Quote:
Originally Posted by California98Civic
I could understand that it would do that, but won't doing so produce a lot of downforce? How would it interact with the rest of the car? I would imagine with more air going over the car from the nose, that the back end matters even more. True or a mistake? What do you think?
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Lowering the stagnation point forces more of the air to go over the top and around the sides of the car, thus avoiding the roughness and turbulence of a passage under the car. Even with smooth underpanelling, there is the turbulence of its interactions with the wheels so the more of this air you can divert elsewhere the better. Lowering the stagnation point reduces drag, but it also tends to reduce downforce, since any air going over the top of the car acts like air going over the top of an airfoil, creating lift. This added lift might cause stability problems at 100+ mph speeds, but isn't a problem at usual highway speeds and you can cancel out some of this lift with no increase in drag by building a rear diffuser panel on the rear underside of the car.