Aerodynamics working WITH the Car?

[Ash]

Not to pimp my own thread, but if whole car aerodynamics is what your curious about, check out https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=61936. Spoilers can only go so far. Under-trays, Diffusers, Splitters, Vortex Genrators, and Canards is what I've been interested in for some time. I'm going to order "Race Car aerodynamics" by Robert bentley, as some have suggested it as a good read.

[tyoneal]

Ash:

Thanks for the tip.

I will grab a copy myself.

I think the underside of the car is a very underdeveloped part of this hobby.

I've got several projects, one being a F-Body, that I have been coolecting information about. I know some of my questions are somewhat scattered, but since I am looking at a couple different applications, nothing seems to be done the same way. I washopeing for the simularities between them.

The theories are consistant, it's the methods of implimentation that is different.

I love thi subject matter.

Thanks,

Ty

[tyoneal]

Not to pimp my own thread, but if whole car aerodynamics is what your curious about, check out https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=61936. Spoilers can only go so far. Under-trays, Diffusers, Splitters, Vortex Genrators, and Canards is what I've been interested in for some time. I'm going to order "Race Car aerodynamics" by Robert bentley, as some have suggested it as a good read.

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Ash:

I don't see, "Race Car aerodynamics", by Bentley on Amazon. The only author I see is Katz.

I have his book, I think it is very good. Where did you find yours?

Ty

[Ash]

Ohh sorry, operator error on the copy and pasting. Katz is the author. "Bentley" is the publisher

I hear you though, very interesting stuff. That's gonna be a big part of my 81 Monte Carlo project. I'm gonna take my time and collect data with wool tuft and high/low pressure zone testing. Sure, it will be a street car, but I'll have gotten my feet wet in a cool subject. Custom front/rear facias, rear difuser, etc.

[tyoneal]

Ohh sorry, operator error on the copy and pasting. Katz is the author. "Bentley" is the publisher

I hear you though, very interesting stuff. That's gonna be a big part of my 81 Monte Carlo project. I'm gonna take my time and collect data with wool tuft and high/low pressure zone testing. Sure, it will be a street car, but I'll have gotten my feet wet in a cool subject. Custom front/rear facias, rear difuser, etc.

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It's worth the work just to have fun doing it, and learning from it.

[Roadrage David]

Ok here are my 2 cents had the Origenal spoilers upto 190mph!!. i heard a snaping noise at 170mph. at the 190 mark the cars was as straight as a arrow douwnforce was perfect. the highway road wasend super straight but had some longer waves in them getting up and douwn spring travel at that speed.
afther that whe checkt the car and spoiler and the left conecting rod was loose and atachst to a piece of spoiler . when my frind took it of all the bold holles where showing cracks in them as wel(we where lucky). he took it home and made a aluminium frame in the spoiler and gluwed it in(picture included) and wil be atchst to the frond bumper as wel, its now up to the task at higher speeds then we took it. so far so i did not feld that a ""bigger"" spoiler frond ore rear would ad to a improvemend on my cars handling...

[tyoneal]

Ok here are my 2 cents had the Origenal spoilers upto 190mph!!. i heard a snaping noise at 170mph. at the 190 mark the cars was as straight as a arrow douwnforce was perfect. the highway road wasend super straight but had some longer waves in them getting up and douwn spring travel at that speed.
afther that whe checkt the car and spoiler and the left bag was loose and atachst to a piece of spoiler . when my frind took it of all the bold holles where having cracks in them as wel(we where lucky). he took it home and made a aluminium frame in the spoiler and gluwed it in(picture included) and wil be atchst to the frond bumper as wel, its now up to the task at higher speeds then we took it. so far so i did not feld that a ""bigger"" spoiler frond ore rear would ad to a improvemend on my cars handling...

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Thanks for posting.

Was the rear spoiler on the car at he time?
What work has been done to the car?
Is the car pictured on this website? If not, are there some pictures on the net I can take a look at?
Do you have any other aerodynamic additions to your car?
What year and type Car were you in?
Do you know how the suspension was set up at the time?

Thanks again for the post, I hope you have time for the questions.

Ty

[Roadrage David]

Yes rear spoiler is on the car, al the goodies posible suspention wize including custom DSE mini tubbing. fibre glass frond and rear bumbers(68 firebird) no aditional airo stuf added. no lexan windows
First 2 video clips are 170mph drive by.3e around 140mph
last shows the engine and the rear spoiler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn3K6d_e7bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dp0PngisVI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFaA51l1HmE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkLQXSygmQM
got lots of build pictures. i belive some of them are stil on this forum but they are probely outdated..

