Quote:
Originally Posted by serialk11r
I'm a little surprised on a car as modern as the ND that those canards reduce drag, but I guess they work sort of like the ubiquitous "air curtains" with upward vanes that all German cars now have.
How did you decide on those numbers for toe?
Also sounds like a 10Ah battery, that sounds pretty ambitious with modern car standby power but if you drive it everyday there's obviously nothing to worry about. Have you thought about adding a solar panel to keep the battery topped up?
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Although the ND is an improvement over previous generations in terms of drag (particularly with the top down and on the underbody), I expect the design is foremost to look attractive. There are air curtains underneath that direct air over the bottom of the front wheel wells, but my read of the visible body lines is "aesthetic".
The factory alignment specs, per individual wheel, are:
Front:
Caster: 5.5° to 7.5°
Camber: -1.7° to 0.3°
Toe: -1/16" to 1/8"
Rear:
Camber: -2.7° to -0.7°
Toe: -1/32" to 5/32" (ideally 1/8" toe in total)
The middle of the factory toe specs would be 1/16" (0.8mm) per-wheel toe-in on the front, and 1/8" (1.6mm) toe-in in the rear.
Flyin' Miata recommends the following, which they report shows no unusual wear:
Front:
Caster: 8.0°
Camber: -1.8°
Toe in: 1/32" per side / 0.075° / 4.5 arcminutes / 0.8mm
Rear:
Camber: -1.8°
Toe in: 1/32" per side / 0.075° / 4.5 arcminutes / 0.8mm
Essentially, I took the Flyin' Miata specs and dialed all of them back a bit.
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I don't drive the car every day, so we'll see how the battery holds up. I have another slightly heavier (3kg) 20Ah lithium battery which has lower cranking amps, that I might substitute, with a small supercapacitor assist. Or, I could potentially put the two in parallel. The cranking amps of this new battery appear a bit too high for it to only be 10Ah, but we'll see.