Race car aero questions...again...different car this time
 

Hello all,

Please take a look at one of our other race cars, for drag racing.

Here is the car as it is now.

http://i55.tinypic.com/2igdl6d.jpg

And here is a rendering of how it is planned to look

http://i54.tinypic.com/rwotq8.jpg

What I am after are things and ways to 'help' aerodynamics on this car,

thanks!

Deflectors in front of the rear wheels.
Fairing in front of the engine, nice swept pipes :)
From an engineering standpoint, can you move the lower support bracket for the wing off of the safety cage and more vertical ?

* Make the body wider so it completely shields the rear wheels from the air stream.
* The down- and inward curvature of the rear body / rear wheel fairings is too fast, and causes additional drag. Give it less curvature, with a sharply defined railing edge where the air can detach cleanly.
* Add a (partial) boattail aft of the roll cage / driver helmet.
* Round off the frontal edges of the body, right behind the engine.


Have you made any mods to the other dragster, and did they improve your time / end speed ?

I am going to try to widen the body a little in front of the rear wheels.

Cant run a fairing in front on the engine though. Yeah pipes will look good!

Why the wing move?

Same reply, I will try to widen the body with struts to shield the rear wheels,

I may in the future tweak the body but for now will stay as is

front edges of the body 'should' be covered by the engine.



as for the other car rebuild is still ongoing, but its looking superb!

Do anything you can within the rules! If you understand all that is on this forum, and aerodynamic bodywork fits within the rules, then break the mold on the current drag car looks, and blow their doors off!

saw this, but it reads like weight is a bigger factor
MIKE KLOEBER'S NITRO UNIVERSITY - COURSE 2, THE DRAGSTER BODY AND AERODYNAMICS

with cars that push 300mph, and that cover a lot of ground at higher speeds, I have to wonder.

i.e. you cannot ignore that big blue plume of low pressure behind the car without considering a boat tail, that low pressure is acting on the rear of the vehicle and is going to be pulling the car back for a large part of the track, exponential with speed.
http://www.competitionplus.com/image...ostrut_cfd.jpg

rear wheels
 

Something Paul Jaray wrote about long ago,with respect to race cars,was that the open rear wheels are good for directional stability because of their drogue affect( a transom if you will ).
If the rear wheels are enclosed or streamlined,then a vertical rear fin is absolutely mandatory.
At present,the 'draggy' wrinkle-walls are providing a stabilizing effect.
The added mass of the boat tail will have to factored along with the additional mass of the new fin when calculating F= MA.

Rule Book language?
 

If we could actually 'read' the rule book section for your class,we might find some 'opportunities'.
Technically,the drag solution for the dragster is a 'funny-car' body.So we need to know what the acid test IS for an open chassis car.