Who's built their car for autoX or road racing?

looks like the direction I am going to be heading with mine. building a straight line car will get me in trouble, and restoring a fox to factory condition will stress me out every time it leaves the garage.. I want to get some track time in someday, and I figured I will start out with autoxing the car.

I won't need anything special under the hood to start, so it will be a cheap fun initial start. some MM suspension upgrades with a set of adj. shocks and some coils should get me going.

American Iron Series is a nice Goal

 

a good place to go is corner-carvers alot of guys on there road race mustangs. A warning, make sure you search, and make sure that your posts are well thought out and clear because those guys just love tearing people up.

 

Thank you for the link.

 

Super, another auto-xer!
send me a shared_pm and I'll give you all the info that I can. Also, here's the most common sense, laid back group of autocross guys around www.wedrivefast.com

 

I've yet to do a fox but my wife's 96 Cobra was doing nicely on the road courses and she daily drove the car as well.

Ran H&R sport springs on all 4 corners. This pretty much slammed the car to the ground and was a little too stiff for my comfort but my wife absolutely loved it. Front suspension remained pretty much stock except for C&C plates, poly bushings for the a-arms and sway bar and 3 way adjustable Bilstein struts. Kept the stock strut tower brace and added a Steeda X brace under neath that bolted to the lower core support then the k-member and then to the subframe. Had welded in subframe connectors.

The rear was set up with a Fays2 Watts link kit and UPR 2 way adjustable tubular arms. I did the physical installation of everything but took the car to Cars and Concepts in Tampa to finalize the alignment of everything, tuning the suspension for the track etc etc. Those guys know how to set up a suspension and can do alignments on lowered cars that are spot on.

Engine was left stock with the exception of BBK long tube headers, X-pipe and flow masters.

I will admit, car was a lot of fun to drive. You would head into a turn thinking that the car is going to spin or lose control and it would just hang it like it was nothing. It was like riding in a sports car. Thats how well it handled.


I'm currently redoing my 93 GT. Completely redoing the car top to bottom. No more drag car,.. setting it up for Sebring and Auto-X. This 93 should handle a little better than my wife's Cobra being it will be almost 400lbs lighter. Not sure if I will do another Watts link rear, I'm thinking of just doing a simple panhard bar setup. Trying to keep the car as light as possible. Aiming for a 2900 - 3000lb curb weight. This car will be running coil overs front and rear with Eibach springs. Full tubular set ups front and rear. Going to be running the same front and rear sway bars from her 96 Cobra on this 93 GT. Also going to be running the front spindle and hub assembly from that car as well. 13" drilled/slotted rotors with PBR calipers should work well on this car. How ever I have no plans to do away with the rear drums. I may swap to the larger 10" ranger drums out back. I dont think this will be a problem particularly when running DOT5 fluid.

So yep,.. another Fox body car here not following the norm.

I think its funny when I hear younger kids say that I need to have an import car to road race, drift or do auto-x because Mustangs and Camaro's were meant to go in a straight line. I laugh every time. Pony cars like Camaro's and Mustangs were never meant for drag racing. They were meant for road racing. People used them for drag racing because it was a no brainer to use a lighter chassis to go faster. Mustangs and Camaro's have been dominant in SCCA for over 40 yrs. Trying to explain this to 16 - 25 yr olds is like talking to your dog. You get the same dumb look. They just cant picture it.

What I love the most is that my wife is really very good at it. She drives circles around me on a track. Very aggressive. She's constantly having officials coming over to us scolding her for passing under cautions or aggressively passing and out braking other cars in turns during open track events. She has her solo license as well. She wants to run up at Road Atlanta this summer also. Hopefully I can make the car competitive enough for her.

Hurst

 

Hursty,- watch the UPR stuff, it's more drag oriented and may not take the abuse that road racing dishes out. There's Griggs, Steeda and Maximum Motorsports that are a lot beefier.

Try coming out to a FAST event and see whats' going on and start with their "production" class, then you can mod from there, they allow pretty much everything as long as it's "bolt in" as soon as you weld it, the car goes to "modified". This allows you to try a lot of stuff and still change it to see what
works.

My experience with a (relatively) stock mustang rear suspension and a panhard bar is all bad. IMO and experience it binds the rearend during movement, mainly because the upper control arms are joined at angles. In cheapo-production line world, this (upper control arm bias) makes the car easier to produce and it works very well for the drags, but I would not recommend using a panhard bar on it for the street or autocrossing. To use a panhard bar you need to square up the top control arms (or use just one-really) to keep the suspension from binding. As you center the rear you can actually jack up one side of the car, or the other, whenever the chassis is lifted off of the static height. The panhard bar is only effective within about 3/4 to 1inch of travel in a stock mustang, after that it's bind-city.

 

Not really trying to get the car to run in any events or fit into any particular class. We just do open track days or on the rare occasion she wants to do an auto-x course,.. we just show up and she runs the cones. Its all for fun. Not trying to be the fastest in a class or anything like that. As long as the car can be driven daily and feel comfortable on a road course at speed then I'll be happy.

I know the panhard bars tend to bind with the UCA's. I may do away with them all together and run a Griggs torque arm setup with just a panhard bar or may step up and do a watts link. Setting up the rear will be one of the last things that gets done. Hell I might just keep things stock back there and run tighter springs. Between the engine, interior and bodywork I'm looking at $8 - $10k and I havent even gotten into the brakes, suspension or wheels yet. The little nickle and dime things add up quick.

Hurst

 

IMO, this is a good stock setup:
17 or 18x 9 wheels all the way around with 245 tires
HR, Steeda or other name brand lowering springs (if you use Steeda use the "street" springs) I spent a lot of time getting the car level, refrain from adding any rake if possible, this just adds more weight on the nose, which Mustangs don't need (I believe in soft springs/ heavy sway bars, your results may differ) In the other car I searched around and found a decent combination of springs from several years mustangs.
Steeda tall ball joints for the front (absolutely mandatory, these actually made more difference than anything else)
Bump steer links
I have to use mostly stock parts so I used the convertible subframe connectors and the vert , K frame brace for the front along with an export brace (you newbs will call this a shock tower brace)
I also have to use the stock upper shock mounts, you probably shouldn't
I use a decent brand shock like Tokico, but I use adjustable shocks on the rear for tuning
A GT front sway bar and hunt around for a rear bar out of a mid 80s Fairmont wagon (Ford part)
I ditched the goofy horizontal shocks.
In some cases I use a piece of cable on each side to limit body lift (an old 60's trans am trick)

Also, you need the "right" car, I searched around for a V6, 5 speed Mustang to autocross because they use aluminum heads (light),, factory headers (light), and have 2 cylinders less weight on the nose. Since I'm restricted to mostly stock parts I had to be creative. I have no problem hanging with the v8s and other stuff, even at Grassroots 2010 we bested all the other muscle cars (and most of the v8 transplants)that ran.

This should get you in the ball park for a "Stock" class car.