Borg Motorsports #199 STU Build Thread
10-30-2015, 04:19 PM
#41
Curious how the bushings are installed in the arms? I know a few shops have you send in your arms to have the bushings made to fit due to the varying tolerances of the stock control arms. Yours must be undersized if they can fit in all control arms? How much slop is there in the fit and how much slop do you think is acceptable?
10-30-2015, 07:19 PM
#42
Supporting Vendor
Thread Starter
Curious how the bushings are installed in the arms? I know a few shops have you send in your arms to have the bushings made to fit due to the varying tolerances of the stock control arms. Yours must be undersized if they can fit in all control arms? How much slop is there in the fit and how much slop do you think is acceptable?
The aluminum sleeves that go into the bushings are significantly stiffer and stronger so they act to spread the load from the suspension bolts into the Delrin more evenly for lower levels of deflection and stress.
The simple install instructions are press the old bushings out, clean the inner surfaces of the arms (brake clean, etc.), press the new bushings in, insert sleeves, reinstall on car.
For the offset bushings, there is a set screw that is added to the control arms that prevents the bushing from rotating (since it IS an issue with the offset bushings). Otherwise the install is the same as for the regular bushings.
I'll be posting up more info on the design, the reasoning behind the design decisions, etc. as well as a follow up to Nationals. I know I am super late on this, but filling pre-orders and keeping the next round of product development on track are the priorities for me right now.
The following users liked this post:
jesup16 (10-31-2015)
12-18-2015, 08:48 AM
#44
Racer
I have a question I see you haven't touched on yet and I haven't had enough STU discussion in my life lately. But how did you measure the ride rates that you've presented here?
12-26-2015, 09:51 AM
#46
Supporting Vendor
Thread Starter
Basically I just loaded the car up with 1200-1300 lbs of sand bags and steel weights; steel weights on the floorboards, sand bags on the floor, engine, fenders, etc. Then I lower the car onto corner scales shooting in 100 lbs increments and measure the distance of suspension movement. While it's not the way to measure ride height, I measured from the wheel center to a mark I put on the fender. This way I don't have any deflection from the tire affecting the measurement. You are also only looking for the difference in the measurement, not the absolute value of it. You end up with a list of suspension movements and corresponding corner weights. You can then calculate wheel rate (lbs/in) from this. Ideally, this is done with no shock or ARB. Then you can take this wheel rate and back out the spring rate using the motion ratio of the suspension. Since the leaf springs don't have an angle like coilovers do, it's a simple calculation.
The following users liked this post:
Ramo7769 (01-13-2016)
01-13-2016, 07:29 PM
#47
Racer
Good question. I should have taken photos when I measured everything, but I didn't think of it. I have an upcoming spring change coming up (more on that in a later post) and I will try to take photos and/or videos then.
Basically I just loaded the car up with 1200-1300 lbs of sand bags and steel weights; steel weights on the floorboards, sand bags on the floor, engine, fenders, etc. Then I lower the car onto corner scales shooting in 100 lbs increments and measure the distance of suspension movement. While it's not the way to measure ride height, I measured from the wheel center to a mark I put on the fender. This way I don't have any deflection from the tire affecting the measurement. You are also only looking for the difference in the measurement, not the absolute value of it. You end up with a list of suspension movements and corresponding corner weights. You can then calculate wheel rate (lbs/in) from this. Ideally, this is done with no shock or ARB. Then you can take this wheel rate and back out the spring rate using the motion ratio of the suspension. Since the leaf springs don't have an angle like coilovers do, it's a simple calculation.
Basically I just loaded the car up with 1200-1300 lbs of sand bags and steel weights; steel weights on the floorboards, sand bags on the floor, engine, fenders, etc. Then I lower the car onto corner scales shooting in 100 lbs increments and measure the distance of suspension movement. While it's not the way to measure ride height, I measured from the wheel center to a mark I put on the fender. This way I don't have any deflection from the tire affecting the measurement. You are also only looking for the difference in the measurement, not the absolute value of it. You end up with a list of suspension movements and corresponding corner weights. You can then calculate wheel rate (lbs/in) from this. Ideally, this is done with no shock or ARB. Then you can take this wheel rate and back out the spring rate using the motion ratio of the suspension. Since the leaf springs don't have an angle like coilovers do, it's a simple calculation.
