LSD and its effect...
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Capo di Tutti Capi
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 400
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From: North East, MD
LSD and its effect...
There appears to be some interest in the CLS' HLSD and its effect on driving. My personal experience is limited to my CLS. However, I was active in the Taurus SHO community and published a newsletter (SHO & tell). SHOs didn't come with LSDs but some had Quaife manufacture LSD units for private installation. Following is a reprint of one man's experience at the track.
BTW, here's a site that has plenty of LSD info:
http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/diffs.htm
Quaife On The Track
Sun, 25 Oct 1998
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-HAH!
I spent yesterday and this morning at the Nor Cal Shelby Club Fall Classic at Thunderhill. This was my first time getting the Stage 1ed, Quaifed car out on the track.
I ran Yellow group (the slowest of the three, never having been to Thunderhill before and never having run a NorCal event) but there was occasional Red group traffic mixed in. Thunderhill is now 3 miles long, so even with 30 cars on the track it never really felt crowded. It poured rain on Saturday morning, delaying the start of festivities, making the first couple of sessions (a yellow-group drive-around, then the first yellow session) pretty wet, and turning the entire off-track area into a gluey, muddy bog.
The wet weather made for a good opportunity to learn the track and, overall, it's a fun layout. There are about four fairly high-speed stretches, a couple off-camber nerve-stretchers, and more elevation change than Buttonwillow. For the first sessions yesterday I had a club board member, filling in as instructor (Jim) along. We'd chatted briefly during the driver meeting. I was the first one down to the tent where we newbies were to meet up with instructors. He walked over, asked, "Does your car have a heater?" I replied positively, and we were set. He was very helpful and a lot of fun overall.
He had his Cobra, an Autokraft, to run but given the weather, left it covered. Later in the day, once the weather cleared up and he was headed out onto the track, his oil filter had a coming-together with his steering column, holing the oil filter. In an effort to keep from oiling down the track he pulled off and got bogged in the mud. All the king's 4x4s, as they say... He got it all cleaned off for today, amid jokes about chucking the tires in the hotel hot-tub, and I at least got a ride around during parade laps (he's got only a driver-side rollbar, so can't have passengers during high-speed sessions.)
For Saturday afternoon and this morning I found myself generally running in company with a gaggle of Fox Mustangs, all but two of which were Griggs-chassied and 2300-K braked, some more heavily gutted and tweaked than others. Oh and another guy ran in a semi-track-prepped '67 GT500 (Hoosier race tires, roll bar and belts, teeth-rattling idle). There were also a couple early Mustangs and Shelbys with varying degrees (none-to-fuel-cell) of track-prep. Another had a big-block (502ci, brand-new) '69 Camaro (nice car), but a little out of its element here.
The verdict <BOAST EGO=+3>: no one ever caught me except as caused by yellow flags or traffic in front of me. I was passed by a total of two cars (and yes, I used my mirrors, and let them go by), neither of whom was really any faster than I. Saturday morning/early afternoon on a damp track I was a lot more comfortable than all the rear-drive hardware slithering around, and I watched a couple of Mustangs getting seriously sideways trying to keep up. <BOAST>
I found that the car worked really well on most of the high-speed stretches of the course.
Turn 1 - Maybe it's a learning-thing, but I was taking this FAR faster than anyone else I came across was.
The run from the Turn 6 turn-in down to Turn 8 - it was turn-in-and-stomp, right in the fat part of the torque curve in third gear. With the Quaife, the nose pulled in straight at the apex (Scott Griffith's write-up is very correct - there IS a lump in the berm pretty much right where you'd like to hit it) and none of the street small blocks could get out on the long semi-straight run through 7 any better. The first time we had a chance to do this at anything close to speed I let out a shout of joy - and then had to explain to Jim what was going on.
The Quaife in general did an incredible job. Without it, there are four or so areas around the track that had been trouble.
Turn 2, for instance, is a clone of Turn 2 at Laguna, a flat wide low-medium-speed horseshoe. With the Quaife curling in to the VERY late apex is just a matter of rolling on power and, done right, you hit the apex flat in third gear with a BIG burst of speed onto the subsequent short chute (down to the HUGELY off-camber Turn 3- whee!) - without it you'd have to back off to get the car to move.
Not all was perfect, of course - for instance, turn 9 is a fairly high-speed up-and-down where the turn-in leaves you around 3400RPM in third, and the resulting second or so of grunting up the hill feels like an eternity to get back to 4000RPM for the secondaries to open again - and in that time the grunt-filled V-8s open up a big gap. The course is mostly, for me, third gear, assuming useful rev range of 3500-7500 (Stage 1 cams, remember), with fourth on the straights (the straight ones and the run through Turn 7) and second through Turn 11. I actually popped it into fifth for about 1.5 seconds at the end of the front straight once this morning, not sure why.
