Kamei/Zender Hood Splitters

[BigDaddy92]

Anyone remember the hood splitters that these companies sold? I have searched, just wondering if these have been discussed on this board? These were available in custom an universal fit, as I recall.

[BigDaddy92]

Well did a few more hours of research and here are some of the findings.

In 1971 Ferrari made the 365 GTB/4 "Daytona" Competizione, one of the new additions to the aero of the car were "air fences", designed to keep the air moving across the top of the car and not spill over to the sides. These cars raced for 71 until 79 and were very competitive. Next BMW in 72 used them on their 3.0 series cars, most of the cars had crazy big flares and spoilers, but for homologation they had to produce street cars also.

In the early 80's KAMEI started marketing aero kits with the "air fences" and called them "wind splitters", used in their X1 kits. Later ZENDER came into to the picture and used them for Z-400 widebody aero kits.

So I know that all this is used at racing speeds, but for highway speeds, could these or something like them help keep some of the air away from the side mirrors. Just throwing this out here for discussion, since you guys have your ducks in a row with the scan-gauge and records.

Any ideas/comments(non flaming, please) are welcome, would really like to here what this board has to say.

Thanks for reading this,As soon as I reach the magic 5 post mark (no post ho here), there will be pics up.

[lunarhighway]

I believe i read somewhere on some cars these fences where to reduce lift induced when, due to cornering, airflow would pass over the hood sideways (i assume situations like drifting when the car does move at high speeds sideways and conventional spoilers become uneffective at the same time). this apparently produced enough lift to cause undesirable handling.

As such these devices, like more race car aero devices, will be primarry to reduce lift and not drag. because no sensible person will ever go sideways on public roads i don't think these things have any value on a roadgoing car. they are interesting however, because they show that the airflow is not always front to back and, even under normal driving conditions, the direction of the airflow to the cars central axis will change often.

i imagine they might actually make a roadgoing car slightly less stable as they add more surface area to the side profile at the front, in side wind conditions you want most of the surface area to be at the back of the car, so that when the wind pushes the car sideways the back will be pushed out more and the front will steer into the wind, compensating the change of direction... a few (mostely experimental) cars like the tatra, and also salt lake racers used dorsal fins at the rear to enlarge the rear surface and make the cars more stable in side wind conditions.

[aerohead]

I think lunarhighway has covered all the bases.
I only know of these fences as a safety technology,positioned near areas of maximum body camber at 90-degrees yaw to spoil any lift as the sideways car attempts to become a crude airfoil as has been seen so many times in racing.
And as lunarhighway mentions,any fence near the front of a car will tend to move its center of pressure forwards which leads to crosswind instability.

[max_frontal_area]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy92

hood splitters

roof rails are a requirement for all cars above IIRC 120mph for land speed record racing. check their rules to be sure scta-bni.org
being a big proponent of airflow straighteners i think a few, but more
diminutively sized versions, dispersed across the roof could prove valuable
at 1/2 or even 1/3 that speed as long as x winds are mild.

[5nahalf]

I have a set of them, they are on my 1988 325iX

[5nahalf]

[lunarhighway]

nice car but the only thing aerodynamic about it is that is doesn't have any mirrors

[5nahalf]

Yeah, I never made this one a aero car. I am on these boards with my Vixen 21 motorhome.

[AeroModder]

My hood sits down father than normal, so my car has those naturally. It's only a quarter inch or so, though.