Roushcharger Issues - My Adventures the Past Few Months
8/23/06, 09:26 PM
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Roushcharger Issues - My Adventures the Past Few Months
Been awhile since I posted info on the Roushcharger automatic install that went into the old GTA this past May and I promised to report the good and the bad for anyone interested in Roush stuff. Since then I've had a FRP suspension kit installed, had a problem with the R-charger, went to SVTOA Performance Driving School (aka road racing) to learn all about new rotors and pads and how to shave those nasty, unwanted pounds off of your tires, had another issue with the R-Charger while there so drove to Roush and had THEM fix it and finally.....my new rotors are being cryogenically frozen this week (what the heck, sounded so stupid I thought I'd go for it) before the install next week. Sound like fun ?? Well, actually it's been a fascinating 4 months. Here's the scoop:
Since May the car's been a barrel of laughs. My dealer (Eastgate Ford in Hamilton) has now installed 3 R-charger systems after the guys spoke to me about the performance and warranty stuff. They're all happy campers so far.
Anyways, for the suspension I decided to go with the FRP kit and decided to ask Multimatic to do it (they're the company that engineered the kit for Ford and the guys who build the FR500C). The race manager laughed at me at first but then I politely begged and he agreed, stating that he wanted to see how the kit fit. So off I went to Multimatic (they're just outside of Toronto believe it or not) and I was like a kid in a candy store - seeing all those FR500's and Panoz's in varying stages of production with the LL GTA parked right in beside them - just a fascinating place !! But sorry everyone - absolutely no cameras allowed on the property. Just picture a few million $$ worth of "body on whites", the chassis's, suspensions, wheels.....good lord it was like an orgasm being there.
Anyways, the suspension's wonderful, there's lots of posts on it already from others so I don't need to go on.....until the SVTOA part a little later.
Day after the suspension install I went to the dealer for a minor warranty problem and they found - gasp - an oil leak on the R-charger head unit. But....I give credit to Roush here.....the mechanic called them to order a new gasket and Roush said "No, we're going to send you a new head unit in case it's not a gasket issue". It was delivered 3 days later and installed by Dave at Eastgate right away - he's getting very proficient with his Roush stuff. The original unit was sent back so they could take a look at it. So far so good, the R-charger performed beautifully after that, right up to mid-August.
Then, the SVTOA Ontario Region was holding one of their performance driving clinics at Shannonville Motorsports Park which was just the thing I've been waiting for - 2 full days of pushing the car to the limits.
So off I went on the 11th, 12th and 13th with the most perfect weather you could ever ask for - about 75 dry (not humid) degrees and sunny. For anyone thinking of motorsport track performance, you've GOT to consider an SVTOA clinic. It was just fantastic, like Disneyworld x10. And they're so professional - driver instructors from all over the U.S. and Canada, mine was a 20 year race and instructor veteran from Watkins Glen. And this same crew travels between all of the SVTOA regions. I've attached a couple of pics (courtesy of Flair Photo) of the car in action - they just can't describe the adrenalin rush that was constant from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm both days. I can now sympathize with professional drivers and the fatigue they must experience.
So anyways, the car handled great, super flat around the corners and yes, more power and a nicer whine than the SVT Cobras which were the most prevalent vehicle amongst the 35 of us that were there. Generally had mine up to 110 mph on the back stretch before braking, average speed on the rest of the track (by day 2 of course) was between 50 and 70 mph (but a couple times down to almost a crawl for those nasty hairpins) depending on which of the 17 turns you had to negotiate. Sound like fun ??? YOU BET. Only 3 other S197's and 1 stock rental GT that the head instructor from Kansas picked up in Toronto - and thrashed quite impressively.
BUT....another problem with the R-charger popped up, it was cutting out between the 2-3 shift for a half second by the end of day one - quite noticeable and I didn't know if it was the tranny getting ready to go kaboom or something in the programming. And the tranny wasn't downshifting as aggressively as I wanted it to. I was rowing it manually (keeping it in 3rd for about 85% of the race course - between 4000-4500 rpm which was perfect for the R-charger - but the car didn't like it when I pushed it back into "D" for the 2 long straightaways on the track. Some clunking going on. But none of that ruined the fun and other than brake fade which didn't arrive to the end of day 2, it was so worth the money.
