Track Day this coming Monday (Jun 3)

[alpha754293]

So I got an email notification at work that we were going to have an event with the Shelby American Auto Club-Motor City Region celebrating Ford's 150th birthday. And along with that is a track day up at Waterford Hills in Clarkston.

 

I've cleared it with my boss and it looks like that I am going to be taking the Monday off so that I can take my Fusion Titanium Hybrid up there on the track. We have a test track here at corporate as well, but I can't take my personal vehicle on it, so this is the next best thing.

 

So it'll be interesting to see how it goes around the corners when I really push it. And I've already got 3500 miles on it on the month that I've had it, so I would be able to really give it without much risk of hurting the car. At 3772 lbs total weight (yeah...one of the first things we did to my car was weigh it - being one of the Global Core Weight Engineers) 57.7% front, (42.3% rear), 51.1% left (48.9% right).

 

And wth a published 0-60 time of 8.5 seconds, it's not the fastest vehicle, but we'll see how I do.

 

And I get motion sickness so I'm gonna hafta pop like 4 advils before I go on the track (to pre-emptively strike at the migraine that I'll get from driving my car hard.)

 

And if I can do so safely, there are other things that I want to try/test out - such as simulating a service brake failure (seeing if I can engage the EPB at speed (I'll probably first try it at like 12 mph (20 km/h) or something)) and also simulating a sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) event and shutting down the car at wide open throttle (WOT). But we will have to see, cuz I'm a "novice" on the track, so they said that the instructor will be with me all the time so I might not get a chance to do that.

 

And I'll also try a lap with the traction control still on and then try it with it off. Hopefully, I won't hurt my baby too badly.

[SteveB_TX]

:rockon: Don't hurt your new toy!

[neod192]

Sounds fun! Is this event open to the public (even to just come and watch)?

[jeff_h]

I bet he won't have ICE-phobia

[dalesky]

Should be great fun. Have a nice time! Does anyone know what if any difference turning off the traction control makes? Since putting really sticky tires on my Mustang I know that if I turn off the traction control I have a good chance of being able to break the tires loose on a hard start or if I hammer it at speed during a turn. Besides being safer on slippery roads, what are pluses or minuses?

[hybridbear]

Sounds like awesome fun!! Hope you can get some cool pics to share and please let us know how it goes :)

[alpha754293]

:rockon: Don't hurt your new toy!

 

Yeah...I'll TRY to be gentle with it. My biggest concern is actually crashing right now. lol...(but so far, the Fusion has REALLY good brakes from what I can tell). We'll see what happens when I am trying to stop the 3772-pound car from 100 mph. :D

 

The good news is that I already left-foot brake so that should make it a tad "easier" (since one of the hardest things for people to do is left-foot brake. If you drive auto, you're not used to using it at all (at least not most "normal" people). If you drive stick, you're just used to mashing in the clutch pedal, shift, and release as opposed to have very fine, gradual control. But since I do it all the time, people have actually told me that I have really good braking control and they're surprised when I tell them that it is because I am braking with my left foot.

 

Sounds fun! Is this event open to the public (even to just come and watch)?

 

Uh...as far as I know. It's part of the Shelby American Auto Club - Motor City Region track day event so if you're in the Clarkston, MI area - sure. PM me for my contact info if you want to meet up with me. Or you can register yourself as well if you're interested in driving. http://www.saac-mcr.com/te/faq.htm

 

 

I bet he won't have ICE-phobia

 

I dunno. The website for the track said that they've had everything from Fiestas up to Corvettes out on the track before. I'm not sure if they've ever had a hybrid out on the track, but we shall see. If they have - great. If they haven't, even better. (Admittedly, throwing 3700-almost-3800 pounds around isn't ideal, but mehhhh....)

 

Should be great fun. Have a nice time! Does anyone know what if any difference turning off the traction control makes? Since putting really sticky tires on my Mustang I know that if I turn off the traction control I have a good chance of being able to break the tires loose on a hard start or if I hammer it at speed during a turn. Besides being safer on slippery roads, what are pluses or minuses?

