Please read and inwardly digest 
http://oppositelock.kinja.com/wings-spoilers-youre-probably-doing-it-wrong-1665312667
http://oppositelock.kinja.com/wings-spoilers-youre-probably-doing-it-wrong-1665312667
Wings and Spoilers - You are probably doing it wrong!
- Thread starter old-git
- Start date
Good article worth reading
IF I ever manage to get SHMBO to agree
my S14 200SX track car would have a ROCKET BUNNY rear spoiler as it seems that it is fairly close to a NASCAR style.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-95-98-2...ear-Trunk-Wing-Spoiler-Body-Kit-/171985926715
IF I ever manage to get SHMBO to agree
my S14 200SX track car would have a ROCKET BUNNY rear spoiler as it seems that it is fairly close to a NASCAR style.http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-95-98-2...ear-Trunk-Wing-Spoiler-Body-Kit-/171985926715
Last edited:
It's close, but there is still quite a bit of style over content there. Unfortunately, air flow doesn't know anything about aesthetics
My aerodynamic guru wants me to put a Gurney flap on the bonnet vent in order to aid air flow out of the engine bay. I think that he will be happy with a half inch flap which shouldn't look too bad.
My aerodynamic guru wants me to put a Gurney flap on the bonnet vent in order to aid air flow out of the engine bay. I think that he will be happy with a half inch flap which shouldn't look too bad.
Wings that flap, this sounds more and more like you're building bird. It's light enough I suppose and I'm sure it will fly down the blacktop!
HDi fun
TC ModFather
Very very interesting article
It's close, but there is still quite a bit of style over content there. Unfortunately, air flow doesn't know anything about aesthetics
Apparently the "Rocket Bunny "boot spoiler is quite effective as it increases drag but also increases stability and gets a mention in this video.
FYI
Personally I'd never really seen spoilers/wings as anything other than aesthetic. Until the mk1 tt when it got recalled for rear end lift at a certain speed.
But to me until I read about it the silly little lip spoiler they added still looked aesthetic! But it served it's purpose. I looked at spoilers differently from that day.
I'm probably never going to build a drag/race car but if the numbers ever come in to give me enough free time to do so I'll definitely look into it seriously!
But to me until I read about it the silly little lip spoiler they added still looked aesthetic! But it served it's purpose. I looked at spoilers differently from that day.
I'm probably never going to build a drag/race car but if the numbers ever come in to give me enough free time to do so I'll definitely look into it seriously!
I wasn't saying that it wouldn't work, just that it wouldn't be as effective as the NASCAR version
fastbob72
Full member
I'd agree about spoilers being more about style than serious airflow or downforce but hey they do look good a lot of the time.It's almost no aerodynamic advantage to the rubber boot spoiler on a Fiesta XR2s tailgate or a Capris but then try to imagine a mk2 RS2000 with no boot spoiler,would not look right.
In all honesty if your going at the kind of speeds that you are generating real downforce that has a noticeable effect on the car then really it's the camera van or the copper behind the bushes you should be much more worried about.lol.
That doesn't mean though that airflow or aerodynamics aren't incredibly useful to the every day street modder/racer if they think about it.Don't worry so much about downforce but consider air pressure both high and low,turbulance aswell is thinking about.
If there's a lot of air flowing in under your bonnet then you wanna think anout how to help it exit.For instance,I junked my A/C with a condensor that sat full length in front of my radiator so with that removed there was more air getting trapped under there.Airflow,hydraulics and fluid dynamics are very much different branches of the same field of study and not just incredibly useful to petrol head but genuinely fascinating and thought provoking.
Like electricity tnhat flows from positive to negative airflow is all about high and low pressure.On the inlet stroke of your engine the piston doesn't suck or draw air into the cylinder as everyone believes but rather it's the higher atmospheric pressure trying to equalise by pushing into the cylinder as it seeks to equalize which pressure,temperature and even charge all seek to do.
