Let me start by apologizing for my horrible writing. I am not a writer so please bare with me. I have a LS. The only mods are pads (dtc 70 front and hp+ rear), rotors (stillen j hook), ss lines, and fluid. I ran Hoosier R6s for 1.5 days because I got a great deal on them. The fronts were not ideal at all.... The car now has 5 track days under it's belt. I ran it at 5 in the front and 4 in the rear. This has been my experience. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

First off let me say this:

Ford....God bless you. No seriously, God bless you! It is about time an American car manufacturer started making real cars for real drivers again. You knocked it out of the park with this car. Keep doing what you have been doing with these special models (Boss, GT500, Raptor, etc). There was a time when Ford was a top contender for king of the streets in America. That time has past and so has the social mentality. Until now. We care about cars again. With the current lineup of just nasty badass vehicles and the latest push back into motorsports in a big way I am proud to drive a Ford again. I also want to say the "normal" line up of cars is fantastic as well. In fact I am looking at purchasing another Ford. I do need a Ford tow vehicle... Let me sum it up: THANK YOU!!!

Now my honest experience and thoughts.

The car feels great! It rotates sooooo nicely. For a stock car to be so neutral is just amazing. Virtually no understeer, but you can make it power oversteer at will. To me....perfect. However I did experience some snap oversteer that I couldn't predict. But it was manageable and recovered nicely.

There is a little bit more body roll than I would like, and the steering isn't as responsive as I would like either. To me you have to turn the wheel to much to get the desired steering angle. I am coming from a GT-R which is like driving a huge go kart..... That thing handles like it is on rails! I just want to point and shoot and not lean. However the turn in is still crisp and the car has TONS of grip. Overall a great package. I just like something a little more tighter. I actually enjoy driving it on the track more than the GT-R. It is just so rewarding. When you do it right you feel like a superhero. Don't get me wrong....the GT-R is amazing. I just love driving this car!!! I get out of the car with a smile on my face every time I run it. It just feels good.

For the first two days I ran the car in the advanced trac mode. After that I turned it all off. It interfered to much for me. However it is great for what it was designed to do. Which is let you hang the car out there and real you back in when you go to far. My too far is just farther out than the stock settings. Right when I was about the have a little fun it cut in and wrecked it. At any new track I visit I will run this setting until I feel comfortable to push hard. I think the system is very good.

The car nose dives like a b52 bomber under heavy braking. I actually had a corner worker come up to me and tell me how nervous she was every time she saw me brake. She was sure the front splitter was going to dig into the asphalt! This was at a corner that went from about 145 down to 80 in about 400 feet or a little less. The weight shifted so much to the front that the abs in the rear would go crazy and vibrate the car so violently I thought the whole car was going to fall apart. This is no exageration... I had a driver of another vehicle come up to me after a session and tell me that he saw the entire rear bumper and rear diffuser shake and vibrate hard. So much so that my rear license plate frame, which is just held on by two top bolts, was bouncing all over the place (up and down). At first we thought it might be air being trapped back there from the angle of the car, but now we are fairly certain it is the abs. I am looking for options to prevent some of this weight transfer or at least the severity of the angle the car gets into under very heavy breaking. It is way too light in the rear in this scenario....

As far as braking goes the whole light rear end under heavy braking needs to be addressed. I think we have that covered. I of course have the front air ducts. I also did everything that Ford recommended for tracking cars. I removed the rear dust shields, have dot4 fluid, I even took off the little rock guards or whatever they are that are in front of the rear wheels as Cloud9 said he melted his... Also again I ran upgraded pads, rotors and lines. I never ran the stock stuff. Other than the one problem I mentioned everything else was fine. I didn't have any issues with heat and I was generally happy with the brakes. I will say once I burn through these rotors I am going the two piece route. All in the name of saving weight. Same goes for wheels. I want to find something lightweight. I think this will make a noticeable difference in the braking of the car and overall performance. You can potentially knock off 15+ pounds of rotational mass per corner!