Perhaps, it's not a huge difference, but have you considered using a slip plate of some sort on the scale due to the track width changes through jounce?
I'll be interested in seeing what your next spring change is. I also am thinking about a spring change. I am leaning toward more spring in the rear, myself with the Hyperco HPT.
01-17-2016, 03:59 PM
#50
Supporting Vendor
Thread Starter
Metal weight in the front of the footwells, sand bags scattered around the engine compartment. I stacked some of the base of the windshield, over the washer fluid tank, over the coolant reservoir, and on the engine mainly. If they are decent sand bags, they should spread the weight out fairly evenly and even just a layer of two on all those areas adds up to a LOT of extra weight on the front axle.
You are correct, slip plates will always give more accurate readings when you are weighing, corner weighting, or aligning a vehicle.
You are correct, slip plates will always give more accurate readings when you are weighing, corner weighting, or aligning a vehicle.
01-17-2016, 04:02 PM
#51
Supporting Vendor
Thread Starter
Well, I've been sent abroad for my day job so I had to shut the shop down while I'm away. I'll know more in a week or two, but at best it would be late February. At worst it would be late April. I'm in the midsts of moving to a made to order business model based on the high volume of custom requests I have been getting. It should give me more flexibility with the machine scheduling to better accommodate small and large custom orders alike. I'll have more details on the site once I am done getting the stuff on the back end worked out for the changeover.
The following users liked this post:
Ramo7769 (01-23-2016)
01-23-2016, 04:37 PM
#52
Racer
Well, I've been sent abroad for my day job so I had to shut the shop down while I'm away. I'll know more in a week or two, but at best it would be late February. At worst it would be late April. I'm in the midsts of moving to a made to order business model based on the high volume of custom requests I have been getting. It should give me more flexibility with the machine scheduling to better accommodate small and large custom orders alike. I'll have more details on the site once I am done getting the stuff on the back end worked out for the changeover.
The following users liked this post:
Borg Motorsports (01-24-2016)
01-24-2016, 11:39 AM
#53
Supporting Vendor
Thread Starter
Thanks for the order! I'll see if I can get the stock on site for the week in February I'll be back in the states, but based on past supply orders that might be tough. Otherwise it will be a March build date.
06-12-2016, 12:02 PM
#54
Supporting Vendor
Thread Starter
2016 CAM Challenge
I know these updates are long overdue so bear with me as I get caught up.
For whatever reason the National race season for those of us in Texas started much later than normal. Last weekend was our opening event for the 2016 autocross season. I entered the car into the SCCA CAM Challenge event in Mineral Wells in the CAM-S class despite being massively underprepared.
CAM stands for Classic American Muscle and the CAM-S is for sports cars (two seaters and heavily modified 2+2 cars). The cars have a minimum weight, have to run tires rated at 200 UTQG or above, and have to be registered to drive on the street. That’s it. That’s the rulebook. Despite that, I bought my STU car to the event to have some fun in a different format and warm up for the season. At 360 RWHP, the car is probably one of, if not the least powerful car in the paddock. It DEFINITELY had the smallest tires, 275s versus everyone else on at least 315s.
Over the winter, everything on the car was changed except the seats, the wheels, the diff, and the bushings. New springs, new bars, new shocks, new tires, new alignment, new track width, and less weight all make for a completely different car than we had in the 2015 season.
Due to time constraints, I could only stay for Saturday. David Whitener, founder of Whitener Racing Shocks was my codriver for the day. Despite being worried about cold tires on our first runs, my fastest run of the day happened right out of the box. David improved on all of his runs and ended the morning 0.3s behind me. We put about 0.7s on the next closest competitor.
In the afternoon, I again sat on my first run, but this time David put 0.3s on me. We finished 1-2 with David in first by 0.057s. The heavily favored third place competitor was over a second behind us. This put us first and second by raw time AND by PAX time, even using the CAM-S PAX which is much harsher than the usual STU PAX.
The results for the weekend are as good as we could have hoped. The car performed amazingly well and all the winter testing appears to have paid off. The biggest change to the car was the dampers. These are specially built Bilstein dampers jointly developed by Borg Motorsports and Whitener Racing Shocks. The dampers will be offered through Borg Motorsports later this year, once some additional testing is complete.
