Turbulators?
 

I think that's what they're called, the spike-like things on the roof of the car where it starts to curve for the back window, seen them mainly on Mitsubishi. Question is: DO THEY REALLY HELP?
Do they make the car more aerodynamic, apparently they're supposed to "trip" the airflow, I think by decreasing the size (or something) of the vortexes that occur at the end of the car. Any thoughts, advice, data?

Here is a picture of what I'm talking about. The 8 spike/bumps on the side of the antenna.
http://www.seriouswheels.com/pics-20...A-1024x768.jpg

They work in conjunction with that wing. Those delta-vortex generators basically bend the air coming over the roof to interact more with the wing. With no wing they serve no purpose in that application. Its about down-force, not drag reduction. In fact they add drag.

they do what they claim to "help keep the airflow attached" but test after test on here has proven that they don't help the aero behind the car. i do have a friend that placed them under his car about 6 inches from the front of his belly pan and it reduced the "floatiness" of the car when dealing with crosswinds (and passing semi-trucks, when dealing with the air deflected to the side by the flat front)

On the Evo, they reduce the drag coefficient by .006.

Hi Capn..,

Those delta shaped things are VORTEX GENERATORS. A TURBULATOR is a thin layer of material with a zig-zag cut at the leading and trailing edge.

Vortex Generators help air flow around a sharp corner, but at the expense of some drag. The overall drag , properly design, is not that much different.

A turbulator introduces turbulence into the air flow. There purpose of turbulators is to prevent flow momentum causing the air to continue in its present direction, but to tumble and conform to to the shape of the airframe.

You have seen an application of the Vortex Generator, on the EVO to get the air to flow over the rear wing.

Turbulators are used on sail plane wings to prevent the air from going higher over the wing than the wing is, resulting in flow seperation.

On this site we have discovered that when you have a steep windshield angle, some small benefit can be had by putting a turbulator on the upper 1/3 of the A-pillar. Thus the air flowing diagonally across the windshield conforms to the flow down the side of the car, quicker. This is because with a steep windshield, some of the air in the outside corners is going sideways as it hits the upper 1/3 of the A-pillar. And it has momentum to shoot out sideways larger than the car actually is. By exhausting the energy asociated with this momentum, the air will combine nicely with the flow down the side of the car.

Thanks for the explanation!
I was looking at another site for car aerodynamics and it called those things turbulators.

So these are turbulators-http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b53/edbso/zig-zag.jpg

Hi capn..,

Yes, those are turbulators.

OP here is all the info on the Evo vortex generators.
http://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/cor...004/16E_03.pdf

Yeah, old thread, but I use the search function ;)

Anyone know if the person from the car pictured bought or made that strip?