The $2016 Grassroots Motorsports Challenge has come and
gone. We competed and gave it our best.
We laughed.
We cried.
We got covered in 93 octane.
All-in-all we had a great time and we achieved our goal;
Ultimate Autocross Domination. That’s right,
we competed and outright won the autocross placing 1st by almost a
full second. We were very pleased with
that result and it was gratifying to see the car do so well after all the hard
work we put into improving it over the past year. Combining a 1993 Subaru Justy and a 1999
Mustang Cobra was no easy task to begin with, and trying to improve on that
combo, with almost no budget, was not easy. So, how did the rest of the event
go? Read on!
Justang competing at the $2015 Grassroots Challenge
After our Maiden Voyage in the Justang at the $2015 GRM Challenge
we had learned a lot about the car.
First and foremost, it did shockingly well in the autocross portion of
the event, and terribly in the drag race.
This was the exact opposite of what we had expected. It’s basically a Mustang underneath and what
do Mustangs do? They go fast in a
straight line. Now ours is of course a
more rare bird in the Mustang world; it has an independent rear suspension.
This is usually not so good in a straight line, and better in the turns, but we
still expected something in the 13 second range. What we got was a paltry 15 second run, a
high one at that. We attribute this to 3
things; tires, suspension, and an old tired engine. The biggest issue of the 3
was tires, as we thought that autocross slicks would do well in a drag race. We were dead wrong. If you’ve never done it, try it sometime if
you want a scare. It’s like driving on
ice, at high speed. Getting sideways in
a salvage-built car at the end of a drag strip going about 100mph is an eye
opener. We also know that the rear end of the car is very light as compared to
a stock Mustang and we aren’t getting much weight transfer. Lastly,
we don’t know what our engine is making horsepower-wise, but we are sure
it’s far below the factory rated 320hp when new. Why you ask? Because it’s got about 176,000
miles on it.
Drag times improved...but not by much
We wanted to improve our drag ET for the $2016 Challenge to help bring us
up in the standings. Wait, what is the Grassroots Challenge you ask? Well you basically have to build a race car for UNDER $2,016. Yes, this was all done for under $2,016 (with some cost recoup for parts sold off the donor Mustang per the rules). Yes, we are nuts. So back to the Drag race improvement plan, our ideas were
simple, better alignment settings and real drag tires. We got half of what we wanted. You see, doing an alignment is fairly easy
with the right tools. Finding a set of
used drag tires, in the sizes we needed, and for the price that would fit into
our extremely tight rules limited budget, was basically impossible. We needed a
17” drag tire/radial in a 245-255 width.
Why 17”? Because we already had 17” wheels, we have larger Cobra brakes,
and we couldn’t afford wheels AND tires. We searched, and searched, and
searched some more. Everything we found
was either a 14” or 15” tire. The few
17” tires we found were either too much, or too damn far away. So we did the next best thing, we got a set
of used street tires, somewhat sticky, but better suited for autocross. Skinnier than we wanted, but local, and dirt
cheap. We hoped a skinny street tire would be better than a slightly bigger
autocross slick. We were sort-of
correct. Our drag times did improve but
only slightly, as we managed a 14.496 at just over 100mph. Not terrible…but not exactly what we were
hoping either.
Late night emergency diag and repairs
Oh, and about being covered in 93 octane? We were battling issues with what appeared to
be fuel slosh in our budget fuel cell.
The car would cut out at random on certain runs. So we filled it with more fuel and had a
clean run, issues, clean run, issues. We ended up pulling out our fuel pump to
check it for debris or issues in the pits.
At night. In the dark. Our budget fuel system is also not
exactly…..easy to pull apart. So it was
one of those – “hey we need 7.5 hands in here to hold all the things in place
while we bolt it back together for another run” – kind of deals. In the end, we never really got a 100% clean
run, but we improved on last year. Improvement is all we can hope for
right? Right?
Beautiful weather, an empty drag strip, and a picturesque sunset.