The next event is Spring Nationals in Lincoln, NE. Due to a lack of vacation days and some family obligations, I will not be able to make enough ProSolo events to qualify for the Finale, so the car will be skipping all ProSolos this year. That means we will only be running Sunday-Monday in Lincoln. Results will be live on sololive.scca.com. I will be driving as 196 STU (someone beat me to the punch and grabbed my usual 199). My codriver for the year will be fellow STU competitor Scott Steider and he will be running as 96. This will be the first event for the car on concrete, which will allow for some additional tuning to prepare for the National Championships in September. Unfortunately none of the heavy hitters from the 2015 Nationals will be there to compare with, but some new competition for 2016 should provide a reasonable benchmark for the car.
Final results can be found here: http://cdn.growassets.net/user_files...pdf?1463938808
And below is a video of David Whitener’s winning run as well as my fastest run.
David Whitener
Lane Borg
For whatever reason the National race season for those of us in Texas started much later than normal. Last weekend was our opening event for the 2016 autocross season. I entered the car into the SCCA CAM Challenge event in Mineral Wells in the CAM-S class despite being massively underprepared.
CAM stands for Classic American Muscle and the CAM-S is for sports cars (two seaters and heavily modified 2+2 cars). The cars have a minimum weight, have to run tires rated at 200 UTQG or above, and have to be registered to drive on the street. That’s it. That’s the rulebook. Despite that, I bought my STU car to the event to have some fun in a different format and warm up for the season. At 360 RWHP, the car is probably one of, if not the least powerful car in the paddock. It DEFINITELY had the smallest tires, 275s versus everyone else on at least 315s.
Over the winter, everything on the car was changed except the seats, the wheels, the diff, and the bushings. New springs, new bars, new shocks, new tires, new alignment, new track width, and less weight all make for a completely different car than we had in the 2015 season.
Due to time constraints, I could only stay for Saturday. David Whitener, founder of Whitener Racing Shocks was my codriver for the day. Despite being worried about cold tires on our first runs, my fastest run of the day happened right out of the box. David improved on all of his runs and ended the morning 0.3s behind me. We put about 0.7s on the next closest competitor.
In the afternoon, I again sat on my first run, but this time David put 0.3s on me. We finished 1-2 with David in first by 0.057s. The heavily favored third place competitor was over a second behind us. This put us first and second by raw time AND by PAX time, even using the CAM-S PAX which is much harsher than the usual STU PAX.
The results for the weekend are as good as we could have hoped. The car performed amazingly well and all the winter testing appears to have paid off. The biggest change to the car was the dampers. These are specially built Bilstein dampers jointly developed by Borg Motorsports and Whitener Racing Shocks. The dampers will be offered through Borg Motorsports later this year, once some additional testing is complete.
The next event is Spring Nationals in Lincoln, NE. Due to a lack of vacation days and some family obligations, I will not be able to make enough ProSolo events to qualify for the Finale, so the car will be skipping all ProSolos this year. That means we will only be running Sunday-Monday in Lincoln. Results will be live on sololive.scca.com. I will be driving as 196 STU (someone beat me to the punch and grabbed my usual 199). My codriver for the year will be fellow STU competitor Scott Steider and he will be running as 96. This will be the first event for the car on concrete, which will allow for some additional tuning to prepare for the National Championships in September. Unfortunately none of the heavy hitters from the 2015 Nationals will be there to compare with, but some new competition for 2016 should provide a reasonable benchmark for the car.
Final results can be found here: http://cdn.growassets.net/user_files...pdf?1463938808
And below is a video of David Whitener’s winning run as well as my fastest run.
David Whitener
Lane Borg
06-12-2016, 12:07 PM
#55
Supporting Vendor
Thread Starter
2016 SCCA Lincoln Championship Tour
The first official SCCA autocross of the season for us is in the books. Two weeks ago I headed to Lincoln, NE for the Championship Tour portion of Spring Nationals. As I mentioned in the prior update, I will not be able to run any ProSolos this year so I only ran the Tour which took place on Sunday and Monday of Memorial Day weekend.
