Hey!! In order to stay ahead of Gaetano --- I need to build MAX EFFORT motors.... sometimes they're a little "edgy".

Greg's car
 

So I understand we are just tracking
I want to be fast and have a good reliable car
Pantera got its regular dot road race tires back on
Not that crappy 200 wear stuff. Tires are the right height
now because i had a taller tire in front and shorter tire out
back with the 200 stuff. Car sits better and works better

Other than tires and changing,fluids,pads and blown shocks...
Yes they leak a lot but work I have not changed anything
In 10 years.

At thunderhill in A group (just below full race cars) I never got
passed including viper boy wanting me by after we went thru the group
So the car is fast but should I tweak it???

So I run uncorked at laguna before that and now in full race class
Scca guys, merc9 etc and never passed anyone. I think I did better there
in speed than thunderhill. Go figure

My bird has had so much changed in the last year I am
Not sure where it is. Maybe more seat time

I only run the Pantera 2-4 times a year

Panteracer

Like building any detailed structure, you need to know you have a solid well engineered foundation.

The first element of that foundation with an existing car is blueprinting every aspect of it. The second part is doing ALL the math and thoroughly understanding what it's telling you. Good suspension software and a fluent operator is mandatory to run (test drive) numerous scenarios........IMO

Two wheeled suspension tuning is very simple compared 4 wheels.

If you want to know the honest to god truth -- I really don't want to know how to do any of it. I like to know WHAT is being done and WHY... and the reason for that is so that as a driver I can come back and say "it got edgy" or "it got tight" or "it now feels loose". Maybe I'll understand enough about the "dive" and "squat" etc that if we mess with stuff I'll be able to report that it "dove and stayed down"... Or that it was loose on exit rather than being loose on turn in.

I really only want to know that stuff so that I can tell Ron... and then he'll figure out what to change and we'll discuss what was done and why and what I should look for and think about on the next session.

He's a magician at getting me to give him feedback he can use. If he wasn't in my corner -- I'd just go out and drive my ass off and continue to describe the car as "the pissed off bull".

I've learned a TON --- but that doesn't mean I have to know everything about suspension that took a guy 30 years to learn. And I don't want to. I've been working on these POS cars for 2/3rds of my life. I kind of like living large and having someone that REALLY KNOWS what's going on that will fix whatever "it" is quickly. If we can't fix it quickly - it goes in mothballs and the other car gets driven. I'm not getting all worked up over missing a 20 minute session.

Much of what I learned in my professional life is to delegate to people that are better at something than I am. I don't need to be a lawyer to understand what the lawyer is telling me.... And I'm smart enough to understand that because I understood what the lawyer was talking about doesn't make me a lawyer.

Greg's track car
 

So I buy speed tech's front end ,their springs
Buy some mono leafs from pro touring with Vikings
Set the car low. Wheel offsets are set on my 25 year old
Simons racing wheels. So I can tweak alignment, heights
and shocks. Didn't they do most of the math or do I get
Calculus books out. Slopes and angles are easy for a contractor
Bending the a-arms or anchor points is something else

Panteracer

I'll tell ya the number 1 thing I've learned.... that there's so much more to it than just buying parts. For me it's like guys that just buy parts for their motors... and they can spout numbers and parts numbers and all manor of useless knowledge that's like reading an encyclopedia... and then you go out and spank em like a bad child with a motor that's smaller and makes less power. At that point - I don't really care how much they know or think they know.

I'll let 'em go back to the pits and tell someone else how bad ass their car is and how many kool parts they have. I'll sit on my ass and have another water and relax.

It's the difference between watching porn and dating a porn star.....


Disclaimer:
I'm not calling Ron a porn star or saying Greg watches a lot of porn.....jury is still out on Sieg. :hello:

Greg's track car
 

Just spent some time on Rons tuning thread
Pantera I think is good for now. Thread confirmed the
softer springs for the bird are what I need out front
They have been sitting on the counter for a few months
Will check some travel of the suspension and more
than likely raise the rear of the car along with a few
Other things someone told me already.

Heading in the right direction now Time to do it and
start testing. I think I know enough to be dangerous
Sounds like what my Architectural instructor told me
when I left school to be a Contractor

Panteracer

Put the car on a surface plate and measure everything to the millimeter, then 4-corner scale it and enter the data into a well engineered suspension program and analyze the output......hopefully the results say it has potential.....or you can do it before you buy all the parts that may or may not meet your objectives. :secret:

I'll repeat what I've said here a million times already ---- Ron Sutton Race Technology is the BEST PART I'VE EVER BOUGHT.


There is no way the Mustang would have gotten to where it is right now without him. I've worked with a zillion "shops" over time. Not one of them had the knowledge or hook ups that Ron has.

Before Ron - I took the car to JFC (Just Fast Cars) race shop just to discuss doing alignment etc and to see if there was anything "else" I could do to the car. They offered no info - never asked me what I did or didn't like about the handling... in other words - it was just "another shop". So I never took it back.

There is a pretty good - IMHO - shop at Sonoma Raceway... McGee Motorsports - and they work on and maintain and race 'vintage iron' like we're running. They seem to know how to set a car up - and every bill I've had from them was half what I expected it to be. They treat the car with respect. And I like the guys and THEY are drivers themselves - with experience. So I was very comfortable discussing how I drive - what the car did etc.

Again -- that's a very good shop that works only on race cars...

But -- the LEVEL of the work that RSRT did on the old girl is a whole 'nother universe... and the shops HE has access to are in the OMG realm of race cars.

There are "shops" and there's "knowledge" and there's "decent handling"... but like EVERYTHING on this website - there's home built - shop built - kinda half and half - but we all know the difference when we see OMG builds! SEMA builds if you will. What I got from RSRT is a SEMA build for what we're trying to accomplish with the car. And here's the other thing I like about working with him on this project.

He knows full well I can afford whatever it is he would like to do with the car. But in all of our discussions - he'd explain to me - "well, if we were racing and needed to be in first place we'd probably do X and X and XYZ"...."but we're not racing and the cost to do all of that would only marginally improve what we're going to do". In other words -- there was a cost / benefit line of thinking applied to the project. You MUST respect a guy for that kind of effort on your behalf. It's called getting the most bang for the buck. Even I appreciate that. LOL