of the pits and joined the gang. That was a cool moment man! What I haven't gotten into yet here is the cool factor and the meaning of this moment of finally driving into THE Buttonwillow race track. I've been following the time attack scene for over 20 years. I was originally into aircooled VWs in the mid 90's as a teenager. When I was newly married and in college, I got into the Japanese sport compact car scene, Civics, Integras, Evo's, STi's, Skylines, etc. Back in the summer of 2000 when I picked up my first Sport Compact Car magazine, it was a very performance oriented scene that I was interested in, especially the time attack scene that was focused around the Tsukuba Circuit and Lap Battles. Circling back then, Buttonwillow and specifically the CW13 configuration is the closest thing to an American Tsukuba Circuit that we have. So, I've followed the magazines, then forums, then YouTube channels and Instagram accounts for anything related to Buttonwillow CW13. I've watched countless hours of videos of Hondas, Subies, Evo's, GT86's and Mustangs and Camaros lap CW13 and dream of the day I could have a track worthy car. October 19th was my day to be officially a small part of this track scene. It was really cool to meet the #stickaxlegang members in person for the first time, David (Grabber Blue S197 V6 track car), Nico (Green Bullitt S197 3V that has gone 1:54 (#sub155club)! I also met Mikey (S550 Shelby GT350) and his friend Alex (Mazdaspeed Miata). Thanks to David for providing the "008" vinyl race numbers! Most importantly, David is going to cut me up a CW13 track outline decal for my rear window. Can't wait!!!
Ok, so we unpacked the car, applied vinyl numbers and went to the main building to find out when my Purple run group Drivers Meeting was. It was at 850am, so I had time to grab a transponder, fill out the Mustang Drivers Club handicap points form (4.5 points if you were wondering) and grab some free MDC stickers. At the meeting, we got some direction on how the day would proceed, explanations of the different flags you might see out on course and some question and answer. 

I came back at 9:15am to meet my Instructor, who ended up being Ed a CHP from L.A. who was parked next to the gang in his E92 BMW M3 V8 4 door (he ran a best of 2:05). He was a pretty cool guy and gave me some good instruction and was just generally a very chill guy who's demeanor was calming and reassuring. He asked me some questions about my car, about driving, he asked me what my natural, best position was for my hands on the steering wheel. I put my hands right at 9 and 3 and he said "oh, its not with one hand on top?" haha So, after chatting for a minute, he could tell I had some clue what I was about to do and then began to talk about things that would help me be safe but also some basics on how to drive the line faster over time as I got comfortable. 