As is standard for the car this season, we were running in the STU class of Street Touring (ST). For those not familiar with autocross, ST classes are the next step up for the Stock/Street classes. Cars still run on street tires (200 UTQG treadwear) with width limits of 285 on the tire and 11 on the rim, but we are allowed more freedoms in the setup compared to Street. Suspension components (springs, ARBs, shocks, etc) are essentially free. Bolt on engine mods are allowed as are a few chassis and drivetrain modifications like differentials, race seats, and other things that make the car more sporty and more fun to drive.
For the 2016 season, Scott Steider will be codriving with me as the first driver in the car. Scott normally runs a 350Z in STU so he is familiar with the class and the competition. We arrived early enough on Saturday to run some TNT runs on the concrete. While I expected the car balance to change as it usually does on higher grip surfaces, the change was much greater than I anticipated. We had to make a lot of changes to try and balance the car more towards oversteer compared to the Mineral Wells setup. The one area the car felt great was in slaloms, meaning that the pre-production dampers on the car were working as intended.
We made pressure adjustments, alignment changes, and several adjustments to the rear suspension to try and free the car up. While I would still like a little bit more, the car is much closer to where it needs to be on high grip concrete. A lot of the changes made were either more dramatic or much less dramatic than expected. I'll cover this in later posts once I have finished the necessary calculations and updated my models.
Day 1 opened with a sweeper heavy course on the East side of the Lincoln concrete. We were still trying some of the above changes, but with a solid first run that gave me a substantial lead, changing things with the car became an option. We kept pushing to loosen the car up and on the last run, made an adjustment to help the front end get a little more bite. It worked and I put another 0.5s on the field. I finished Day 1 with just shy of a 1.0s lead with a 56.145s run. My goal was to put a total of 2.0s on the class over two day considering a few of the heavy hitting RWD cars were not present (specifically Bryan Heitkotter - professional Nissan factory driver in former National Championship winning 350Z, and Nick Barabato - GT Academy finalist also in a 350Z, and Jeff Stuart - 2015 STU National Champion, again in a 350Z). Scott ended up 1.6s back from me, sitting on his slowest raw time due to cone trouble. Had he kept it clean, he would have been 1.3s back for his first event in the car. Having accomplished what I needed to on Day 1, so it was on to do it again on Day 2.
Day 2 turned out to be the Day 1 course backwards instead of the 2015 National Championship West course backwards. Most people seemed to be running about one second faster due to a couple modifications to the course so I was expecting a low 55s run with the goal of breaking into the 54s. My first run was fairly conservative since I wanted to make sure I got a good, clean run in the bank. Having done this, I started pushing harder and ran a 55.096s run despite a missed shift at the start. I backed up this time on my third run at 0.01s slower than my second. I finished with a 111.241s time giving me a 1.713s win over second place. I was still 0.5s back from STR. My goal is to beat STR even on courses that favor the S2000 CRs, which this one did. That still means there is work to be done. On top of that, the fourth place finisher in STU had an excellent Day 2 compared to his Day 1 as he ended up with a time just over 0.4s off of my Day 2 time. Again, this shows that there is still work to be done in the effort to win the 2016 STU National Championship.
Scott finished sixth overall, but had the third fastest time on Day 2 with no cone trouble. For his second Day on a real course in the car, he is catching up very well and I expect we should be able to get the car into 1-2 podium spots regularly in the future. Scott and I like the same setup, which helps greatly in getting the car prepped. He also provides a great reference for how easy the car is to drive. The fact that he can get up to speed this quickly in just six runs is an excellent sign that the car is fast AND easy to drive. Lastly, the fact that I can throw down a fast run on my first run is a huge benefit of the current setup. Either that or my current penchant for 90s and early 2000s rap is the secret to speed. Going forward, I want to ensure the car remains easy to drive, but gains the pace it needs to keep up with the heavy hitters.
The results are located here.
We are 96 (Scott) and 196 (Lane) due to someone new to the class registering under my normal 99/199.
My fastest runs are located here (please make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel!).
The next event will be the Texas A&M Championship Tour at the end of June. In that time, I plan to finish the measurements of the ARBs (aka. anti-roll bars, sway bars) so that I can make more calculated changes on site and get meaningful balance changes quickly. We also might be making one slight adjustment to the dampers before releasing them for production to bias corner entry rotation a little more in the direction I want. Overall though, the Whitener Racing Shocks are some of the best dampers I have run on in my six years of National autocrossing.
