The Vorshlag Mustang - Getting Crazy
I lot of you know I work for Vorshlag, and that we normally have one car that we campaign to show off the parts we sell and the fabrication and race prep we do. For the last three years it's been a 2011 Mustang GT. For the first two years it was autocrossed mainly in Street Touring and a couple times in E-Street Prepared and saw occasional Time Trials. Then we moved to NASA Time Trials full time and re-prepped it specifically for the no-holds-barred TT3 class. Even though it's competing against cars with an "anything goes" prep level, we've mostly kept the car a street car. For most of this year we had streetable spring rates, a streetable ride height, aero you could live with, air conditioning, stereo, full stock interior, full emissions equipment and quiet (for a racecar) exhaust. The motor is bone-stock from the throttle body to the exhaust port and puts down a reliable 430 hp at the wheels.
When we started campaigning the car early this year we saw there was a short break in the competition schedule this summer before the NASA National Championships. We decided early on to make the most of that break and do some more development to the car. With the large rear wing the car developed plenty of rear downforce, but the (mostly) cosmetic OEM Laguna Seca front splitter did not develop nearly enough front downforce. This led to understeer in fast sweepers.
Our solution was to build front downforce and run larger front tires at the same time.
We reorganized the engine compartment to open up the space between the engine and radiator and then built ducting from the lower grill to the radiator and then to the hood. Next was a deep vent in the hood. Had to split it into two vents to clear the throttle body than runs in between them. Then we used the Laguna Seca splitter to build a better, longer, deeper and wider splitter that goes back under the car to the limit of the rules. We built the entire front bumper and splitter so they can be removed from the car in less than five minutes and make it very easy to load the car into the trailer. Lastly, we have started experimenting with vacuum forming and built a prototype set of ABS fender flares to cover the new 18x12 wheels and 315 Hoosiers. The car isn't finished. We wanted to do some more cosmetics and suspension testing before it left for Nationals, but we got the basics done and out the door this morning on it's way to Miller Motorsports Park.
There is no doubt it is a group effort to build a car like this. I have to admit some pride in my part.
The finished product.
http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Projects...SC1789_1-M.jpg
The ducted hood.
http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Projects..._DSC1098-M.jpg
The front bumper beam, air intake and radiator ducting during development.
http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Projects...3_144500-M.jpg