So with 1/4 braking capacity left over I headed home. First thing next morning I called Roush and spoke to an engineer, describing the problem. A few phone calls later he'd gotten their auto tranny programmer interested, along with the mechanic - who also spoke with Dave and the service manager at Eastgate Ford. Next stop was Eastgate Ford for an R-charger consultation and new front brakes (uh oh, besides the pads and boiled brake fluid, one of the rotors was toasted a nice deep blue but it was time for an upgrade anyways). I took the car down to the dealership and we decided on new FRP rotors cryogenically frozen and then thawed to change the molecular structure - ie make them stronger. Never heard of such a thing except for bodies in sci-fi movies but I was assured that the company (again, located right in my backyard) has been doing it for Nascar for some time and that I'd be most impressed. We'll see.
As for the R-charger issue, the guys at Roush and the dealership wanted to send the ECM for re-programming but I said "No, I will go to Roush and let them drive the car and then do the re-programming so that they'll understand the issues - wimpy downshifting and the hesitant 2-3 shift.
So off I went to Detroit last night and met with an engineer and the auto tranny programmer this morning. Wow - what a place Roush is. I was at the Livonia engineering/production facility and there had to have been 300 Mustangs lined up inside and out.....and in various stages - from "just off the truck" to $51K Stage 3's ready to go out the door. Maybe about 100 F150's as well. And the stuff they do for Chrysler and GM is quite amazing, including troubleshooting prototypes and pre-production stuff. How fascinating to see vehicles that won't be on the road for many, many months. But again sorry - absolutely NO cameras. So if you guys are counting, that's 2 orgasms I've had in 3 months. It's sad being married to a car and car stuff !!!
Anyways, the tranny guy did his magic (which I'm very privileged to have obtained and can't talk about) and I was off by lunchtime. The car was downshifting properly and the 2-3 skip was toned down to almost nothing, about the equivalent lag that a manual shift would produce. I could also row the gears manually with no more clunking and misbehaviour when it went back into "D". Roush explained that the 2-3 shift for the auto trans was the most critical...and most difficult to electronically manage because of the torque that the R-charger puts up against the fairly lightweight 5R55S auto tranny. Remember that Roush has to be a bit conservative to preserve the warranty agreement they and Ford have.
So that's the scoop for the past 4 months. Lots of fun, lots of learning, a few problems and a few $$ spent for new brakes & stuff but what the heck....I've had a great deal of fun learning how to push the car to its limits and nothin like that comes for free. BTW, my BFG KDW 2's stood up quite well despite losing a few pounds. There's still life in 'em and they handled well.
And PS....think about joining up with your regional SVTOA group. They're a great bunch of people with lots of Ford blue blood in them, they have the ear and support of Ford but like SVT, Ford's not giving them any official money to support the programs like the one I just participated in. Ford used to throw in some $$ but not since SVT (and other corporate Ford issues) arose. That's changing and the SVTOA people are optimistic. The more voices (like ours), the better. A few more S197's showing up those nasty Cobra's (and the occasional SVT Focus) would be good too !!!
Mark
Since May the car's been a barrel of laughs. My dealer (Eastgate Ford in Hamilton) has now installed 3 R-charger systems after the guys spoke to me about the performance and warranty stuff. They're all happy campers so far.
Anyways, for the suspension I decided to go with the FRP kit and decided to ask Multimatic to do it (they're the company that engineered the kit for Ford and the guys who build the FR500C). The race manager laughed at me at first but then I politely begged and he agreed, stating that he wanted to see how the kit fit. So off I went to Multimatic (they're just outside of Toronto believe it or not) and I was like a kid in a candy store - seeing all those FR500's and Panoz's in varying stages of production with the LL GTA parked right in beside them - just a fascinating place !! But sorry everyone - absolutely no cameras allowed on the property. Just picture a few million $$ worth of "body on whites", the chassis's, suspensions, wheels.....good lord it was like an orgasm being there.
Anyways, the suspension's wonderful, there's lots of posts on it already from others so I don't need to go on.....until the SVTOA part a little later.
Day after the suspension install I went to the dealer for a minor warranty problem and they found - gasp - an oil leak on the R-charger head unit. But....I give credit to Roush here.....the mechanic called them to order a new gasket and Roush said "No, we're going to send you a new head unit in case it's not a gasket issue". It was delivered 3 days later and installed by Dave at Eastgate right away - he's getting very proficient with his Roush stuff. The original unit was sent back so they could take a look at it. So far so good, the R-charger performed beautifully after that, right up to mid-August.
