Aerodynamics working WITH the Car?

[Chris 68]

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Thanks for the message:

It's not just the weight. With 350# pounds tied into the deck lid, would that be the same as puting 350# or 10% of your cars weight at 3.5-4.0 feet in the air?

I would think it would have a quite a detrimental effect on the handling of the car. If you mounted a 2 or 3 element wing on the back and could run fast enought to get 1000-1500+ pounds downforce wouldn't you be in deep Ca Ca at this point?

The now you have 1/3 (Or really a 1/4) or the entire weight of the car up inthe air at 3.5 feet. I would guess something would hve to be done at this point.

How would the Downforce/weight be carried then?

Another thing, even with 350# of downforce, which I guess would be doable, then having it levered out rearward, wouldn't that have a much greter effect than having 350# downforce on the truck?

Thanks for your time and patience.

Regard,

Ty

Not exactly, we should really think of it in terms of DOWNWARD force, not mass. That 350# of down force is only acting down on that spoiler because of air resitance, not gravity. If you were to put a 350# lead block inplace of your spoiler, you would have gravity acting upon that block which would still give you a downward force BUT that weight would also factor into the handling of the car in terms of lateral movement, creating more intertia. Lets say a stock camaro weighs 2650lbs, 3000lbs with the lead block. If you were to take a sharp turn, you would be moving 3000lbs with you. Now with that lead block removed and the spoiler in place, you would still get your 350 lbs of down force at speed but when you mave that turn, you are only moving 2650lbs of camaro. I hope that makes sence, I'm not a physics guro but physics is part of my major; I wish this was part of my homework!