Session 1
The first session was a medium paced lap where we got to see the track and the corners and to follow the person in front of us. Ed was good about pointing me in the right direction, even saying, "don't follow the line of the guy in front of you, he's not doing it right" haha. I only did 2 laps and went 2:46. I was 11th out of 13 on track. 
Session 2
The second sesh we picked up the pace and got to do 5 laps. Ed pointed out some things I needed to do and where on the track I should be. He also said for me car the track should be a 3rd and 4th gear only. No need to go down into 2nd. That didn't totally make sense but I was just listening for now. I went 2:34 and was 11th out of 15 cars. After this session, there was a debrief back in the main building with the group to discuss questions and talk about anything.
Session 3
Session 3 was my first solo run. I was pushing much harder now with a little more knowledge of the track, the line, the braking zones, getting comfortable following others and passing and being passed. It's a lot to take in and I was intentionally going slower and not trying to be too aggressive. I was also feeling out the car as I got closer to the limits (little did I know how far from being at the limit I was). I ran 5 laps and ran a best of 2.22 and placed 9th out of 15.
Ride-a-along with Brent in the Red Baron!
Whoa! I knew Brent was fast. He has run a 1:59 in this car in cooler weather. He has the coveted #sub2club decal! Going under 2 minutes flat at CW13 is a very fast time especially for a street car. I was a little nervous to ride with Brent. I mean, I've done multiple touge runs down to Keene with him in various different Mustangs through the years and is able to push hard and be in control. That is how you go fast. You are in control but barely, you are able to dance on that limit of grip. I know this is how someone makes the most of their car but for someone with no real experience pushing a car himself to the limit is intimidating. That is exactly what I was there to do though, to learn how to push my car to its limits. I believe this was Brent's 4th session and the temps were near 80 degrees and he knew he was not going to be PB anymore that day so he asked if I wanted to ride along. I was all in and knew I would learn a lot. Boy was I right! 
Just entering the track on the entry point we were already going hard. Brent made it clear that if I started to get motion sick or want to stop, just tap him on the arm and he'd pull off. I was all in and was watching and imagining this was me driving. I'm trying to figure out how to best describe this 20 minute session with Brent and the Red Baron S197! It was insane! It was fun! It was exhilerating! It was lesson time! Oh, and guys! The S197 chassis, with its 1960's "solid rear axle" design, it is an amazing piece of machinery! The basic design of the rear is much better than 1960's and early 70's Vintage Trans Am Mustangs, with the new 4 link design. With some basic mods, these cars are very capable! The way the car grips, it was so much more grip than I expected. And with these grippy 200 treadwear tires on a race track, compared to regular performance tires and the street, the grip level doesn't compare AT ALL to the street vs the track! About half way through the out lap Brent was going hard and the tires were gripping, they were warmed up! I was in the Corbeau FX1 seat but was pulling the seat belt tight to keep my planted in it and pushing with my feet. As a passenger, you don't have the same things keeping your butt in the seat. Brent and his RB were clipping the curbs and getting an inside tire off the ground some times and I mean at speed. Especially coming out of "Bus Stop" and going through "Riverside" and into "Phil Hill", which is a fast sweeper. The transition from Riverside's right handed sweeper to the left turn to get lined up to Phil Hill, that was probably the most impressive section where the car was flying and the grip was crazy! The "Esses" the car is shifting into 4th and hauling ace while going left and right and left and right and left again, bouncing off of curbs at every point. Brent's car, with its cammed and barely muffled 3valve 4.6, which has about 400hp at the motor sounds gnarly and just puts me back in time to what a 1970 Boss Mustang racing in Trans Am could have felt like. It was just "Wow!" I don't think I've had that much fun ever, except in a minute when I describe myself driving my car probably about 85% that hard haha!

Session 4
The 4th session for me was a big jump up in confidence, speed and grip and pushing myself to the limits of the car. After riding with Brent, wow, it really gave me confidence that these S197 3Valve cars are amazing and can grip like crazy, way more than I thought I could drive. Mind you, I also have in the back of my head that, "hey genius, you still need to drive the car 750 miles back home when this is all done!" I was using a few key points from my instructor, mostly the advice, "keep your eyes up!" and "B.S.T.", which stands for Brake, Shift, Throttle, in that order. I was also going deeper and deeper into the braking zone. I would say, the impressiveness of the braking performance was on par with the grip levels. I was stomping on these rockauto 14" 4 piston front and 13" rear rotor'd brakes with PowerStop "Track Day" pads over and over, corner after corner, lap after lap. They are dusty and squeally, but they flat out stop the car consistently and hard! One of the key things the rear suspension mods do is really reduce the nose dive of a Mustang in hard braking. The rear suspension geometry changes really keep the nose flat and that really improves the Mustangs stopping ability. With me pushing this great car closer to its potential, I ran a best of 2.13 and was 2nd fastest out of 11 cars in session 4. It was a big jump of nearly 10 seconds! I will mention, we had a full course red flag, where we stopped in place on the track. I was texting Brent and Poppi and found out an S2000 blew its motor and laid oil down the front straight. Later we came into the hot pit and I watched the safety crew put "kitty litter" down on the oil. I was glad that we were allowed to resume a few more laps as I was just getting fast and had passed a few people and had a wide open track to really get after it. My fastest lap was my last lap of that session too.