One thing I would like to hear from you guys is what you would like in terms of posts/videos from these events. I always break down the data (currently using SoloStorm) to see where I left time on the table. I also do a full debrief, usually by myself but now with Scott, on what went well, what didn't, what needs to change, what shouldn't, etc. If that sort of thing would be of interest to you, please let me know and I will start working on that going forward.
I'll be updating the first posts with the 2016 setup info and doing a more technical writeup of these changes in the coming weeks.
Thanks for your interest in Borg Motorsports and the ongoing feedback! We always appreciate it.
-Lane
As is standard for the car this season, we were running in the STU class of Street Touring (ST). For those not familiar with autocross, ST classes are the next step up for the Stock/Street classes. Cars still run on street tires (200 UTQG treadwear) with width limits of 285 on the tire and 11 on the rim, but we are allowed more freedoms in the setup compared to Street. Suspension components (springs, ARBs, shocks, etc) are essentially free. Bolt on engine mods are allowed as are a few chassis and drivetrain modifications like differentials, race seats, and other things that make the car more sporty and more fun to drive.
For the 2016 season, Scott Steider will be codriving with me as the first driver in the car. Scott normally runs a 350Z in STU so he is familiar with the class and the competition. We arrived early enough on Saturday to run some TNT runs on the concrete. While I expected the car balance to change as it usually does on higher grip surfaces, the change was much greater than I anticipated. We had to make a lot of changes to try and balance the car more towards oversteer compared to the Mineral Wells setup. The one area the car felt great was in slaloms, meaning that the pre-production dampers on the car were working as intended.
We made pressure adjustments, alignment changes, and several adjustments to the rear suspension to try and free the car up. While I would still like a little bit more, the car is much closer to where it needs to be on high grip concrete. A lot of the changes made were either more dramatic or much less dramatic than expected. I'll cover this in later posts once I have finished the necessary calculations and updated my models.
Day 1 opened with a sweeper heavy course on the East side of the Lincoln concrete. We were still trying some of the above changes, but with a solid first run that gave me a substantial lead, changing things with the car became an option. We kept pushing to loosen the car up and on the last run, made an adjustment to help the front end get a little more bite. It worked and I put another 0.5s on the field. I finished Day 1 with just shy of a 1.0s lead with a 56.145s run. My goal was to put a total of 2.0s on the class over two day considering a few of the heavy hitting RWD cars were not present (specifically Bryan Heitkotter - professional Nissan factory driver in former National Championship winning 350Z, and Nick Barabato - GT Academy finalist also in a 350Z, and Jeff Stuart - 2015 STU National Champion, again in a 350Z). Scott ended up 1.6s back from me, sitting on his slowest raw time due to cone trouble. Had he kept it clean, he would have been 1.3s back for his first event in the car. Having accomplished what I needed to on Day 1, so it was on to do it again on Day 2.
Day 2 turned out to be the Day 1 course backwards instead of the 2015 National Championship West course backwards. Most people seemed to be running about one second faster due to a couple modifications to the course so I was expecting a low 55s run with the goal of breaking into the 54s. My first run was fairly conservative since I wanted to make sure I got a good, clean run in the bank. Having done this, I started pushing harder and ran a 55.096s run despite a missed shift at the start. I backed up this time on my third run at 0.01s slower than my second. I finished with a 111.241s time giving me a 1.713s win over second place. I was still 0.5s back from STR. My goal is to beat STR even on courses that favor the S2000 CRs, which this one did. That still means there is work to be done. On top of that, the fourth place finisher in STU had an excellent Day 2 compared to his Day 1 as he ended up with a time just over 0.4s off of my Day 2 time. Again, this shows that there is still work to be done in the effort to win the 2016 STU National Championship.
Scott finished sixth overall, but had the third fastest time on Day 2 with no cone trouble. For his second Day on a real course in the car, he is catching up very well and I expect we should be able to get the car into 1-2 podium spots regularly in the future. Scott and I like the same setup, which helps greatly in getting the car prepped. He also provides a great reference for how easy the car is to drive. The fact that he can get up to speed this quickly in just six runs is an excellent sign that the car is fast AND easy to drive. Lastly, the fact that I can throw down a fast run on my first run is a huge benefit of the current setup. Either that or my current penchant for 90s and early 2000s rap is the secret to speed. Going forward, I want to ensure the car remains easy to drive, but gains the pace it needs to keep up with the heavy hitters.