Then, the SVTOA Ontario Region was holding one of their performance driving clinics at Shannonville Motorsports Park which was just the thing I've been waiting for - 2 full days of pushing the car to the limits.
So off I went on the 11th, 12th and 13th with the most perfect weather you could ever ask for - about 75 dry (not humid) degrees and sunny. For anyone thinking of motorsport track performance, you've GOT to consider an SVTOA clinic. It was just fantastic, like Disneyworld x10. And they're so professional - driver instructors from all over the U.S. and Canada, mine was a 20 year race and instructor veteran from Watkins Glen. And this same crew travels between all of the SVTOA regions. I've attached a couple of pics (courtesy of Flair Photo) of the car in action - they just can't describe the adrenalin rush that was constant from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm both days. I can now sympathize with professional drivers and the fatigue they must experience.
So anyways, the car handled great, super flat around the corners and yes, more power and a nicer whine than the SVT Cobras which were the most prevalent vehicle amongst the 35 of us that were there. Generally had mine up to 110 mph on the back stretch before braking, average speed on the rest of the track (by day 2 of course) was between 50 and 70 mph (but a couple times down to almost a crawl for those nasty hairpins) depending on which of the 17 turns you had to negotiate. Sound like fun ??? YOU BET. Only 3 other S197's and 1 stock rental GT that the head instructor from Kansas picked up in Toronto - and thrashed quite impressively.
BUT....another problem with the R-charger popped up, it was cutting out between the 2-3 shift for a half second by the end of day one - quite noticeable and I didn't know if it was the tranny getting ready to go kaboom or something in the programming. And the tranny wasn't downshifting as aggressively as I wanted it to. I was rowing it manually (keeping it in 3rd for about 85% of the race course - between 4000-4500 rpm which was perfect for the R-charger - but the car didn't like it when I pushed it back into "D" for the 2 long straightaways on the track. Some clunking going on. But none of that ruined the fun and other than brake fade which didn't arrive to the end of day 2, it was so worth the money.
So with 1/4 braking capacity left over I headed home. First thing next morning I called Roush and spoke to an engineer, describing the problem. A few phone calls later he'd gotten their auto tranny programmer interested, along with the mechanic - who also spoke with Dave and the service manager at Eastgate Ford. Next stop was Eastgate Ford for an R-charger consultation and new front brakes (uh oh, besides the pads and boiled brake fluid, one of the rotors was toasted a nice deep blue but it was time for an upgrade anyways). I took the car down to the dealership and we decided on new FRP rotors cryogenically frozen and then thawed to change the molecular structure - ie make them stronger. Never heard of such a thing except for bodies in sci-fi movies but I was assured that the company (again, located right in my backyard) has been doing it for Nascar for some time and that I'd be most impressed. We'll see.
As for the R-charger issue, the guys at Roush and the dealership wanted to send the ECM for re-programming but I said "No, I will go to Roush and let them drive the car and then do the re-programming so that they'll understand the issues - wimpy downshifting and the hesitant 2-3 shift.
So off I went to Detroit last night and met with an engineer and the auto tranny programmer this morning. Wow - what a place Roush is. I was at the Livonia engineering/production facility and there had to have been 300 Mustangs lined up inside and out.....and in various stages - from "just off the truck" to $51K Stage 3's ready to go out the door. Maybe about 100 F150's as well. And the stuff they do for Chrysler and GM is quite amazing, including troubleshooting prototypes and pre-production stuff. How fascinating to see vehicles that won't be on the road for many, many months. But again sorry - absolutely NO cameras. So if you guys are counting, that's 2 orgasms I've had in 3 months. It's sad being married to a car and car stuff !!!
Anyways, the tranny guy did his magic (which I'm very privileged to have obtained and can't talk about) and I was off by lunchtime. The car was downshifting properly and the 2-3 skip was toned down to almost nothing, about the equivalent lag that a manual shift would produce. I could also row the gears manually with no more clunking and misbehaviour when it went back into "D". Roush explained that the 2-3 shift for the auto trans was the most critical...and most difficult to electronically manage because of the torque that the R-charger puts up against the fairly lightweight 5R55S auto tranny. Remember that Roush has to be a bit conservative to preserve the warranty agreement they and Ford have.