[zerotofear]

Aero is a balancing act, to much rear shoves the nose, to much nose and the rear comes around. Equal downforce front to rear in theory is good depending on the challenge. Downforce makes a driver brave, but causes drag, drag can be offset with horsepower. In the late eighties the dirt late models went to Austrailia , they raced on the Calder Park Track by the second night the wings and airfoils started to rip off the cars from metal fatigue. Each car and driver combo is like a snowflake, that balance has to be baselined and matured to perfection. Early Camaro's/ Firebirds although very popular are not the easiest car to balance because of its physical foot print and weight distribution.

[Gitter Dun]

Ok here are my 2 cents had the Origenal spoilers upto 190mph!!. i heard a snaping noise at 170mph. at the 190 mark the cars was as straight as a arrow douwnforce was perfect. the highway road wasend super straight but had some longer waves in them getting up and douwn spring travel at that speed.
afther that whe checkt the car and spoiler and the left conecting rod was loose and atachst to a piece of spoiler . when my frind took it of all the bold holles where showing cracks in them as wel(we where lucky). he took it home and made a aluminium frame in the spoiler and gluwed it in(picture included) and wil be atchst to the frond bumper as wel, its now up to the task at higher speeds then we took it. so far so i did not feld that a ""bigger"" spoiler frond ore rear would ad to a improvemend on my cars handling...

According to an article I read, alot of time and effort were taken to design the spoilers for aero.

Seeing your videos and reading your post are enough proof for me that the original spoilers are adequate.

Did you block the front grill off at all?

By the way, we need an aero forum.

[MrQuick]

By the way, we need an aero forum.

lets go bug allen about it....

[Roadrage David]

According to an article I read, alot of time and effort were taken to design the spoilers for aero.

Seeing your videos and reading your post are enough proof for me that the original spoilers are adequate.

Did you block the front grill off at all?

By the way, we need an aero forum.

Yes i think a airo forum would be a great adition to this webdite.
Anyway we did ""not"" blockt of the grill!!!!, i do know that a first gen firebird has better airodynamics then a camaro.

We use a fibre glass 400 ram air hood with open scoops ""altho faceing forward"" i do have a feeling it somehouw vents of a bit, also have never seen my hood rize up due to ecsesif air presure building up. and im only running 2 hood pins! no origenal lock.

When we did the 190mph runn it was more like a race!, as we met up with a agresife Auston Martin Vantage driver and raced him for like 20 min on the highway(europe, boys so dont start raveing). when i came up to his rear bumper in 4th gear i came out of his slipstream at 5800 rpm at 190mph and caught the full wind blast, the car was as straight as a airow and was stuck to the road like glue!!.
In my mind there is NO NEED for another spoiler AT ALL then the origenal camaro spoiler at high speeds. bigger spoilers at lower speeds for more douwnforce can ad grip. haveing said that i have not feld any douwnforce problems at the dutch former F1 track
when battling it out with the modern greats...
Right now we made plans to ad a difuser and go out with the wheel wels and conect the origenal frond spoiler to them. new engine is in the making hopefully whe wil be able to go up as fast as 210/220 mph with the exstra 200 hp and 1000 more rpm.. here is another 150/160 mph run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDVOtHBnnmM

[79PonchoUK]

Not to pimp my own thread, but if whole car aerodynamics is what your curious about, check out https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=61936. Spoilers can only go so far. Under-trays, Diffusers, Splitters, Vortex Genrators, and Canards is what I've been interested in for some time. I'm going to order "Race Car aerodynamics" by Robert bentley, as some have suggested it as a good read.

Extremely valid point.

The rear diffuser is a hugely important part of an aero package (and that's what it should be...a package)

You don't just have to look at formula 1 to see the gains that can be made here. From what I understand, canards and vortex generators are somewhat less of a game changer...though the japanese car owners seem to love them because they can be stuck on with double sided tape, and that's cool. j/k

Our cars tend to have relatively good undersides in some respect and relatively big downsides in others.

There's a lot of crap under F-body and similar cars. The big front subframes hanging down, the mufflers and the live rear are all mounds of turbulent brick. lol. The undersides are very bumpy and drag-unfriendly.
But the back 3 feet of the car is pretty good. Modern cars seem to have very low rear bumpers which is bad for aero. Our old cars have a very big opening under the rear bumpers with smooth fuel tanks that list upwards at the rear. That's borderline rear diffuser...albeit without the fins to keep the air stable. It would be lovely to form blocks of foam to smooth out the underfloor, particularly around the front subframe and rear axle of the 2nd gens....just need to make sure it's fire proof. lol

Having a diffuser at the rear doesn't just help rear down force, but the negative pressure under the car helps vent the under-hood area better improving downforce at the front too. Afterall, the only place excess pressure under the bonnet can go is under the floor of the car.

The ricer cars you see with deep rear bumpers are just silly. Completley negative to any aero advantage unless you travel everywhere in reverse.