The results are located here.
We are 96 (Scott) and 196 (Lane) due to someone new to the class registering under my normal 99/199.
My fastest runs are located here (please make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel!).
The next event will be the Texas A&M Championship Tour at the end of June. In that time, I plan to finish the measurements of the ARBs (aka. anti-roll bars, sway bars) so that I can make more calculated changes on site and get meaningful balance changes quickly. We also might be making one slight adjustment to the dampers before releasing them for production to bias corner entry rotation a little more in the direction I want. Overall though, the Whitener Racing Shocks are some of the best dampers I have run on in my six years of National autocrossing.
One thing I would like to hear from you guys is what you would like in terms of posts/videos from these events. I always break down the data (currently using SoloStorm) to see where I left time on the table. I also do a full debrief, usually by myself but now with Scott, on what went well, what didn't, what needs to change, what shouldn't, etc. If that sort of thing would be of interest to you, please let me know and I will start working on that going forward.
I'll be updating the first posts with the 2016 setup info and doing a more technical writeup of these changes in the coming weeks.
Thanks for your interest in Borg Motorsports and the ongoing feedback! We always appreciate it.
-Lane
Last edited by Borg Motorsports; 06-12-2016 at 12:08 PM.
06-22-2016, 01:01 PM
#56
Racer
Looks like good progress. Shame that it's hard to gauge competition outside of nationals.
Curious, have you tested more caster than your current ~6deg? I am fighting low speed push (stock LSD) and tried starting at 8deg of caster, but it hasn't obviously helped. Difficult to test back to back.
Curious, have you tested more caster than your current ~6deg? I am fighting low speed push (stock LSD) and tried starting at 8deg of caster, but it hasn't obviously helped. Difficult to test back to back.
06-22-2016, 05:40 PM
#57
Supporting Vendor
Thread Starter
Looks like good progress. Shame that it's hard to gauge competition outside of nationals.
Curious, have you tested more caster than your current ~6deg? I am fighting low speed push (stock LSD) and tried starting at 8deg of caster, but it hasn't obviously helped. Difficult to test back to back.
Curious, have you tested more caster than your current ~6deg? I am fighting low speed push (stock LSD) and tried starting at 8deg of caster, but it hasn't obviously helped. Difficult to test back to back.
06-22-2016, 05:43 PM
#58
Supporting Vendor
Thread Starter
Bushing Details
I realized I didn't put some of my updates in this thread yet in terms of the bushing kit. Below are the videos. Enjoy!
Delrin Bushing Kit Unboxing Video
Delrin Bushing Installation
Delrin Bushing Kit Unboxing Video
Delrin Bushing Installation
06-23-2016, 10:54 AM
#59
Burning Brakes
It's a privilege to see your approach from a car setup perspective. I tend to think people of your (and David's) driving caliber can be competitive in anything. This thread is clear indication that both sides need to be addressed.
Generally, do you think you go faster by changing the car to suit your driving style and course approach? Or, is there such a thing as a "correct" car setup, cornering balance, etc, and one needs to adapt driving to work with that?
Thanks for the insight.
Michael
Generally, do you think you go faster by changing the car to suit your driving style and course approach? Or, is there such a thing as a "correct" car setup, cornering balance, etc, and one needs to adapt driving to work with that?
Thanks for the insight.
Michael
06-23-2016, 02:45 PM
#60
Now the instruction video comes out! 
I just got my bushings (non-offset) finished last week and will get a chance to test with new 285/30 RE71R's this weekend. In just driving the car spiritedly on a few backroad twisties, these bushings are the real deal.
Thanks for the quality product Lane. Best of luck in your competition, I hope to see you at nationals.
- Jesse
P.S. I dig the white hat... I need more swag!!
I just got my bushings (non-offset) finished last week and will get a chance to test with new 285/30 RE71R's this weekend. In just driving the car spiritedly on a few backroad twisties, these bushings are the real deal.
Thanks for the quality product Lane. Best of luck in your competition, I hope to see you at nationals.
- Jesse
P.S. I dig the white hat... I need more swag!!
The following users liked this post:
Borg Motorsports (06-24-2016)
