Next direction for street/track car

[v6mustang94]

As some of you know, I had the opportunity to get on track this past summer. The car felt great for the driving I was doing. Basically I have suspension, tires, cobra front brakes, and gears. My biggest take away from the day was, as Jeremy Clarkson puts it, "more power!!!"

I'm not prepared to start a major engine upgrade; meaning I'm not looking to upgrade the heads and cam yet. So anything I'm willing to do at this point would be minimal gains. Is it worth upgrading intakes now and adapting new heads and cam later? I feel like this is something that should all be planned at once.

Another direction I'd like to go is interior/weight improvements. Front seat upgrade, rear seat delete, and relocate battery. I'm open to other ideas as well. I'm assuming any weight savings would be too minimal for a noticeable difference, but I think I'd enjoy being planted in a racing seat.

Just looking for other people's input/opinions. Thanks in advanced.

 

[g36 monkey]

If you're still a V6, the only way to make that single port breathe is with an M90 blower off of a supercoupe.

If you wanted to do a cheap upgrade to get a fairly good amount of power, just switch to a split port setup, so new heads and intakes. While they are off you could get them ported for more power. Then down the road you are already setup to put on an M112.

I'd go that route if it were me. And the way I see it, no point in doing the above without just going ahead and camming it, since you're that far in. Go ahead and factor new push rods and lifters into your numbers.

 

[v6mustang94]

Old handle. Currently own a 5-speed 5.0.

 

[g36 monkey]

O lmao, well then negate my post.

 

[wmfateam]

Seats with a five or six point harness for sure. I am so tired of having to pin myself against the door with my leg. It is also affecting my footwork. I would suggest getting better with less power so when you have more power, you can be even faster. Learn to keep speed in and most importantly out of corners. I have a stock cobra motor but can make faster cars look bad because of corner speed. I run with a bunch of miata guys and they let my drive their cars. Keep the momentum and be smooth. It helped me drop 3 seconds on a 1 minute 7 second track. Getting that balance down, weight of front or moved to back. And also keep the front and rear control arms as flat as possible.

 

[Pete@FTR]

I second this, having harnesses will completely change the way you drive because you are so much more in control of the car once you don't have to worry about keeping yourself in the seat. Also safety..

 

[hotmustang95]

I completely agree with a new seat. For years I suffered with trying to keep myself from being thrown around in the car. I imagined how nice it must be to have a real race seat and be securely planted and only focus on driving. I had a leather sport seats which suck for road racing. Real seats have material. I ended up getting an all aluminum seat from Ultra Shield. Added a harness bar to the mix in order to use a 5 point. I've since replaced the harness bar with a role cage but it did the trick for a time.

 

[RichV]

Give us an idea of what you have for suspension and chassis mods.

Power is is good and relatively easy to get on a 5.0. And it's cheap. Many things that need upgrading on the chassis and to make it reliable in that environment. Exhaust, GT40 top end, and you'll gain quite a bit of power. Add a cam and you'll be almost 100hp above stock. But there is a lot of work the rest needs to make it a real monster in the twisties.

 

[g36 monkey]

Have you done subframe connectors? I can also attest having nice seats makes all the difference. Going from the Recaros in the '14 back into the stock seats in my '00 is just painful.

 

[v6mustang94]

Eibach Pro kit
Tokico shocks/struts
Steeda bumpsteer kit
Steeda x2 balljoints
MM CC plates
MM Full length SFCs
Adjustable LCAs
285 rears, 265 fronts
SVE "cobra" front brakes
O/R x-pipe and flowmasters
CAI
Smog delete
3.55s
Short throw

I think that's my full list. The car is on the street 95% of the time. I'm expecting to be on the track at least one weekend a year. Hopefully more.

 

[g36 monkey]

I'd do a nice h/c/I all in one shot. I'd also look into torque arm and panhard bar

 

[v6mustang94]

HCI is out of the question right now. That's a bigger project I'd like to tackle when I'm able to work on the car during the winter.

 

[RichV]

IMO, one weekend a year is nothing to do any setup for. You can't be trying to improve anything and run any better than the year prior, even if on the race track. Just focus on going out and have fun. When you get serious about open track and you do one event a month or even more, then focus mods that you can see improvement from the last time out.

Not trying to discourage you, but from an instructor standpoint I see that it takes a weekend to get focused on track driving. if you're going out one weekend per year, you're spending the weekend re-programming yourself for the track.

 

[v6mustang94]

No, that makes sense. All good advice. Thanks everyone. I have a long winter to think about things.

 

[g36 monkey]

I thought 1 weekend a year was a typo, meant to be one a month lol.

 

[v6mustang94]

Haha I wish. First time on track was this past summer. Hoping to find more track days to attend. The local track has a couple driving schools per month, but it's $3xx to attend. So I have to keep an eye or for private events looking for extra people to show up, or more casual "open cruise" type events.