Bonus Point-By Session
I was excited for this final session of the day. I was eager to get back out there. The nervousness was gone, the confidence was up, the understanding of how to push the car was increasing each lap. I had done a couple laps and as I came out of turn 2 I saw Brent going slow up ahead allowing me to catch up. We were able to run 3-4 laps together with me following Brent. This was such a cool great finish to the EPIC day! I was hanging with Brent and pushing and just have a blast doing it! It was a great memory maker for sure! I improved again, by going 3 seconds quicker, to a 2:10 lap time. Brent was saying, he thinks my car is capable of doing 2:05 or so! I agree, I know there's more time in it! This was just my first day ever on a track! 
Funny thing was, I started to get fuel cut. I only had about 1/8 of a tank of fuel left by the end of the session and actually finished probably a lap early. I really should have put a couple more gallons in it before that last session. Rookie mistake!

My Take Aways
1. The S197 Mustang platform is very under appreciated! Especially the lowly 300hp 3 valve 4.6L 5 speed version of the platform as compared to the 5.0 Coyote/6 speed variant. But, what I was able to build for about $20k total is an insane value for money. With the right set up and driver skills, it is a great track weapon! The grip levels and braking performance with the right mods is more than I imagined!
2. Driving on a track is nothing like street driving, even canyon / touge drives. The ability to have a safe place to push yourself and to get lap times to use as a way to measure improvements is unmatched. Stay off the streets, get on the track. Track driving makes you a better driver on the street though too. It was interesting to drive home. I felt more confident in the car in every situation.
3. I have read many times that experienced track people suggest starting to track a car when it is pretty much stock trim. I get the point that your money spent on getting on track is super valuable. I have spent the last 20 years modding my cars to various degrees, all with the intent of making them handle, stop and look better. I know in the case of the S197 Mustang, some good tires and brake pads/fluid would go a long way to being able to push a car on track. But, I would say, the $10k I put into the car to transform its handling, braking and looks was well worth it and made my first track day an absolute blast and allowed me to run, what I think, is a respectable lap time at CW13. Yes, I could have taking that same $20k and bought a used 2011-14 Coyote powered S197 Mustang that might have an intake, tune and exhaust and maybe some heavy Bullet wheels, but it would not have handled and ran like my car did at the track. Plus I get lower insurance with 120hp less on the spec sheet haha
4. I'm officially #sub3club hahahahaha It feels good to have touched every bit of this car, to have driven it 1500 miles round trip, beat on it and learned a ton at Buttonwillow. It was a dream trip come true! 

Here's some parting pics from the end of the day before we enjoyed a free meal by the Track Snack Shack (legit fried chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus and cake - $25 value for free (I mean, I did spend $330 for the day, so not exactly "free" haha)!


What's next?
I gotta get my bumpers and fenders painted. They're sitting here sanded and ready to go. Then I can put my front lip back on and I have Brent's Gen 1 Canards ready to go on the bumper once its painted.
Then probably an aluminum radiator. The original radiator is 16 years old and probably could go at any moment. I need to pick up some all season tires to go with my GT500 wheels for winter mode. Brent is suggesting I do new timing components at some point. I'm thinking water and oil pumps too. Nothing drastic or major. Just continued fine tuning of a great car! 
I hope you enjoyed this one. I know I did! The road trip and Track Day went better than expected. I got 23mpg on the drive home from Cali back to Utah and that includes lots of hills. It'd probably do a solid 24-25 mpg on flat highway. She cruises at 2100 rpm at 80 mph on cruise control! She's a great grand touring car too! (Huh, GT, weird).

Parting shot here. We gassed up outside Bakersfield to get home after running out gas tanks very low from all the fun we had!








Thursday, August 29, 2024

OLD CROW 3V Mustang: Tries on Slicks, Winter Wheels, Safety Washer and Car Show

 OLD CROW Mustang update time... 

I'll start off with the purchase of some winter wheels. I've been hunting on Facebook Marketplace locally here in Salt Lake for some 18" winter wheels for months. Due to installing the 14" 4 piston brake upgrade, my 17x8 stock wheels no longer fit up front. I sold those for $200 for the set. 

I ended up buying a set of Ford OEM GT500 wheels from the 2007-2009 Shelby GT500 which measure 18x9.5 +45mm. I definitely wanted to have a winter wheel that looks cool and wasn't narrow, like an 18x8, which would have looked just silly on the car. So, I'm happy I found a Mustang wheel that will look great but due to being used, wasn't going to break the bank. I bought these for $380 from a guy in Salt Lake who used them on his Foxbody Mustang. He bought them with a used set of 245/40/18 BFG G-Force R1 slicks and attempted to use them for an autox event and they ended up rubbing like crazy on the front fenders. 