 

Well...driving is all about control (generally). And it's also about how "attune" you are to what you are doing vs. what your car is doing vs. what you WANT the car to be doing instead. It's a LOT of things. There are some people (from the general public, myself included) that might be able to have a really good idea as to what's going on with the car (it's like your head is a little computer that knows what the pressure, temperature, and coefficient of friction distribution is AT the contact patch (no, it is not uniform or constant) at any point in time so you're able to almost predictively "feel" when the car is about to get loose which lets you take it right up to the traction limit envelop of the car and the tire. And then there are the ones that miscalculate and end up in the barriers. lol...

 

And then after that, it's also about knowing what your braking characteristics are and your torque characteristics (which is then related to your acceleration characteristic). And yes, I am talking like a total engineer right now; but I can't help it. I live it. :D

 

If you've never had driven a non-ABS vehicle or driven an ABS-equipped vehicle where the ABS system was inactive or inoperational - and you had to pump the brakes like you're double-bassing-it like Lars (drummer from Metallica - i.e. having to pump using BOTH your feet on the brake pedal switching between the two in very very very very quick succession to mimick or simulate the ABS) - so you don't lock your wheels up in ice and snow - then you're probably best to leave the traction control on. (Most people won't know that they've locked up their wheels until they see smoke. SOME might be able to feel the super subtle change in acceleration from when they're braking effectively to when it locks up and your wheel just slides on a pool of molten rubber - which is not so good for stopping.)

 

So it depends. But yes, there IS a difference.

 

Sounds like awesome fun!! Hope you can get some cool pics to share and please let us know how it goes :)

 

I'm actually going to see if I can strap my GoPro onto the helmet. I dunno. It's a thought. We will have to see. lol...

[acdii]

When I first got a 2010 Fusion Sport I took it to Road America and drove it on that track. What a BLAST!

[alpha754293]

When I first got a 2010 Fusion Sport I took it to Road America and drove it on that track. What a BLAST!

 

But this is a hybrid. lol....it's like the movie "Horrible Bosses" - the part where the guy goes to court for racing his Prius. lol...

[acdii]

 

But this is a hybrid. lol....it's like the movie "Horrible Bosses" - the part where the guy goes to court for racing his Prius. lol...

Yeah, but the 2013 Hybrid handles just as good as the 2010 Sport did, can NOT say the same for the 2010 FFH, I would never attempt to drive that on the track the way I drove the Sport, but I would do the 13 FFH in a heartbeat! In fact I feel the 13 handles BETTER than the Sport did.

[kuzzi]

How did this turn out?

[alpha754293]

How did this turn out?

 

Not too bad actually. The guy that ran the event is also a Ford employee (in the IT department) and the guy that runs the Shelby American Auto Club-Motor City Region newsletter asked if he could take a few picture of me and my FFH and also asked me if I can write a very short article for their newsletter.

 

And the guy that ran it was also very interested in the fuel economy stats for the run. I only ended up doing two heats though because I sat as a passenger in another guy's Shelby Mustang and I got so sick afterwards (motion sickness induced migraine) that I ended up sleeping in my FFH for prolly close to an hour and a half so that I would be safe to drive home.

 

More details to follow. Thanks.

[acdii]

oh man that sucks, I would be really pissed if that happened to me.

[alpha754293]

oh man that sucks, I would be really pissed if that happened to me.

 

Well...usually being naseous isn't so bad so long as you can complete the task, you know what I mean? The problem was that I COULDN'T "complete" it, so it just like "sat" there bottled up inside you know? It's like I wanted to, but I couldn't? So like I said, I ended up sleeping it off for probably like at LEAST an-hour-and-a-half before being okay-enough to drive back home.

 

And the funny thing was that the guy that was driving the Shelby was like "you have that look of terror on your face" not realizing that I could've hurled at ANY minute or in my head I towards the latter part, I was thinking like "I wanna get out I wanna get out". But that's alright though. It just means that I probably won't be a performance test engineer (at least not a regular one anyways). And that's fine. I've accepted that.

[alpha754293]

So here is the unedited, unpublished draft of the write-up from my track day at Waterford Hills in Clarkston, Michigan.