 

[g36 monkey]

There's a reason I have to stick to autox for now haha

 

[ba#97]

As some of you know, I had the opportunity to get on track this past summer. The car felt great for the driving I was doing. Basically I have suspension, tires, cobra front brakes, and gears. My biggest take away from the day was, as Jeremy Clarkson puts it, "more power!!!"

I'm not prepared to start a major engine upgrade; meaning I'm not looking to upgrade the heads and cam yet. So anything I'm willing to do at this point would be minimal gains. Is it worth upgrading intakes now and adapting new heads and cam later? I feel like this is something that should all be planned at once.

Another direction I'd like to go is interior/weight improvements. Front seat upgrade, rear seat delete, and relocate battery. I'm open to other ideas as well. I'm assuming any weight savings would be too minimal for a noticeable difference, but I think I'd enjoy being planted in a racing seat.

Just looking for other people's input/opinions. Thanks in advanced.

I think you've got the right ideas but you have them backwards. definitely a good seat setup and some harnesses and weight savings for sure are the way to go right now. POWER is not the way to go. don't even waste your time or money on trying to get more power. you've been on track one time. you need to learn how to drive the car first, which requires a lot of seat time. one of the best ways to get faster on the track is to gain more seat time and also to lighten up these hogs. think of it this way, on a road course, how often are you on a straight using power compared to cornering where getting through the corners fast is the key? more often than not you are spending your time in the corners where all out power doesn't do you anything. don't get me wrong, once EVERYTHING else on your car is maxed out then that extra HP will help to an extent, but nothing.....NOTHING will shave your times down more and make you feel better than getting more and more seat time and becoming a better driver. another reason I say this is....weight savings = free. power = $$$. the money you could easily be putting towards your next day at the track. so I say this....get that car to the track and have fun with it and LEARN, LEARN, LEARN.

what tires are you running? is this still a daily for sure? motor wise, just spend your money on making sure it is reliable. when you do want need more power, you may realize it's worth it to just swap to a v8 car. till then....adjusting the loose screw behind the steering wheel and putting your car on a diet will do much much more for you than that minimal extra HP you'll get out of your car.

 

[ba#97]

Haha I wish. First time on track was this past summer. Hoping to find more track days to attend. The local track has a couple driving schools per month, but it's $3xx to attend. So I have to keep an eye or for private events looking for extra people to show up, or more casual "open cruise" type events.

do the driving school. great investment and that's not a lot of money for one. usually 'open cruise' style events aren't a good place to go fast from what I know.

 

[v6mustang94]

I think you've got the right ideas but you have them backwards. definitely a good seat setup and some harnesses and weight savings for sure are the way to go right now. POWER is not the way to go. don't even waste your time or money on trying to get more power. you've been on track one time. you need to learn how to drive the car first, which requires a lot of seat time. one of the best ways to get faster on the track is to gain more seat time and also to lighten up these hogs. think of it this way, on a road course, how often are you on a straight using power compared to cornering where getting through the corners fast is the key? more often than not you are spending your time in the corners where all out power doesn't do you anything. don't get me wrong, once EVERYTHING else on your car is maxed out then that extra HP will help to an extent, but nothing.....NOTHING will shave your times down more and make you feel better than getting more and more seat time and becoming a better driver. another reason I say this is....weight savings = free. power = $$$. the money you could easily be putting towards your next day at the track. so I say this....get that car to the track and have fun with it and LEARN, LEARN, LEARN.

what tires are you running? is this still a daily for sure? motor wise, just spend your money on making sure it is reliable. when you do want need more power, you may realize it's worth it to just swap to a v8 car. till then....adjusting the loose screw behind the steering wheel and putting your car on a diet will do much much more for you than that minimal extra HP you'll get out of your car.

FYI, I'm driving a '95 GT 5-speed now. I got rid of the V6 about 4 years ago. The GT is a recreational vehicle as I have a truck for a DD.

Running Nitto 555's at the moment, but getting new rears in the summer (screw got lodged in the right rear towards the end of the summer). Thinking about switching to Hankook Ventus R-S3 tires. I'll be doing more research in the Spring when it's closer to taking it out of storage.

The big reason I felt the need for more power is the track is a 3.1 mile course that incorporates a drag strip. BIR Donnybrook Course (http://brainerdraceway.com/wp_lib/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/09RoadCourseMap.jpg). It's pretty much wide open from the last straight (runs along B Gate), 50-60mph final corner, power down the front straight, 100+ through turn 1 and 2, and finally brake for turn 3. The rest of the corners are relatively quick, but I didn't feel like I was lacking power or grip (granted I wasn't pushing as hard as I could due to it not being an actual track day) through this section of track. The straights just leave a lot to be desired.

I do plan on attending the school this coming summer. It was my intention to do so this past summer, but they run the school on Mondays. So I need to be able to get off of work and stuff. I plan to attend when they are running the shorter Competition course since it's tighter, more technical. The open cruise (Powercruise USA) I attended helped build up some confidence and get me hooked on road course driving.