The car looks really good with the GT500 polished wheels. They look pretty dang good in the photo here, but they're kinda rough up close. I did scrub them down good and tried to handle polish them. They definitely need a good polishing wheel. They're perfect for a winter wheel. I plan to put a 275/40/18 or a 285/35/18 on them. The 2009 GT500 ran a 285/40/18 rear tire on it from the factory and a 255/45/18 front tire on the same size wheel. 

I ran this wheel and tire setup for 1 week a couple weeks ago just for fun to see what the wheels looked like on the car and maybe more importantly, how the car handled with slicks. I did the ol' "slalom" back and forth swerving motions to warm up the tires on a back road and man, once the tires got nice and warm, were SUPER responsive on turn in and front grip. The 245/40/18 tires are too narrow and short for the car and looked a little funny. While they are marked as 245 wide, from the picture sitting next to a 295mm wide 200 treadwear tire, they probably measure more like a 265 or 275 wide street tire. 

Next up, I've had a set of Mezier brand "safety washers" that Corey picked up for me from Summit Racing. It took me a bit to understand how these actually worked. Here's a pic of the washer installed. So, the thought process is, if this Cortex bump steer tie rod joint fails, the hoop of the tie rod end could slide right off and the nut on the end would slip right through the hoop and you would not have any steering mechanism any longer. So, with this safety washer, it will keep the tie rod end at least attached so that you will have control of the car to get it off the road and to a safe spot. 

My friend who has autox'd a bunch of Mustangs actually had a bump steer tie rod end fail like this in his driveway. He installed the parts, went to back out of his driveway to go for a test drive and heard a noise and then no longer had steering. So, he highly recommended it.


Here's a quick view from under the car showing the clearance between the wheel and the tie rod end bolt and washer. 
I took advantage while I was under the front of the car to do a nut and bolt check and a general clean up of the hard parts. While there I noticed the passenger side inner fender liner plastic had some rubbing marks from the wide wheel and tire package. Honestly I'll take it. This isn't bad at all for running a 19x11 +50 with a 295/30/19 tire up front. These S197 Mustangs can soak up a lot of tire. Heck, Brent runs a 315/30/19 on his 2005 Mustang track car. He probably has a little bit more rubbing than I do, but still, its minimal and really doesn't need a lot to be able to run that much width up front.

I took the Mustang to the Utah State Layton Autocenter Annual Car Show last weekend. It was a small show, but was fun to get the car detailed the night before and go show it off. 
One of my favorite cars at the show was this 1930 Ford 5 Window Coupe in a 1959 Pontiac color. The car goes with the Pontiac 389 V8 with 3 deuce card set up. I talked to the owner, Joe, for a few minutes, talking cars and asking about the car. He said he built it with his dad who ha since passed away. He finished it about 5 years ago and said he's probably only into it about $6-7k. He had been collecting parts for years. It's an original Ford steel frame from 1930. I love the "traditional hot rod" style this was built in. Traditional means loosely that the car looks like it could have been built in the 40's - 50's using OEM parts from various manufacturers. This is my favorite style of hot rod and it would be so fun to build something like this in the future.

On the other end of the spectrum from that sweet 1930 Ford Coupe is this 2001 Honda S2000 owned by my friend Daniel. I met Daniel a few years ago when I had the 1999 red Honda Hatchback. Daniel had the silver EK Hatchback with Enkei RPF1 wheels. Anyway, that car got wrecked and luckily Daniel and his wife were not too seriously injured. Daniel decided to get something he really wanted instead of starting with another base trim economy car like the Civic. He found this 2001 AP1 Honda S2000 locally in Utah and then started to add his touches to it. The Front lip, side spats and trunk spoiler are Honda OEM parts, along with a cool Spoon inspired hardtop. The wheels are 17x8 front and 17x9 rear Regamaster EVO wheels with 225 and 255 wide sticky tires. It looks great!