The motor is fantastic. Gobs of torque. Where most cars need to shift down a gear you can just leave it and concentrate on driving. Not to mention for me if I am in a taller gear I need to drive that taller gear....hence more speed. The sound of the engine is fantastic. I have the discs removed, but still want more. I may look into a catback. There really isn't much more to say here. Everyone wants more power for the one long straight to either beat someone in a drag race, or chase someone down, or just see how fast they can go. But for the rest of the track it is good enough. Do I need more? No. Could I use more? Yes, always.... Love this motor!

I found the gauges in my car easy to read. The seats are extremely comfortable, but I had a hard time setting the entire cockpit up for what I like best. I am talking about seat position (forward and backward, as well as the backrest up or down), wheel tilt, distance to pedals, distance of arms to wheel, etc. I finally found a pretty good setup and had it down it didn't take much to get again. The only thing I didn't like is where I like my setup it pushes my helmet a little to far forward when leaning all the way back. Overall though a very nice package.

I did not overheat once. However I was mostly always above 240 and definitely creeping on 250. I am at sea level and talking to other members we are under the consensus that those that are at sea level are okay but barely. Most everyone else is overheating. This makes sense as the boss was tested at Laguna Seca and Michigan where I believe is near sea level as well. Ford really needs to figure this out and provide us with a product. Who knows, maybe the mysterious trackey magically fixes the problem....

The shifter is not the greatest nor is the transmission. The combination makes for a frustrating day. Every once in a while you can't find a gear or it won't go in. On the last track day I had problems with going from fifth to fourth for a couple laps. I did a cool down lap and it seemed to go away. The transmission really could be better. We could at least been given the one from the GT500??!!

I did have the random misfire code....more than a few times. It is extremely annoying. It did put me in limp mode the first few times it happened, but after that it didn't. I just cleared the codes every time they popped their ugly heads. Giving credit to Ford we should be running the track key on the track which has this problem taken care of. But that's another issue isn't it.....

Now for something that I don't think anyone has heard of yet... I broke a valve stem. Hold on there is more to the story... I broke all four valve stems each during different sessions! I wish I had pictures to show but long story short they got thrown away. The all ripped on the base of the top of the ring that is closest to the the nipple. The two rear were the first to go which happened on each day of the first weekend I ran the car. The two rear went on the last weekend I ran the car. The only day I didn't have a valve stem break was the very first day I ran the car. Everyone keep an eye out for this. Ford: you may have a bad batch of valve stems. I may be wrong, but wasn't this an issue with the GT500? Luckily all it cost me was a little money and time. However I am not happy about this at all...

To sum it up real quick:

Brakes: fix the weight transfer which makes the rear abs go crazy. It wouldn't hurt to get a bigger caliper in the front. Do you call those brakes in the rear? My riding lawn mower has a a bigger setup...

Suspension: for what you advertised it for "a street legal race car" it could be even more stiff. This would decrease body roll and hopefully weight transfer.

Steering: could be a bit more direct. To much input into the steering wheel to get desired steering angle.

Motor: love it. As always could use more power, but this is not to say its doesn't have enough.

interior: very functional and comfortable. Awesome seats. I love my rear seat delete. Only change would be to include two more gauges between the speedo and tach as well as giving more options for the middle electronic gauge in the dash pod. Something like what aeroforce offers. I plan on putting in a half cage like the gt3s have.

Ford, please listen up... Not having the trackey is very frustrating. I along with many others are under the impression we should have had this a long time ago... If this isn't true then I don't know where the rumor started from but shame on them for torturing us all. This overheating issue is a big problem. You don't advertise a car as a race car when it can only do a few laps in the heat. A fix should be a top priority for who ever is in charge of things like this. The brakes are an easy fix, but I must say I expected them to be better right out of the box. You promised a track ready setup and this just isn't the case with the few issues. You must have ran into them during testing if a few of us are already discovering this stuff.....

Ford please listen up again... I love this car. You nailed it right on the head. No manufacturer has produced a truly "street friendly and legal race car". For us true track rats a bit stiffer suspension and better brakes is desired. But I understand that most of these cars will never see the track, the bean counters get involved, and all the other politics that play a part in the decision making and production. This car is without a doubt a GREAT value. It's performance rivals those of cars 3x the price and more.... (thanks to Bossdog for the reminder). However you could have made the very low production Laguna Seca model just as track ready/kind of streetable as all the hard core racers and engineers over there wanted the car to be....... Again my hats off to you with a standing ovation a huge hug and yes the tongue.