Finding the highest pressure at the front of your car,usually around where your number plate is in fact and place the end of your cold air feed there.If a lot of air is being forced under the bonnet through the grille or by being forced under the front bumper then you have to consider if there's a low pressure area in the engine bay which that air will want to push into.Try to encourage it through.In by the grill opening and either out below or around the wheel wells.
In my incredible formula one rivalling Toyota I've got a thick piece of semi stiff rubber....funny enough we use some very similar in the back of the truck to stop any wheeled loads we may have from moving about. It's 'attatched' basically on the very underneath of the front bumper but sited back just in front of where the front part of the front wheel arches meet the the front bumper. it's goes directly straight across side to side but like a very shallow almost straight forward facing V rather than following the outline of the bumper.It runs pretty much under the front lower crossmember/radiator mounts and hangs around 2.5 inches from under the bumper....often scraping the road that's why it's semi stiff and of cheap material but it's there to create high pressure in front of it and in theory at least real low pressure below behind it
.The air flowing below is hopefully encouraged off either side by the shallow v shape rather than going underneath...obviously a percentage will but as long as most goes out sideways.There will be a much bigger build up of high air pressure the engine side of the radiator cos it'll flow through the rad with ease then slam into the inlet manifold and block....that IS right btw before anyone tells me i'm wrong.The inlet side faces the radiator and the exhaust manifold drops down between the block and bulkhead in exactly the opposite way to almost ever other front wheel drive transverse engined car most of us will come across.It's not that big a difference the air flows through the heat exchanger and cannot turn 90 degrees in literally a foot at most and half that in places especially the higher the speed so I figure if I can give it the option of doing what it's predisposed to do anyway i.e find areas of low pressure to flow into like behind the funky bit or rubber hanging from under my bumper which is the sole reason I put it there.Any help to push the air into the engine bay and out from underneath taking some of the trapped heat with it.
Does it work as planned.Mmm well i did measure both the pressure and loggged the air inlet temperature over a range of driving conditions then with the A/C,condensor gone and the rubber attatched I measured a decent drop in pressure in most points under the bonnet and at 50-60 mph + the air temperature gets down within one degree of the ambient temperature which ain't bad.
I can't see downforce ever being truly significant on a road car,a track car or single seater or even drag car definitely but less so on a rally car.I don't count Mclaren F1s or Veiever rons as road cars but rather the modified and factory sporty models of stock family motors that most of us drive,they aren't ever going to rely on several tens of pounds of downforce to keep them in the corners but just like every body that has forward motion it has to cut through the atmosphere and live with ever building levels of air resistance and possibly that air compressing and buffering in front of itself like a wake at the front of a boat while making more and more of a thicker acting 'fluid' and sapping more precious power just to push it's way through it.
It seems to me if that's a given and it is whatever perpetual motion or zero energy nutters may imagine the forces of nature work then why not use it to help your motor through it.Actually in a kind of way I shouldn't have been sniffy about the free energy crowd because like a fast flowing river has energy to carry away peoples waste if they have no consideration for anyone but themselves or a better analogy may be a waterwheel....the fact something is flowing past why noy use it's motion to power or drive something for you.Ok it's our cars motion thats creating the flow going the other way but use it as much as possible instead of suffer from it.Channel it to create high and low pressure areas,funnel it towards your brakes and allow it to carry some heat away as that's less that will be conducting and radiating through your discs lol
In all honesty if your going at the kind of speeds that you are generating real downforce that has a noticeable effect on the car then really it's the camera van or the copper behind the bushes you should be much more worried about.lol.
That doesn't mean though that airflow or aerodynamics aren't incredibly useful to the every day street modder/racer if they think about it.Don't worry so much about downforce but consider air pressure both high and low,turbulance aswell is thinking about.
If there's a lot of air flowing in under your bonnet then you wanna think anout how to help it exit.For instance,I junked my A/C with a condensor that sat full length in front of my radiator so with that removed there was more air getting trapped under there.Airflow,hydraulics and fluid dynamics are very much different branches of the same field of study and not just incredibly useful to petrol head but genuinely fascinating and thought provoking.