Rear view of the S2000. I took this pic because just look at that really nice wheel and tire fitment. 
Check out who else came! Yep, Max, my neighbor who bought my 2002 WRX, brought it out to the Car Show too. I texted probably 8 of my neighbors who are into cars to come show off their cars. It's interesting to me to see the difference in the silver colors of the WRX and the Mustang. 


Here's a great photo of OLD CROW going for a canyon/mountain/touge run 2 weekends ago. I got up early and took the Mustang up to East Canyon Park Reservoir (the lake you see in the background here) and then up to the top of the mountain and back down into Salt Lake passing Little Dell Reservoir. It was a great drive up, the car handled great and the news were beautiful. I probably should have turned around at the top and gone back down the back side, because going down the mountain from the Salt Lake side meant waiting behind bicyclists for miles. Those guys and gals are crazy!!! It's very impressive that they are cycling up that mountain. I didn't see another cool car on the drive, so I think the cyclists have claimed this hill for now. 

Tuesday, May 7, 2024

OLD CROW 3V Mustang: Autox event!

 So far I've put about 500 miles on OLD CROW since modifying every aspect of the car. I haven't really been able to explore the limits of the car until I took it to UMC (Utah Motorsports Campus) for an Autox event with the Utah SCCA.

Thanks to Josh Tenny and Madison Caldron who photographed the event and shared their photos on the Utah SCCA Facebook page! Thank you!!!


I think these first 2 pics are my favorite. The rear of the car just looks great with spoiler and blacked out rear panel and the wide wheels and tires. This corner here is a sharp, more than 90 degree turn after downshifting back into 1st. The car is very flat as you can see! What a compliment to all the suspension modifications that Maximum Motorsports, Kenny Brown Performance and Cortex Racing provide. 

I will say, the Continental ECF tire, while its a 200 treadwear track/street tire, is really not optimal for autox. It doesn't heat up as fast as the other tires like the Falken RT660 or the Bridgestone RE-71RS, which is what most people were running. The Conti ECF is more a track day tire that is consistent over many laps more than sticky in the short term.

The cone worker running back to his station probably means I hit a cone! haha I believe I only hit one cone all day between the 7 runs I got.


Here's some side shots. Yep, I put the #8 on the passenger side upside down. It was cold (like 40F) and windy in the morning when I was applying the decals and spaced it. I didn't know it wasn't symmetrical and just got lucky on the Driver's side haha


Here's a cool shot and evidence of why I DNF'd 3 of the 4 DNFs. I totally went outside the west gate, 3 times in a row! So frustrating. Need more Driver Mod! The front view of the S197 05-09 is one of the best and most Mustang-looking views!
There was a East Loop Track Day Event going on, you can see some of the cars out there, including a cool C2 (?) Vette with dual carbs sticking out of the hood.
There goes that cone worker tipping my cone back over and radio'ing in "CAM-C 8 +1" hahahaha

So, here's my takeaways from the first autox event. The car did great! It handles and brakes very well! It looks great! It's totally fast enough, no need for more power right now! Body roll is very controlled! And I need to learn how to push harder and learn how to memorize and lock in my brain the course. I DNF'd 4 out of the 7 runs. I ended up 13 out of 14 in CAM-C. One of my DNFs was a 41.xx second run which would have moved me up like 3 spots or so in the order. Thank you to Meredith, driver of a 2013 Civic Si in H Street class who noticed I was DNF'ing a lot and walked over and asked if I wanted her to ride passenger and help point out the course. She helped me run a clean run on my final run and also my fastest run! That really helped me drive home not SUPER frustrated, just mildly frustrated. 

When my friend Dean and I walked up to the top of the Grandstand that overlooks the Big Track to the south or out the back it overlooks the autox lot, we watched other cars during our break, and it looked so simple from up above. It's more difficult when you're on a flat course and all you see is a sea of cones! haha I know with more experience, I'd be able to learn the course quicker. I should have gone on more rides to observe other drivers. I did ride with Kyle who drives a 2023 Civic Type-R, totally stock but with a set of 275/30/19 Falken RT660 tires and wow, he ran a 37.xx second run with me, which was like 5 seconds faster than my best run. What I noticed was how hard he was able to push his car. It was very noticable. Kyle also has probably 10+ years of autox experience in a few different cars.