I feel…the need for speed
Putting the new Ford Fusion Hybrid through its paces at Waterford Hills racetrack

 

By: Ewen Chan, Global Core Weight Engineer, Ford Motor Company

 

I recently bought myself the brand new Ford Fusion Titanium Hybrid and I was very curious to find out what are the limits of its performance. However, finding a suitable venue where I would be able to push the car to the limits and finding a safe environment to do so was a bit challenging. Obviously, I wouldn’t want to try it out on open, public roads. As luck would have it, through the Shelby American Automobile Club-Motor City Region, they had an open track day at Waterford Hills racetrack in Clarkston, Michigan.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to find that a car powered by a 2-litre Atkinson engine (141 hp @ 6000 rpm, 129 lbf-ft @ 4000 rpm) augmented by a permanent magnet AC synchronous electric motor (118 hp), it performed quite well. It certainly had dramatically different vehicle dynamics compared to the rest of cars in the group that I was driving with, but it held onto its own. One of the spectators had asked me if I was aware of the amount of body roll as the car took the corners at speed, with the tires doing a bit of squealing under pressure. From my perspective, I was more worried about watching where I’m going than the amount of body roll. Still, that did not stop me from reaching speeds upwards of 90 mph towards the end of the back straight before nearly slamming on the brakes for the turn at the end. The brakes are very strong and very powerful. I didn’t get a chance to do a full panic stop, but according to Car and Driver online, it should be able to stop from 70 mph in 177 feet meaning that it has plenty of stopping power to slow the car down at the 100-feet marker before throwing it into the corner.

 

The best part – since it’s a hybrid – meaning it uses a combination of both gas and electric power – it managed 16 mpg over an 11.1-mile run with 1.7 miles running purely on electricity-only during the first heat. For the second heat, it faired an even more impressive 18 mpg over 15.8 miles with 3.2 miles in pure EV mode, and 1.0 miles from the energy it recaptured through regenerative braking.

 

While it’s certainly no Shelby, it’s no slouch either – something that you just wouldn’t expect out of a hybrid.

[hybridbear]

The best part since its a hybrid meaning it uses a combination of both gas and electric power it managed 16 mpg over an 11.1-mile run with 1.7 miles running purely on electricity-only during the first heat. For the second heat, it faired an even more impressive 18 mpg over 15.8 miles with 3.2 miles in pure EV mode, and 1.0 miles from the energy it recaptured through regenerative braking.

 

While its certainly no Shelby, its no slouch either something that you just wouldnt expect out of a hybrid.

Great write up. Interesting comments about gas mileage. Do you know what kind of gas mileage other cars get under similar conditions? Would a 2.0 EB Fusion get 10 MPG in that situation or even less? Thanks alpha

[alpha754293]

Great write up. Interesting comments about gas mileage. Do you know what kind of gas mileage other cars get under similar conditions? Would a 2.0 EB Fusion get 10 MPG in that situation or even less? Thanks alpha

 

Not sure about other Fusions/engines. But for the rest of the pack, most of them were driving different variations of Mustangs (e.g. Boss 302, Shelby GT 350 - which makes sense given that it was with the Shelby American Auto Club). And I suspect they would be doing < 10 mpg average for the rest of the pack.

 

I went mostly because as a Ford employee, I'm not allowed to take my personal vehicle onto the proving ground track (presumably for liability reasons and whatnot - and that's fine). But I still wanted to take my car up to the limit (or rather find out WHERE the limit of the VEHICLE is) and I needed a safe environment/venue to do it at, and it just so happened that they were having a track day, so I got in touch with the event organizer and apparently, he also works at Ford (in the IT department) so...he probably understood what I was saying when I said that I couldn't drive my Fusion on the proving ground track, and was very understanding of that.

 

I was somewhat worried that I would be holding up traffic, but I ended up actually behind a new driver in his buddy's Boss 302 that had been raced out (roll cage, front air dam/splitter, much bigger rear spoiler) and on the back straight where I can push 90 mph (140 km/h) he was only doing 55 (90 km/h) and even my "instructor" was like the track workers should have blue flagged him so that I can go past him, but either they didn't notice or weren't pay attention, so at one point, while I was behind him, I had to let off the throttle and not push the my Fusion Titanium Hybrid as hard and I looked down at the speedo and it was at 90 (km/h) and I was like "55! Really??? Seriously???" and then I was like [to the "instructor"] "okay, I'll just hang back here now...". Which is also how I ended up upping my average fuel economy for that run to 18.0 mpg.

