Do Rear Spoilers / Wings Help Any?

[Christ]

Originally Posted by cfg83

Christ -



Oooooh, lots of combos here :

1 - Lower the front by 2 inches.
2 - Lower the front by 1 inch and raise the rear by 1 inch.
3 - Reduce the diameter of the front wheels by 1 inch and increase the diameter of the rear wheels by 1 inch. You'd get the 2 inch net and you could *claim* you were going for a classic race car look.

The first is the probably the best, but there's room for more choices.

CarloSW2

Doing the highlighted option would only get you 1/2" lowering in the front, and 1/2" raise in the rear. You'd need to double your lift/lower in tire diameter to net the same gain as altering the suspension.

I'm sure you know that, but I'd like to make it clear for others.

(Increasing the Radius by the same number as a suspension mod would create the same overall lift/lower, but the diameter is R2, which is to say that R = 0.5*D.)

[darcane]

Originally Posted by Christ

Carlos - Downforce. They use them in NHRA/IHRA as well.

I don't remember the whole reason they work, but I think I remember something about Bernoulli in there, or maybe I was day dreaming during that lecture. Either way, they're there to produce downforce.

Land speed racing is a whole different animal than drag racing. That spoiler is undoubtedly designed to reduce drag as well as reduce lift. At Bonneville, reducing Cd is the number one goal of body design. Often ballast will be added instead of spoilers to add downforce for traction since you have a long distance to get up to your top speed.

I've got a book called Competition Car Aerodynamics that discusses the effect of angle and spoiler length in some detail. According to it, on a typical stock bodied car, a spoiler with an angle less than 20° can both reduce lift and reduce drag.

Mike

[aerohead]

without endplates it's already been emasculated by GM.It's not large enough to effect much change even if it was "complete",and without the car or a set of blueprints for the car, it would be hard to calculate anything.---------- If it were mine I'd keep it.If I were going to investigate drag reduction in that region of the car,I suspect the final spoiler would be quite different.

[TOOSTUBBORN2FAIL]

Originally Posted by darcane

Land speed racing is a whole different animal than drag racing. That spoiler is undoubtedly designed to reduce drag as well as reduce lift. At Bonneville, reducing Cd is the number one goal of body design. Often ballast will be added instead of spoilers to add downforce for traction since you have a long distance to get up to your top speed.

I've got a book called Competition Car Aerodynamics that discusses the effect of angle and spoiler length in some detail. According to it, on a typical stock bodied car, a spoiler with an angle less than 20° can both reduce lift and reduce drag.

Mike

awesome book, even if its more related to racing, some of the stuff in it can still help here

[radioranger]

I'm betting it's used to help kill some lift , without increasing the drag , or both could happen , lift induced drag, since the car is wing shaped,