It was a fun time and I do want to go back. It also made me want to do a track day event where the complexity of learning to navigate a sea of cones is less an issue and there is more time to be smooth and flow with the track. Autox is just so much easier on the car and on the wallet. 


Monday, April 1, 2024

OLD CROW 3V Mustang: Pypes X Pipe, MGW Short shifter and Billetworkz Shift Knob

 Ok, a few more mods to share. Last Friday I installed the Pypes after cat X pipe. This is a $190 piece that actually replaces the back half of the OEM cat pipe. It essentially replaces the H section with an X section. It's the same 2.5" diameter piping but has a better flowing X pipe connection which takes advantage of the exhaust pulses for improved flow. 

Measure twice, or 6 times and cut once. The marker lines were to tell me where the new X pipe will meet up with the cat pipe (the right line) and the other mark is where I was intending to cut the stock pipe. I gave myself 2" and really wanted some good overlap. This was the first pipe I cut. I missed the mark more than I wanted to. I blame the tight quarters under the car while trying to have a solid grip on the sawzall. haha
Here's the post cut comparison. The Pypes X pipe came with these exhaust hangers. I don't know what for as the stock car doesn't have anything to hang it to. I guess you could add hangers to the car somehow. These hangers are right near the transmission support bracket. 

Here's the X pipe installed and clamped in. LMR.com forgot to include a clamp with my SVE axle back mufflers. I told them about it and they shipped me 2 new clamps. That worked out well because the clamps that came with the Pypes X pipe were not very good at all. I didn't even try and use them. 


The MGW shifter arrived on Saturday while I was at 4 baseball games! LOL I was able to install it tonight (the following Monday). Here is a comparison of the OEM shifter vs the MGW Shifter for the 2005-10 Mustang GT.

First up was to remove the center console and gain access to the shifter boot and sound deadening material.

There were a few pain in the butt moments on this install. The biggest tip is to follow MGW's instruction to lower the transmission support bracket about an inch or so. If you don't do that step, I don't know how you remove or re-install the shifter unit. It's a tight fit in there and the shifter is an odd shape. 
I think the entire install took about 3 hours, including jacking up the car and putting everything away. Here's a picture of the front support bolt. This took some time but fairly simple step. Getting the bolt started with the tight squeeze for my hand took a few attempts.


Here's a view of the MGW shifter before I lowered the trans bracket. It was not going. I had to go under the car so I could better see how to maneuver it through the hole. 

Here's a view of the rear bracket and alignment pins. You can see the blue bracket has slots in the mounting holes. When I was inside the car, the shifter was wanting to sit toward the driver side more and I felt like it was going to be tight so I moved the shifter to the passenger side all the way. You can see the slot peeking through as I pushed the bracket/shifter to the one side for more clearance.

Once the shifter was all bolted in underneath, I moved back into the interior to reassemble the finishing touches. Here's the important boot which seals off the gaping hole in the trans tunnel. The earlier models don't have a sound deadening piece so MGW provides some dynamat and a NVH pad. Mine, being a 2008, did have the OEM sound deadening piece and I also installed the pad but not the dynamat. 

The finishing touch was the matt black "lightbulb" shaped Billetworkz shift knob and gloss black boot retainer. The instructions say to flip the shifter boot around 180 degrees since the shifter locates the shift knob further back than stock apparently.
I think it looks really sharp!
I put all the tools away and went for a test drive. The first time I went to shift into 2nd gear, I put it in 4th. The shifter is tighter and takes more effort to select the gears. It feels solid and the weighted knob feels good in the hand. I adjusted the throw about 5 turns out of the max of 10 turns allowed. If you put the shifter at its longest, its about 15% shorter than stock. So, its probably about 40-50% shorter than stock. 

I leave you with this photo at the parking lot at Viewmont High School from Saturday where I watched Josh play baseball. I can't help myself from taking pictures every time I get out of the car! It looks killer! I am loving the car! I have modified every aspect of the car so far, Interior, Exterior, Suspension, Wheels/tires, brakes and engine. It's been a very satisfying process! That's it for now! I need to find an autox event to sign up for!