 

I've actually been INVITED BACK to their next track day (which is at the beginning of September) and right now, the thought that's going on in my head would be "how cool would it be if I can convince two of the other Mustang drivers to be the chase cars and we mount cameras on them?" (I saw another guy had a GoPro that he mounted onto the side of his car during our last heat) and so we do like a little bit of a live video shoot of the Fusion going around. Either I can be the one who's actually driving, or it can be one of the other more experienced drivers - I don't mind handing my keys over to them, cuz I'll probably sit with them for like the first two laps or something like that (so that I don't end up getting so sick like I did the last time), but that would be so cool. And it may LOOK like it's staged, but other than perhaps clearing the track so that we can get a couple laps in for the video and get some great footage, but the rest of it is all real.

 

And I might also try turning the traction control off just to see what would happen. I was too chicken to do it my first go at it since I was still learning the track and trying to figure out/keep my eye on where I'm going. But that could be really neat I think.

Edited June 20, 2013 by alpha754293

[Waldo]

 

And I might also try turning the traction control off just to see what would happen. I was too chicken to do it my first go at it since I was still learning the track and trying to figure out/keep my eye on where I'm going. But that could be really neat I think.

 

Seems like you're getting confused between traction control and stability control. Traction control is just controlling the wheel spin of the front wheels when you're hard on the gas. Stability control is what keeps you under control going around corners when you're pushing too hard. You cannot turn off stability control, only traction control. So the only thing that might happen is you'll get a little "one-wheel-peel" coming out of the tight corners. Not a big deal and certainly nothing to be "chicken" about.

[alpha754293]

 

Seems like you're getting confused between traction control and stability control. Traction control is just controlling the wheel spin of the front wheels when you're hard on the gas. Stability control is what keeps you under control going around corners when you're pushing too hard. You cannot turn off stability control, only traction control. So the only thing that might happen is you'll get a little "one-wheel-peel" coming out of the tight corners. Not a big deal and certainly nothing to be "chicken" about.

I've yet to find out if the ESP is tied into the TC. As far as I know, I DON'T think that there's a way for me to "disable" their "torque vectoring", and it's too bad that I can't get one of the dev guys to come along with me (along with the necessary equipment so I can monitor every system on the vehicle).

 

THAT would be nice if that was something that I could do. (Let's face it - I'm shamelessly a geek through and through.)

[Waldo]

I've yet to find out if the ESP is tied into the TC. As far as I know, I DON'T think that there's a way for me to "disable" their "torque vectoring", and it's too bad that I can't get one of the dev guys to come along with me (along with the necessary equipment so I can monitor every system on the vehicle).

 

THAT would be nice if that was something that I could do. (Let's face it - I'm shamelessly a geek through and through.)

 

ESP and TC are controlled out of the same module using the same input sensors. But the TC can be turned off. On cars like the Focus ST and SHO Performance Pack, there is another mode that disables the ESC, but the FFH doesn't have that mode. You can always pull the fuse though, but that would also kill your ABS.

[alpha754293]

 

ESP and TC are controlled out of the same module using the same input sensors. But the TC can be turned off. On cars like the Focus ST and SHO Performance Pack, there is another mode that disables the ESC, but the FFH doesn't have that mode. You can always pull the fuse though, but that would also kill your ABS.

 

I was doing some research online and someone had wrote somewhere that you can short pins 6 and 14 on the OBD-II connector that will kill all CAN bus communications, but that should keep your ABS active.

 

Like I said, it would have been good if I can get the answer one of the backend engineers here, but then I might not be able to publish the answer in a public forum being a Ford employee which would open the company to risk and litigation (if I did). So...yeah...(whereas if I had a dev engineer with me, it would be "you need this this this this and this to do it" which presumably, most people won't have it, so I'd be able to do it without exposing the company to undue and unncessary risk.)

 

That's sometimes kinda the problem with my being an actual Ford engineer.