Here is a video of a few laps. A traqmate rep was out and asked to go for a ride. He hooked up there new display screen which is sweet! I will be ordering one shortly. The camera is a GoPro. This is with worn out front Hoosiers, and a passenger (I can only live with killing just myself...). I went quite a bit faster, more than a second. First lap is a warm up. If someone knows how to embed it please do so.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfajJe03oZQ


***** UPDATE ON BRAKES ***** 10/24/11

I swapped out my pads and rotors for a fresh start. I could have kept the rotors but decided to go with a dedicated street setup and a dedicated track setup. I installed DBA 5000 rotors for the front and DBA 4000 for the rear. For pads I continued to use Hawk and went with a fresh set of DTC 70 for the front and DTC 60 for the rear. I have only put two track days on the new setup, and both days were at VIR running the full course.

I still have a bit of nose dive under heavy braking, but nothing like I experienced before. In fact at his point I consider it a none issue. Also my rear end isn't going crazy like it was before. I haven't had it happen once since swapping out the pads and rotors. I think that my braking bias was way off with the old pad setup, just not enough rear brakes.

However I did have a complete loss of brakes during one run session. The pedal went straight to the floor with no resisitance. It came back on the next pump, but it was quite hairy... This happened a few more times soon after but I expected it was coming and was pumping the brakes and purposefully trying to make it happen. We believe I boiled the fluid but at this point not 100% sure. I know I am hard on brakes... I have ordered new fluid Endless RF 650. In the mean time I am going to do a big bleed on the system.

 

 

Nice write up!
Thanks!

 

Great write up and super comments!! I agree with a lot of what your wrote.

Ford: We love you, man!!! Great work, great car, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you! Please take all of the comments in the spirit they are offered - as constructive!!!

To adam81... I have a few comments/questions:

1) I don't know how you managed on stock brakes and pads. As we began to learn the track more and push the car hard, we had rather significant brake fade at MMP (OEM pads and rotors with RBF600 DOT4). I can't say that any of us came away with the same nose dive/light rear end hard criticism - despite we had a very long straight and a tight turn 1. (130mph to 45mph turn-in.) I assume that you were more experienced than we got and were pushing even harder. Anyway, yesterday I ordered the 2-piece DBA5000 rotors (Cloud9 is my idol!) and track-only pads. I'm hoping that this will help the brake fade issue and expect it will.

2) Transmission: Agreed!! It could be a lot better. All of us at MMP, on one or more occasions got lost in typically a 5-4 shift. Lost = spending 2-3 seconds trying to find a slot for the gear shift while your are busy maintaining the attitude of the car. Total novice-looking manuever... but indicative that the trans sometimes throws a curve ball at you. Weird!

3) Cooling: Remove the grill. I'm over it. This fix is just fine. No big deal. If a more elegant solution comes along, that's even better.

4) Valve Stems: On all 3 LS's, I replaced the rubber valve stems with metal before we ever took them to the track. The TPMS sensors are 2-piece and let you do this quite easily and the metal valve stems are a whopping $5 each from Tire Rack.

5) From the tire wear, it is really quite obvious that we need more negative camber in the front. The front outside 2" of the tire is taking all of the abuse/load. I think that with a camber kit, we can improve turn-in and front-end bite. Obviously, this is no fault of Ford - as they have to give us a car with street camber settings - less everyone creates a national recall "scene" based on "abnormal" tire wear. We have the camber plates from Maximum Motorsports coming in and plan to run the car at ~2.5 degrees to see this effect. John (CO Boss) already has these mods and was running some VERY impressive laps at MMP!

6) Our next track outing will be soon - either Buttonwillow or Willow Springs. We will all have the better pads and rotors up front.