Thursday, March 28, 2024

OLD CROW 3V Mustang: JLT V3 CAI + SCT BDX Brenspeed customer 91oct Tune

 The fun continues! A week or 2 after getting the suspension installed, I ordered up the next round of parts for the Old Crow 3V Mustang Project!

Brenspeed is known for being one of the top 3V Mustang tuners and aftermarket providers. I ordered up their Intake + Tuner Combo kit. They have a few options and I chose to go for their most affordable set up, which includes the JLT Performance V3 Cold Air Kit and the SCT BDX programmer device. The out the door and shipped cost was $807 for the kit. After ordering, they send you an email and request some details about your car. I sent them all my mods along with rear gear ratio and tire diameter. 

If you didn't know, the 3V 4.6L Mustang GT absolutely requires a tune if you install a cold air kit on it. There are all kinds of warnings in the paperwork that came with the intake to ensure a tune is uploaded before running it. 

Here's a pic of the JLT intake installed along with some in-process pictures of the tune upload.
The intake install was fairly straight forward. The hardest part was mounting the heat shield bolt between the radiator and fan shroud. The PCV hose was easy as well. I took my time getting the intake mounted to the throttle body right. I wanted to make sure the seal was done well so there were no air leaks and so it won't move or fall off over time. Because the intake tube is plastic, the instructions said to not over tighten the clamps. The heat shield fits snug against the hood when you close the hood. I'll keep an eye on it over time to see if its wearing the underside of the hood at all. The overall look of the engine bay is much improved by installing the intake compared to the clunky and dirty/grungy stock airbox. I need to get those valve covers painted at some point in a nice bright Ford Blue!
So, I was a little nervous about the upload process. The instructions weren't actually very helpful. SCT provides a fold out map like page and it talks about like 6 different general processes. But, I followed the screen and clicked through and turned the key on and off when it told me and SUCCESS!!! Brent did instruct me to have a charger going on the car battery just in case. He said if the car battery doesn't have enough power during the upload and if something happens mid upload, you could brick the ECU or at least, put yourself in a difficult situation LOL. So I borrowed Corey's battery charge (again!) and the upload completed with no issues.

I went for a quick test drive when I finished at like 10pm. I could feel the car was snappier and more responsive and that it definitely had more power. The intake noise when you do a quick down shift blip or really dig into the throttle gives a sucking/whooshing sound now that wasn't there before.



So, here's the parts I bought, in addition to the Intake and tuner. I ordered up the LMR.com SVE branded axle back exhaust and the Pypes after cat X-pipe. This x pipe is clamped into place behind the factory cats. You have to cut the pipes behind the cats and clamp the x pipe on and connect it to the rest of the catback piping. So, its a hopped up version of the factory 2.5" exhaust system. 

I also picked up the MGW short shifter. It is supposed to arrive on Saturday. The shifter has adjustable throw. I've matched that up with a Billetworkz matte black weight shift knob in the "lightbulb" shape (Brent really wanted me to do the sphere shape but I felt it was too bulky). I also ordered the boot retainer piece, which comes in gloss black to help it look factory with the shift boot held in the proper position. It did cost $30 but hey, there's some showcar boi in me too! haha


Here's some pics of the SVE axle back mufflers from LMR.com. Here's a comparison of the 16 year old OEM mufflers. The SVE mufflers save 7 lbs each side. So far, the parts I've added have lost some weight overall. I need to find the weight of the GT500 arms because they are heavier than the OEM GT arms, but besides that, I've removed 60 lbs from the car but then added back in 8lbs of heavier wheel/tire combo (2lbs per corner).

I love the look of the new SVE mufflers. More aggressive, sporty look with the 4" tips and a nice shiny polished SS. 
You can see from these under car pictures that the smaller size of the mufflers give you more room underneath to work. 
While I was under the car, I took the time to wipe down with a soapy wash rag the underside. 


I also picked up this 8" short antenna. It only cost $15 and I think improves the look more than you'd think. That big tall antenna screamed 80's!