Building a Pair of SCCA Mustangs - Or what I've been doing for the last six months...

[Ron Earp]

As most of you know I sold my Z in 2011 and moved the Lola on in the earlier part of this year. However, I've not been idle, not at all. I've been balls out on two SCCA ITS Mustangs (along with Jeffs) since November 2011 and we recently completed them in the last couple of weeks.

I've got a build thread located:

ITS Ford Mustang(s) Build - Stripper Stang Part II - Page 20 - IT.com Forums

Although you might want to set the thread to show fifty posts at a time as it is pretty long.

We recently got Sleestak out for testing at VIR and it did pretty good for the first outing. We've a lot of suspension tuning to do, as well as additional engine development, but we were damn happy for a test day - the car ran 2 hours with nary a peep.

SCCA ITS Mustang Testing at VIR - YouTube



We had a lot of videoed sessions but for whatever reason none of them would synch with the on-board data, so this is Mr. Young on a lap in the last session. Everything else was out of whack.

Looking forward to racing Memorial Day weekend with our regular crowd. I've been out of ITS racing since late 2010 and miss the racing as well as all my friends.



Ron

[Chris]

Looks fun, are the front wheels actually connected the steering wheel??
Understeer central, are the tires shagged or is this the set-up you speak about, must be a lot of weight over the front end!!!
Sounds nice

[Randy V]

That 4 banger's got some pretty good snot to push that car to 124 mph as I saw indicated... Cool stuff and lots of performance goodies from Esslinger and others for that engine..

Nice work!

[Ron Earp]

Originally Posted by MrNoo

Looks fun, are the front wheels actually connected the steering wheel??

Yeah, they're connected, and they were shagged to death too as the video is from the end of the day and the tires were old hand-me-downs with many heat cycles on them. Still, we just have mucho development work to do. But, the basic parts are there and we have a tremendous amount of adjustments we can make to the chassis to work her out. I'm pretty pleased overall even though the handling wasn't exactly what we wanted, the car ran admirably.

Originally Posted by Big-Foot

That 4 banger's got some pretty good snot to push that car to 124 mph as I saw indicated...

Nice work!

She's a 3.8L V6, way harder to find info about and build than a 2.3L Ford or the ubiquitous SB Ford. Many people think it is just a SB Ford with two cylinders lopped off, but it is not. It shares nothing with any of the other Ford Vee pushrod motors (except maybe sensors) and has the distinction of being the last pushrod motor produced by Ford North America, ending its run in 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Es...gine_(Canadian)

http://www.enginebuildermag.com/Item...8l_engine.aspx

And while the second link is comprehensive on this little motor there are more heads, cams, and parts listed than the author knows about. These engines had a fairly interesting history.

It is a cool motor. We have a lot of ideas for Motor V2.0 and I think we'll exceed our hp/tq targets fairly easily. That 90 degree V6 sounds pretty mean!

[Randy V]

My mistake Ron...

I knew that but it clean slipped my mind... I automatically thought of an ITB Mustang that races here in the Central division with the 2.3 l engine... Odd exhaust note for a V6 but it may be the speaker on this iPad or my old ears failing... Still a pretty good performance especially for running on rags for tires...

[Ron Earp]

An ITB fellow has helped us with our car. Those can be plenty fast as the motors, for ITB, make great power. The 2.3L Ford can get it done.

Looking back at this V6, or the 2.3L Ford for instance, you know, these motors were around a lot longer than the Ford FE engine, or the Cleveland of North America, or Triton (Modular V8) V8 North American engine programs. Something of the unsung heroes of Ford land.

This Ford V6 saw a bit of race duty, although with SVO block, in the V6 Busch stuff back in the 90s. Those were either 4.2L or 4.5L strokers, I can't remember, and made damn good power. The 2.3L has seen plenty of racing in all matter of vehicles.

[Jeff Young]

Car is way fun to drive. Understeer did get progressively worse but it was manageable. Times the car turned would have been 5th or 6th place in the 17 car ITS field that ran the next day -- car has a lot of potential.

Really enjoyed driving it, and glad to see Ron back on track.

[Ron Earp]

Number two got finished up today and is heading for testing this coming Friday.

[Ron Earp]

Some more video and photos from a recent outing at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Here are a few pictures from CMS:







I've got a video of the SARRC#1 race on Saturday. Don't laugh, I can't drive that place to save my life. Toward the latter half I got a bit better but the start and for the first couple of laps I was really bad.

2012 SCCA SARRC#1 at Charlotte Motor Speedway - YouTube



By the time I sorted out some driving the lead ITS group was long gone. The cars have decent power but we've yet to sort out what gearing we'll ultimately wish to use for them. Both of them handle very well though. We've done enough work there that we're pleased with the driveability, ultimate grip, front rear balance, and steering. Yes, they're still heavy but you don't feel it so much. Both cars are progressing and based on what we learned at CMS a few more changes are in progress. We feel like we're getting close to a good solid baseline setup though.

[Ron Earp]

Testing Youtube Embedding

You Tube

You Tube

[Al Wohlstrom]

Ron, That looks like a lot of fun and a bunch less expensive than racing the T70.