Summary: For our next track event.....

a.) DBA 5000 2-piece Front rotors
b.) Hawk HTC 60 Front Pads (gonna try these in lieu of the HTC 70's)
c.) Hawk Street Pads when not at the track (maintain same rotors)
d.) Hawk HP+ on OEW rear rotors - street and track
e.) RBF 600 Dot 4 (Done Previously)
f.) Metal valve stems (Done Previously)
g.) MM Camber Plates and set to 2.2-2.5 negative
h.) Drake Rear Diff Cover (to get drain plug) & Girdle Strength
i.) Royal Purple 75w-140 (Ford says to change OEM after first track event)
j.) Newly revised Cool Tech Oil Cooler - continued testing

That's our set-up for the next outing!!!

THANK-YOU FORD!!!!!!!

 

TMI dude. TMI.






















Otherwise nice writeup by the way.

I too have experienced getting blocked out of gear. I am 99% it is the clutch that is causing the problem. In my case it happened coming out of the corners shortly after the biggest braking zones. The clutch pedal feel is slightly different, but it's hard to know for sure, since I'm so busy trying to find a gear and not crash the gears or the car.

 

Are you using the stock LS wing? If the forward pitching is really a problem during braking and the rear feels too light for your taste, maybe you could try a more aggressive rear wing. I was concerned myself about the aerodynamic balance of the car with the huge front splitter in conjunction with the F/R weight distribution of the car.

Sounds like you had a blast though. Can't wait to get mine!

 

nota4re-

I never ran the stock brakes on the track. I edited my post to prevent others from thinking the same thing. After reading media reports and weak brakes I decided from the get go to get more of a dedicated setup. I have Stillen J hook rotors, DTC 70 front and HP Plus rear pads, ss lines, and AP Racing fluid. I haven't seen or heard of any other reports of the rear abs problems that I am having. I am not even 100% sure that is the issue, but I am pretty sure it is. I read somewhere that the 302r has an upgraded abs module....maybe for this reason??? If I don't brake hard and fast right from the get go but instead gradually but quickly apply the brakes the issue doesn't present itself or it is just slightly noticeable. Basically the car doesn't nose dive as hard and as fast. The brake setup I was using bites very hard and holds very strong.... You can see it happen slightly in the video around 1:52 1:53 mark.

Yes the transmission is junk. I was told personally by a guy heavily involved with the 302s that if I wanted to seriously track the car and do some possible time trials the first think I should do is take the transmission and throw it in the trash. When the 302s was first tested it used the stock Boss transmission. It has so many problems that is was scrapped and now comes standard with the GT500 transmission. On top of that mose people are advised to just opt for the 302r transmission...

Here lies the issue. I have a problem with the fact that I NEED to take part of the front of my car off to not overheat it on the track.... That I have to replace the valve stems... (everyone I talked to had never even heard of a problem like this...) *I want to enter a comment about the brakes but there is not enough evidence or data about the issue* on a car that was advertised as a race car for the street. This thing is supposed to be track ready right out of the box. And not just that but completely reliable and very fast. This is just not true.... Again almost, but almost doesn't count.

I understand your feelings and opinion on the heat issue and the new found fix. However I don't feel the same way. Being okay with it that is.

I am also glad you see what I was trying to convey. Ford...you made an awesome car! There are some short comings that I am disappointed with and some others that I am very disappointed with. However I am extremely pleased. I ran with some very high end cars and you wouldn't believe the number of people who went out of their way to tell me how impressed they were with the car as well as how great it looks. I am talking about Porsche, Lambo, Ferrari, R8, Viper, GTR, etc owners. I am not exaggerating at all. This car is fantastic. So again....keep up the great work Ford! I am a huge supporter of the brand.


PTRocks- You may be on to something here. I don't think it is the only issue but it may be a separate one. I was able to repeat the following back to back to back. I accelerate in second gear to redline hard and then shift to 6th. When I release the clutch the pedal only comes part way up and dangles there. You have to pull it up the rest of the way with your foot and it offers no resistance. Once up it is back to normal. The car stays in gear the entire time and there is no other issue besides the way the clutch pedal feels. Someone else should try this and see if they have the same results.....


NorCalBoss- Yes everything besides the brakes is stock. I do have testament to how strong the down force is on the car. During a session one of the screws that holds the front splitter adjustment bars came out. There was so much down force on that side that the bottom black front bumper starting coming undone at the seam from the painted front bumper on the same side....