This morning's second session I was surrounded by, and passed a few of, the Griggsfied Fox contingent. It was more fun than... nah, that's a cliche.
Sample quotes from the Fox Mustang folks:
"Please don't tell me it's stock." (Saturday)
"That thing really moves!" (From a Green group hotshoe driving a friend's lesser-modified car in Yellow today.)
As for the GT500 - he'd be 50 feet ahead turning onto the main straight, 350 feet ahead turning into Turn 1, and I'd be on his bumper coming out of Turn 2.
It's been a long time since I'd last been on the track, and I was a little rusty at first, but today in particular I felt a lot smoother and more consistent. I did Saturday AM on street tires (235/45-17 RE71s), switched to the stock slicers with R1s for Saturday PM and decided that there wasn't much difference in grip, the turn-in was definitely mushier, and I had gotten the balance better on the RE71s (45 front, 32 rear) so I went back to street tires for today rather than fussing with the R1s. I think the slicers and the R1s are on their way out, what I'll replace 'em with I haven't decided. All the Mustangs were running Kumhos and Hoosiers. I'll also be looking at smaller front anti-roll bars, etc. so I can get the car a little more neutral without such an imbalance in tire pressures.
The brakes are still lumpy - despite a recent machining, the rotors are fine in daily use but when they get hot, they pick up something of a warp. And, for those of you that remember Flaming Brakes at Laguna, I've now gotten Flaming Brakes Meatball Flag #2 - the left-front ball-joint boot sprung a (tiny) leak and spurted grease on the rotor under braking Saturday morning. Some duct tape took care of this one, too, for now.
Mea culpa: I made one bonehead passing maneuver Saturday, taking a less-than-easy run on a white Mustang down the back straight. He wasn't looking for me and I didn't have the power to make a slam-dunk out of it. He didn't back off, and the actual 'pass' didn't take place until nearly the apex of the next turn, accompanied by big gouts of front-tire scrubbing as I mushed my way back on to the line. I should have been black-flagged for it, but due to a shortage of marshals, not every flag station was staffed, and the next lap the session was over anyway. This morning the stewards gave out a lecture about cooperative passing - as in watching your mirrors and knowing when you're being passed, too - which made me feel a little better about it, but I still shouldn't have even tried there.
The Shelby Club atmosphere was a little different - a somewhat older and, maybe, better-funded crowd overall, many more vehicles trailered in than driven. But a congenial bunch who enjoy what they're doing, the club seems to run a good event, and you can never complain about not having interesting hardware to look at.
John Edward Miller
BTW, here's a site that has plenty of LSD info:
http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/diffs.htm
Quaife On The Track
Sun, 25 Oct 1998
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-HAH!
I spent yesterday and this morning at the Nor Cal Shelby Club Fall Classic at Thunderhill. This was my first time getting the Stage 1ed, Quaifed car out on the track.
I ran Yellow group (the slowest of the three, never having been to Thunderhill before and never having run a NorCal event) but there was occasional Red group traffic mixed in. Thunderhill is now 3 miles long, so even with 30 cars on the track it never really felt crowded. It poured rain on Saturday morning, delaying the start of festivities, making the first couple of sessions (a yellow-group drive-around, then the first yellow session) pretty wet, and turning the entire off-track area into a gluey, muddy bog.
The wet weather made for a good opportunity to learn the track and, overall, it's a fun layout. There are about four fairly high-speed stretches, a couple off-camber nerve-stretchers, and more elevation change than Buttonwillow. For the first sessions yesterday I had a club board member, filling in as instructor (Jim) along. We'd chatted briefly during the driver meeting. I was the first one down to the tent where we newbies were to meet up with instructors. He walked over, asked, "Does your car have a heater?" I replied positively, and we were set. He was very helpful and a lot of fun overall.
He had his Cobra, an Autokraft, to run but given the weather, left it covered. Later in the day, once the weather cleared up and he was headed out onto the track, his oil filter had a coming-together with his steering column, holing the oil filter. In an effort to keep from oiling down the track he pulled off and got bogged in the mud. All the king's 4x4s, as they say... He got it all cleaned off for today, amid jokes about chucking the tires in the hotel hot-tub, and I at least got a ride around during parade laps (he's got only a driver-side rollbar, so can't have passengers during high-speed sessions.)
For Saturday afternoon and this morning I found myself generally running in company with a gaggle of Fox Mustangs, all but two of which were Griggs-chassied and 2300-K braked, some more heavily gutted and tweaked than others. Oh and another guy ran in a semi-track-prepped '67 GT500 (Hoosier race tires, roll bar and belts, teeth-rattling idle). There were also a couple early Mustangs and Shelbys with varying degrees (none-to-fuel-cell) of track-prep. Another had a big-block (502ci, brand-new) '69 Camaro (nice car), but a little out of its element here.