So that's the scoop for the past 4 months. Lots of fun, lots of learning, a few problems and a few $$ spent for new brakes & stuff but what the heck....I've had a great deal of fun learning how to push the car to its limits and nothin like that comes for free. BTW, my BFG KDW 2's stood up quite well despite losing a few pounds. There's still life in 'em and they handled well.
And PS....think about joining up with your regional SVTOA group. They're a great bunch of people with lots of Ford blue blood in them, they have the ear and support of Ford but like SVT, Ford's not giving them any official money to support the programs like the one I just participated in. Ford used to throw in some $$ but not since SVT (and other corporate Ford issues) arose. That's changing and the SVTOA people are optimistic. The more voices (like ours), the better. A few more S197's showing up those nasty Cobra's (and the occasional SVT Focus) would be good too !!!
Mark
8/23/06, 11:09 PM
#3
Roush does offer excellent support for their pieces (me speaking as an owner of an old-style intake of theirs for efi 5.0's, not as a supplier), and the cryogenic treatment of your rotors is definitely a good thing, and does do as it advertises, although 2 things come to mind:
1) As a road racer, you need to learn any time spent on the brakes is time you're not going fast - there are other ways to "conserve" the car so you don't boil fluid, toast rotors, etc... I've done my share of stints in endurance races where the car had *marginally functional* brakes for the majority of the run, and you just learn to drive around them...
2) Sometimes though, even the best driving still eats up brakes, especially on a heavy car like the Mustang. I'd recommend ducting first (dirt cheap, Home Depot, etc) then upgrading pads to maybe CarboTech, Hawk, or Porterfield if money is no object, switch out to some real fluid, and if that still doesn't help, then go the route of the full kit, ala stoptech, brembo, etc. No need to spend $$ until you have to, but if you have enjoyed yourself (which it sounds like you did) then you're addicted to the go-fast crack pipe, and there sadly is no detox for it - just more hits to keep you from tweakin!
1) As a road racer, you need to learn any time spent on the brakes is time you're not going fast - there are other ways to "conserve" the car so you don't boil fluid, toast rotors, etc... I've done my share of stints in endurance races where the car had *marginally functional* brakes for the majority of the run, and you just learn to drive around them...
2) Sometimes though, even the best driving still eats up brakes, especially on a heavy car like the Mustang. I'd recommend ducting first (dirt cheap, Home Depot, etc) then upgrading pads to maybe CarboTech, Hawk, or Porterfield if money is no object, switch out to some real fluid, and if that still doesn't help, then go the route of the full kit, ala stoptech, brembo, etc. No need to spend $$ until you have to, but if you have enjoyed yourself (which it sounds like you did) then you're addicted to the go-fast crack pipe, and there sadly is no detox for it - just more hits to keep you from tweakin!
Thanks for taking the time to do it.
8/24/06, 08:44 AM
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Marcello - firstly thanks for your input and expertise. I was hoping someone out there would know about this cryogenic stuff. As for the brakes, the instructors told me that they were surprised that they lasted for the entire two days - a compliment I think. I was on them quite alot the first half of the 1st day but as ability and speed increased I learned to let off - quite a bit actually excepting for the tight turns where you absolutely had to brake hard to get around them. And yes, the car's heavy but like the braking, it seemed to lighten up as ability increased. Tire and brake wear told me otherwise though. Oh well, it's all worth it.
BTW, performance pads and high temp brake fluid are going in. Should that not help, I'll be having myself cryogenically frozen and thawed out sometime in the future when the bank account is back up to snuff.
Guys, as for Roush, yes I applaud them for taking the time and interest in such a limited marketing piece as the auto trans R-charger application. Their bread and butter is of course the manual tranny version which I've heard no problems about.
Cheers, Mark
BTW, performance pads and high temp brake fluid are going in. Should that not help, I'll be having myself cryogenically frozen and thawed out sometime in the future when the bank account is back up to snuff.
Guys, as for Roush, yes I applaud them for taking the time and interest in such a limited marketing piece as the auto trans R-charger application. Their bread and butter is of course the manual tranny version which I've heard no problems about.
Cheers, Mark
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