 

The professional racers/instructors at the Track Attack are teaching that the brakes shouldn't be used like an ON/OFF switch. Like you said, they should be applied gradually but quickly. They should also be released gradually but quickly. Doing it this way keeps your weight balance under better control.

Also, the only time I experienced any dive was when I was bedding in my HP+ right after installing them and I had my suspension set at 2 front and rear. At the track, I wasn't pushing super hard, but when I took the hot lap with the instructor at Track Attack, we weren't getting any dive, either, in an LS.

 

Is there a video posted? I would like to see it.

 

For what it's worth, Randy Pobst drove an LS for Motir Trend as a competitor for "Best Driver's Car", and he said the following regarding the brakes:

"The brakes had had enough by the end of the second lap (@ Laguna Seca). They were hot and starting to fade, for sure. But the braking was excellent. I didn't feel the kind of brake dive that we've complained about in Mustangs before."

 

The hardest braking zone is at the end of the front straight at around 2:05.

 

Braking technique does a lot for brake dive.

To clarify.... Brake technique does matter... and I'm sure Mr. Pobst's technique is pretty darn good. I would suspect that he would not have dive issues. The only time I've encountered it is when I had to really stab the brake pedal as a driver decided that a black flag meant 'stop in the middle of the track'... right in front of me. Pretty sure the splitter touched the ground then

 

adam81 - thanks for the clarification on the upgraded brakes. I thought you had psoted a very thorough review and couldn't imagine why you hadn't mentioned brake fade. You explained it, thanks!

 

I am by no means a seasoned veteran. In fact I consider myself a novice. I have much to learn and welcome any advice.

With that being said, so take this with a grain of salt, I think the car nose dives bad for the type of braking I do. I can slow the car down without having to much nose dive but at the expense of stopping distance. I feel like I am driving "slow" when I do that. It just takes to much time to stop.

Every chance I can get I have someone much more experienced than I ride with me...a very experienced instructor preferably. Not once have I been told that I stab the brake to hard during braking. In fact at first I was told to brake harder. Now I have been told to let off more gradually as I used to do that very abruptly. More of the on/off as mentioned above. I do brake hard but I don't feel like I slam on the brakes and then let go as quickly as possible. I have video were you can visually see the nose dive....alot. I know I am not the first person to mention how much this car nose dives.

Again I have A LOT to learn. I am definitely going to get some more opinions specifically on hard braking and find out if it is my technique or the car. Also it very well could be the rotor/pad combo I had...

 

Yup. On OEM pads, the car had little to no brake dive... with DTC60 / OEM setup I could get it to scrape the splitter.

 

There are at least a few people here with experience using the entire line of Hawk pads and maybe they can chime in. Could it be that the difference between the DTC70 and HP+ is big enough to change the designed front/rear brake bias which would be causing the dive?

 

These will be useful for you.

 

I think your onto something here. So far everybody that has bad nose dive issues is running a more aggressive front pad. Didn't the Boss get a more aggressive rear pad over the Brembo GT? I would try running the same compound front and rear.

 

What data do you have that a B-52 bomber nose dives under heavy braking?

Other than that, great writeup. Thanks for sharing your opinions.

 

Can you please find out what pads are being used, and rotors if different?


I probably could benefit from some advanced braking instruction. However are we on to something here??? Stock pads/rotors results in no nose dive. I have never ran them so I have no experience. JScheier did and he didn't see any nose dive. He switched to an upgraded pad and nose dive. From what is reported Randy Pobst didn't see any nose dive either when he ran the car for MotorTrend on what we all would assume to be the stock pads/rotors. I am interested to see what MMP is running on their Boss' but I would also like to hear more feedback from different people about their experience on the matter there.

But to me I don't care about the stock pad/rotor combo as everyone will agree the stock setup is not cutting it. They last a few laps and then are done. Put a decent pad on the car and now everything changes. Obviously this car was designed as a complete package. Change one thing and you end up having to change everything....

Again it may just be bad braking on my part


I have some future plans but I am waiting to burn through the parts I have now. Future plans include two piece rotors and different pads, just to see if that may have caused my braking issues.