flaps
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UPDATED WITH OFFICIAL FORD PRESS RELEASE:
Edit: I think it might be working now. I'm sure all of this copying will probably have to be taken down.
Some good information here.
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupes/1505_2016_ford_shelby_gt350_mustang_chassis_first_look/Get ready to experience the best-handling Mustang of all time. That was essentially the promise Ford Performance honcho Dave Pericak made at a little show-and-tell of the forthcoming Shelby GT350's dirty underbits, some 90 percent of which are unique to this model. Let's get straight down to the steak that goes with that sizzle, working from the chassis down to the tires:
Subtle chassis bracing and an aluminum shock-tower brace give the GT350 and GT350R a stiffer foundation for the suspension to work from. To enable a slight lowering of the front of the hood for aerodynamic reasons (the entire "front clip" is unique to the GT350), Ford Performance engineered a new grille-opening reinforcement panel with a carbon-fiber composite structure that is 24 percent lighter than that of lesser Mustangs while matching the stiffness of steel. Oh, and it looks so much nicer than the steel one that the 1.9-pound beauty cover ditched.
Nearly every suspension part is altered in some way, but completely new ones include aluminum front knuckles that replace iron ones. This saves weight, but the reason for the new parts was to "fix" geometry that wouldn't have worked with the wider track and much wider front tires (see below).
Using two diagonal links instead of a lower control arm provides a virtual steering axis, and spacing the ball joints farther apart decreases the kingpin offset, preserving the natural steering feel of the baseline GT Performance Package car. The hub and bearing assemblies are stiffened and lightened relative to the standard parts to withstand increased lateral forces. Bushings, spring rates, and roll rates are all altered, and though no hard numbers were offered, we're told the car is roughly 20 percent stiffer by most measures than the baseline.
In the rear it was discovered that because the lower spring perches rotate with the lower control arm, the left and right side springs were behaving slightly different. So they specified symmetrically wound springs — one coiling up clockwise, the other counterclockwise. Of course this required revising the shape of one control arm, which offered the opportunity for some slight shape optimization for mass-reduction purposes (they're roughly a half-pound lighter per side), which then needed to be echoed on the other side, so those parts are new.
Finally, and perhaps most important, this will be the first Mustang to utilize MagneRide magnetorheological shock absorbers, and the vehicle dynamics team leveraged the 7-millisecond damping-alteration capabilities of these wonder shocks to go lighter/less aggressive on the anti-roll bars.
It should also be noted that most of the suspension calibrations, bushing durometers, and so forth are slightly stiffer still on GT350R models, which will also likely ride slightly lower than the GT350, which also rides lower than the GT Perf Pack. The MR shocks are also unique, with the internal piston orifices smaller on the R. The ride modes offered include Tour, Sport, Track, Weather, and Drag. That last one loosens everything up a lot to encourage as much rearward weight shift as possible during a hard launch then gets ready to stiffen things up for the first-second shift, so as not to get squirrely. Track is also optimized to behave well on FIA curbing. Some modes allow further individual tailoring of steering feel and stability-control thresholds.
The six-piston front and four-piston rear fixed calipers are branded and supplied by Brembo, but they were engineered in house at Ford Performance, and they features the latest co-cast iron/aluminum technology. The internally vented and perforated iron rotors (15.5 inches in diameter up front, 15.0 in back) feature holes into which brass-coated stainless steel pins are inserted, pointing toward the center of the rotor. Then these pins are cast into an aluminum center "hat." Because the pins aren't fixed to the rotors, the iron is free to expand and contract as they heat and cool. In the rear, the "hats" also accommodate drum parking-brake mechanisms because the fixed calipers don't lend themselves to mechanical ratchet parking brakes. This brake setup is unique to the GT350 and GT350R and can't be fitted to lesser Mustangs.
Considerable computational fluid dynamics research was applied to the underbody in order to route sufficient air to these brakes. No carbon-ceramic option will be offered because they didn't perform as well as these steelies, especially in terms of fade resistance. We are told that no driver has managed to fade the brakes on any of the 15 private and public race courses the car has terrorized during the last 12 months of development. Randy Pobst: Consider that a challenge!
On "cooking-grade" GT350s, the aluminum wheels measure 10.5 x 19.0 inches in front, 11.0 x 19.0 inches in back, which is up from the 9.0-inch front and 9.5-inch rear wheels on the GT Perf Pack. But the big news is the GT350R's composite wheels. They measure 11.0 x 19.0 front, 11.5 x 19.0 rear and are astonishingly light. Firm specs and details about who supplies them are not yet ready for release, but figure they're in the 13- to 15-pound range, down from something closer to 50 for aluminum. They're so light that they affect the natural frequency of the suspension corner enough to require recalibration of damping, ABS and traction control systems. How susceptible are they to damage? Well, if you nail a pothole hard enough to bend an aluminum rim, you'll probably crunch the composite rim, too, but you won't initiate a crack that will quickly propagate and begin to leak, as happens with metal wheels, so if you can live with the looks, you might be able to drive for years on a damaged rim. These wheels account for a lot of the claimed 130-pound weight difference between an R and a base GT350. (The deleted rear seat, AC, and radio are the other biggies.)
Michelin worked in conjunction with Ford Performance to develop two performance-optimized tires for this latest Shelby. Base models wear 295/35R19 front and 305/35R19 rear Pilot Super Sport tires with unique sidewall construction, tread face, and compound formulation. Careful weight optimization means that these tires weigh about the same as the smaller GT Perf Pack tires. The R upgrades to 305/30R19 front and 315/30R19 rear Pilot Sport Cup 2 footwear. Will all this gear work well enough together — and with that screaming flat-plane-crank V-8 — to outmaneuver a Camaro Z/28 around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca? We can't wait to let you know.
X-PIPE
It's not a chassis/suspension item, but we couldn't help noticing this X-shaped crossover pipe, which is unique to the GT350. The two main exhaust pipes are joined by an H-pipe on other Mustang V-8s. This one forces intermingling of the exhaust pulses coming from each bank, greatly enhancing the exhaust note coming out the back, whereas the H-pipe connection just equalizes pressures but largely sends the same music burbling down the same pipe it started in.
Edit: I think it might be working now. I'm sure all of this copying will probably have to be taken down.
Some good information here.
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