The verdict <BOAST EGO=+3>: no one ever caught me except as caused by yellow flags or traffic in front of me. I was passed by a total of two cars (and yes, I used my mirrors, and let them go by), neither of whom was really any faster than I. Saturday morning/early afternoon on a damp track I was a lot more comfortable than all the rear-drive hardware slithering around, and I watched a couple of Mustangs getting seriously sideways trying to keep up. <BOAST>
I found that the car worked really well on most of the high-speed stretches of the course.
Turn 1 - Maybe it's a learning-thing, but I was taking this FAR faster than anyone else I came across was.
The run from the Turn 6 turn-in down to Turn 8 - it was turn-in-and-stomp, right in the fat part of the torque curve in third gear. With the Quaife, the nose pulled in straight at the apex (Scott Griffith's write-up is very correct - there IS a lump in the berm pretty much right where you'd like to hit it) and none of the street small blocks could get out on the long semi-straight run through 7 any better. The first time we had a chance to do this at anything close to speed I let out a shout of joy - and then had to explain to Jim what was going on.
The Quaife in general did an incredible job. Without it, there are four or so areas around the track that had been trouble.
Turn 2, for instance, is a clone of Turn 2 at Laguna, a flat wide low-medium-speed horseshoe. With the Quaife curling in to the VERY late apex is just a matter of rolling on power and, done right, you hit the apex flat in third gear with a BIG burst of speed onto the subsequent short chute (down to the HUGELY off-camber Turn 3- whee!) - without it you'd have to back off to get the car to move.
Not all was perfect, of course - for instance, turn 9 is a fairly high-speed up-and-down where the turn-in leaves you around 3400RPM in third, and the resulting second or so of grunting up the hill feels like an eternity to get back to 4000RPM for the secondaries to open again - and in that time the grunt-filled V-8s open up a big gap. The course is mostly, for me, third gear, assuming useful rev range of 3500-7500 (Stage 1 cams, remember), with fourth on the straights (the straight ones and the run through Turn 7) and second through Turn 11. I actually popped it into fifth for about 1.5 seconds at the end of the front straight once this morning, not sure why.
This morning's second session I was surrounded by, and passed a few of, the Griggsfied Fox contingent. It was more fun than... nah, that's a cliche.
Sample quotes from the Fox Mustang folks:
"Please don't tell me it's stock." (Saturday)
"That thing really moves!" (From a Green group hotshoe driving a friend's lesser-modified car in Yellow today.)
As for the GT500 - he'd be 50 feet ahead turning onto the main straight, 350 feet ahead turning into Turn 1, and I'd be on his bumper coming out of Turn 2.
It's been a long time since I'd last been on the track, and I was a little rusty at first, but today in particular I felt a lot smoother and more consistent. I did Saturday AM on street tires (235/45-17 RE71s), switched to the stock slicers with R1s for Saturday PM and decided that there wasn't much difference in grip, the turn-in was definitely mushier, and I had gotten the balance better on the RE71s (45 front, 32 rear) so I went back to street tires for today rather than fussing with the R1s. I think the slicers and the R1s are on their way out, what I'll replace 'em with I haven't decided. All the Mustangs were running Kumhos and Hoosiers. I'll also be looking at smaller front anti-roll bars, etc. so I can get the car a little more neutral without such an imbalance in tire pressures.
The brakes are still lumpy - despite a recent machining, the rotors are fine in daily use but when they get hot, they pick up something of a warp. And, for those of you that remember Flaming Brakes at Laguna, I've now gotten Flaming Brakes Meatball Flag #2 - the left-front ball-joint boot sprung a (tiny) leak and spurted grease on the rotor under braking Saturday morning. Some duct tape took care of this one, too, for now.
Mea culpa: I made one bonehead passing maneuver Saturday, taking a less-than-easy run on a white Mustang down the back straight. He wasn't looking for me and I didn't have the power to make a slam-dunk out of it. He didn't back off, and the actual 'pass' didn't take place until nearly the apex of the next turn, accompanied by big gouts of front-tire scrubbing as I mushed my way back on to the line. I should have been black-flagged for it, but due to a shortage of marshals, not every flag station was staffed, and the next lap the session was over anyway. This morning the stewards gave out a lecture about cooperative passing - as in watching your mirrors and knowing when you're being passed, too - which made me feel a little better about it, but I still shouldn't have even tried there.
The Shelby Club atmosphere was a little different - a somewhat older and, maybe, better-funded crowd overall, many more vehicles trailered in than driven. But a congenial bunch who enjoy what they're doing, the club seems to run a good event, and you can never complain about not having interesting hardware to look at.
John Edward Miller
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