OK, so back to the good stuff. The Autocross. For the $2015 Challenge we were barely beaten
for 3rd place, a near miss for a first year podium finish. We knew the car had the capability to really
compete for the Autocross portion so we concentrated our minimal budget
there. The improvements would again be
simple, but hopefully effective: delete the rear swaybar, add in a bigger front
swaybar, and adjust the alignment. These
changes were decided on after some feedback from our Pro-driver after the $2015
Challenge. He wanted more rear grip, and
better turn-in. We did what we could to
oblige.
Justang Fab.
How? Well the first
part was easy, we simply removed the rear swaybar and endlinks. The bonus was that the endlinks were a part
of our budget from last year, so we got that money back into this years budget.
Score! The alignment was also easy-ish,
as we mentioned earlier. Tools and time.
The third part….not so easy. We needed
“more” front bar. So we looked for a
bigger front bar, like an upgraded Eibach bar etc. Not an easy task when you are on a super
tight budget. After some searching
turned up mostly nothing of use we decided to steal a page out of another
competitors’ build book. We had seen a
pretty cool setup on the Cobra Kai Mustang at the $2015 Challenge. They basically took 2 stock front swaybars,
and with some fabrication, stacked them.
Double swaybars. Double
Awesome. Super cheap. So we got a swaybar for dirt cheap from a
local junkyard with brackets, bought some new cheap-o bushings, and fabbed up a
dual swaybar mount arrangement.
Boom. More front roll stiffness
for about $20 and change.
Double your pleasure, double your fun.
Oh and we also got some super sticky Hoosiers for the
autocross. You are allowed one set of
“budget free” tires. We blew all of our
lunch money for 6 months on those. They
worked. Our honorary team member and
Pro-driver for the day, Robert Lewis of ModSquad, drove the car like a man
possessed. We crushed the competition and
won the autocross by .795 seconds outright.
Hell yeah. Goal achieved and our
time spent on improving the handling was validated.
This is where the Justang shines, through the cones.
Other improvements to the Justang for this year included
some better cooling mods. The Justang
was getting pretty hot last year when sitting idle in the gird, or after
back-to-back runs in the ¼ mile. So, we installed 3 NACA ducts to the roof
section in front of our rear radiator to try and direct some cooling air into
it. We also added a second eBay electric
fan to keep air moving across it when idle.
Lastly, we cut up an old closet door and riveted it’s louvers into our
hood. It worked, we did not have any
overheating issues this year. Oh, and it also looks wicked cool with NACA ducts
in the roof and louvers in the hood.
Speaking of wicked cool, we also added a big sheet-metal wing to the
rear of the car. We hoped for some minor
downforce improvements and airflow through the radiator, by way of promoting
airflow out from underneath the wing and rear bulkhead area. Did it work?
We don’t know, but it makes the Justang look even more 80’S Group B
badass, so we’ll call it a win.
Cutting in the NACA duct inlets.
Nailed it! More cooling on deck.
The wing also gave us a place to slap some cool vinyl
stickers on to go along with our new paint scheme. We figured we would go full Group-B and dress
up the Justang with a Martini inspired racing livery. We used rattle cans and vinyl to achieve this
look, and we love the way it came out.
The Judges did too, as we got more style points this year in the
Concours portion of the judging. Win
win.
Wing. Some assembly required.
So how did we do overall? Well we won the Autocross, received
3rd in the Concours, finished 14th in the Drag race, and came in 4th
overall out of 41 competitors who finished the event. Not bad for our second year out and with no
nitrous, turbos, supercharges, or whiz bang power adders.
Our mad-scientist creation in all it's glory.
So what’s next for the Justang? Well…if we can find the time
for more improvements you may see it next year at the $2017 Challenge, and hopefully with a better drag time….
Big Thanks to all who contributed time and effort to the
Justang project: The Circuit Motorsports Team, Paul, JR, Kris, Steven, Justin, and Nate. Our Pro-Driver Rob. The GRM staff for being
so accommodating and putting on this great event.
Our Pro-driver for the day Rob, with Team members Tristan, Nate, and Justin.
First Place, Success!
Grid.
Prep for new paint and livery.
Mustang + Justy x Insanity = Justang
Circuit Motorsports is a full service auto shop located in Orlando, FL. We specialize in performance upgrades, street cars, engine building, tuning, and fabrication. We welcome all performance vehicles but we specialize in Subaru vehicles and tuning.
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