Like electricity tnhat flows from positive to negative airflow is all about high and low pressure.On the inlet stroke of your engine the piston doesn't suck or draw air into the cylinder as everyone believes but rather it's the higher atmospheric pressure trying to equalise by pushing into the cylinder as it seeks to equalize which pressure,temperature and even charge all seek to do.
Finding the highest pressure at the front of your car,usually around where your number plate is in fact and place the end of your cold air feed there.If a lot of air is being forced under the bonnet through the grille or by being forced under the front bumper then you have to consider if there's a low pressure area in the engine bay which that air will want to push into.Try to encourage it through.In by the grill opening and either out below or around the wheel wells.
In my incredible formula one rivalling Toyota I've got a thick piece of semi stiff rubber....funny enough we use some very similar in the back of the truck to stop any wheeled loads we may have from moving about. It's 'attatched' basically on the very underneath of the front bumper but sited back just in front of where the front part of the front wheel arches meet the the front bumper. it's goes directly straight across side to side but like a very shallow almost straight forward facing V rather than following the outline of the bumper.It runs pretty much under the front lower crossmember/radiator mounts and hangs around 2.5 inches from under the bumper....often scraping the road that's why it's semi stiff and of cheap material but it's there to create high pressure in front of it and in theory at least real low pressure below behind it
.The air flowing below is hopefully encouraged off either side by the shallow v shape rather than going underneath...obviously a percentage will but as long as most goes out sideways.There will be a much bigger build up of high air pressure the engine side of the radiator cos it'll flow through the rad with ease then slam into the inlet manifold and block....that IS right btw before anyone tells me i'm wrong.The inlet side faces the radiator and the exhaust manifold drops down between the block and bulkhead in exactly the opposite way to almost ever other front wheel drive transverse engined car most of us will come across.It's not that big a difference the air flows through the heat exchanger and cannot turn 90 degrees in literally a foot at most and half that in places especially the higher the speed so I figure if I can give it the option of doing what it's predisposed to do anyway i.e find areas of low pressure to flow into like behind the funky bit or rubber hanging from under my bumper which is the sole reason I put it there.Any help to push the air into the engine bay and out from underneath taking some of the trapped heat with it.
Does it work as planned.Mmm well i did measure both the pressure and loggged the air inlet temperature over a range of driving conditions then with the A/C,condensor gone and the rubber attatched I measured a decent drop in pressure in most points under the bonnet and at 50-60 mph + the air temperature gets down within one degree of the ambient temperature which ain't bad.
I can't see downforce ever being truly significant on a road car,a track car or single seater or even drag car definitely but less so on a rally car.I don't count Mclaren F1s or Veiever rons as road cars but rather the modified and factory sporty models of stock family motors that most of us drive,they aren't ever going to rely on several tens of pounds of downforce to keep them in the corners but just like every body that has forward motion it has to cut through the atmosphere and live with ever building levels of air resistance and possibly that air compressing and buffering in front of itself like a wake at the front of a boat while making more and more of a thicker acting 'fluid' and sapping more precious power just to push it's way through it.
It seems to me if that's a given and it is whatever perpetual motion or zero energy nutters may imagine the forces of nature work then why not use it to help your motor through it.Actually in a kind of way I shouldn't have been sniffy about the free energy crowd because like a fast flowing river has energy to carry away peoples waste if they have no consideration for anyone but themselves or a better analogy may be a waterwheel....the fact something is flowing past why noy use it's motion to power or drive something for you.Ok it's our cars motion thats creating the flow going the other way but use it as much as possible instead of suffer from it.Channel it to create high and low pressure areas,funnel it towards your brakes and allow it to carry some heat away as that's less that will be conducting and radiating through your discs lol
If you liked it "you should have put a wing on it"!
T9 man
TC ModFather
I remember a similar master class lecture from OG about wings and spoilers years ago
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