Has anyone done anything with the aerodynamics on their car? other than gfx and/or spoilers..
Some of you may know..I work for a composites shop..more specifically, i work for a composites shop that builds Indy cars, Sprints cars, Funny cars, Top Fuel cars, etc...we build the bodies and misc. pieces out of such materials as Carbon Fiber, Kevlar and occasionally fiberglass (for the broke *** teams that can't afford CF :-P ).
Anyway, I deal with the aerodynamics of racecars on a daily basis and have become increasingly interested in applying some advanced ideas to my Z. I have talked about it with our engineer quite a bit and have the means and facilities to put the ideas to work. Did you know that the airdamn on the front of our cars (the long black plastic POS that scrapes on everything..well when your lowered like me anyway) causes a lot of drag? Our engineer did the math and discovered that at 100mph+, there is a aero drag equivalent of about a 2%-3% power loss. For the 93-97 style headlights on Camaros, the 'cavities' where the headlights are located are basically dead spots also. My point is that aerodynamics do have an effect. 99.99% of you guys probably couldn't care less about any of this or maybe you've just never really thought about it before. Either way..let me tell you what I'm doing with my car and you tell me if you think I'm crazy or a pioneer...and I'd be very interested to know if anything like this has been done before...well to an f-body anyway.
First of all I took the front bumper off and cut out the entire center section...where the fog lights used to be and the flat area in between..and put in some nice grills. on the 'chin', the rolled bottom part of the bumper that comes to a point, i cut out 2 more openings (they are nicely cut and sanded, and not all ghetto looking)..I am mounting my tranny cooler in front of these chin openings...I made these big inlets because i want air to go straight to the radiator and not just swirl around inside the cavity behind the bumper because that causes a lot of drag. The smoother the air flow under, over, and through(if possible) the car, the less drag there is. I also grafted a NACA duct (which actually creates a vacuum because of it's mathimatically calculated shape) under the driverside headlights. I have an SLP CAI and the twin K&Ns are located inside the bumper under the DS lights. I had to do some cutting and install some guides for air to flow directly to the filters.
The underneath of an openwheel car has 'tunnels' that create immense downforce and channel the air smoothly. Numerous inlets and scoops and ducts and whatnot are found all over the car to direct and channel air..Whether it's for downforce or cooling purposes, the whole point of all this is to reduce turbulance & lift and create downforce. Teams spend millions of dollars on windtunnel devel and research to perfect this. NOW...back to my bumper....
Now that air will be coming into the bumper and not just hitting foglights and flat area in between, i had work on the crap that is housed behind the bumper..namely that big steel crossmember that some of you like to remove for a modest redux in front end weight...well I'm going to keep it, but is highly modified for two reasons...because i don't want it visible when you look through the grills and it's blocking the incoming air from going to the radiator. I cut out the whole center of it leaving just the top and bottom parallels which i reinforced...in the center i welded vertical supports that have a thin leading edge so they don't block any air and are not really visible...i added mesh grill over this new opening for asthetics and beadblasted the whole thing and painted it black and cleared it. also...behind THAT is that plastic baffel that helps direct the air up from the air dam...i scrapped that....Now...air comes into the front bumper and straight through my trans cooler and radiator..
in addition..I am working on mild underbody panels..I riveted carbon fiber panels over the black plastic enclosures on the underneath of the front bumper to block off the louvers and stiffen up the plastic. I also grafted 2 CF diveplains or 'whiskers' on each side of the front bumper...these are the triangular shaped aero pieces you see on the front ends of various road racing cars. ...next I'm working on a panel to block off air from going up into the rear bumper (because that acts like a parachute at speed), rear diffusers, and some misc underbody panels.....

So there it is...this is what i have done thus far...so am i crazy?

 

Get some pics. Now.

 

I think it's cool lot's of pics plz.
And how much weight reduction so far...and how much if you were to carbon fiber the whole car???
-b

 

You can bet I'll be posting pics...The bumper hasn't been painted yet though...it's all sanded down and whatnot...shaved the emblem dimpl out too ;-) forgot to add that..lol

 

i don't know that I've shaved much weight...a lot of bumper has been cut away...but that's kinda offset by the pieces I've added and the grills....The biggest weight redux was from hacking out the crossmember...and where i can, I'm replaces metal brackets w/ carbon fiber brackets...I've maybe lost a few pounds....but I'm not necessarily going for weight redux...mainly aero and cooling superiority

 

I think thats a cool idea, I had never thought of aero before on our cars.

 

I've always wondered about the rear bumper on our cars, especially when the rear crash support is removed. Just how problematic is this though? I mean, is it a considerable drag on the car or very minimal and at what speed does it even become a factor?

One other question...would modifying the rear spoiler increase downforce at higher speeds? If so, what would work? Increase the length, width, height, pitch, etc.

Cool post. What do you guys charge for C/F work? I got some metal piping that I'll need replicated in carbon fiber later this year.

 

It's called a "full tray"......the whole underside of the car is covered with usually plastic or carbon fiber.

lowering the car doesn't create more drag. It's just that Air Dam and rear bumper that does it--that black plastic thing underneath causes drag to, but i would personally leave it to funnel up cold air to the radiator.


Let's see pics!!!!!

do you guys have a wind tunnel? that would be awesome to get your car into one.

Nice thread this hasn't been discussed in like forever

 

Actually, White Night, it's called an under wing when 'tunnels' are involved and can be called an undertray also. Never heard of "full tray" before. I build and repair underwings for the IRL and CART. Heard of the Indy 500? I'm sure. I work on about 85% of the cars on the grid. I do know what I'm talking about

and I never said lowering the car causes more drag..i said lowering your car causes the airdam to scrape on ****. If you would have read what I posted, you would have known that.

White Night posted: "It's just that Air Dam and rear bumper that does it--that black plastic thing underneath causes drag to, but i would personally leave it to funnel up cold air to the radiator."

You apparantly did not understand anything i said.

 

as far modifying your spoiler for added downforce....no real point as the stocker isn't really big enough a whole lot. nothing really there to modify.....
I know I'll get flamed for this...but if you want/need more downforce on your rear wheels, your best bet would be to get an aluminum wing that is so popular with the import crowd..but in our case, it would actually be putting the downforce to good use....look to Trans Am series Camaros or LeMans C5Rs for inspiration....you want a wing that is as wide as the car and low....not 5 feet high and 3 tiered like the crap you see on Neons and Civics or whatever...here is a simple way to determine the air flow over your car...tape a piece of string....3 ft or so at the very top of your hatch glass in the center and get up to speed..60 or 70...or have someone else drive your car up to speed and drive along side in another car....look at how high about the stock spoiler the string is fluttering on average and that is height where you would need to place a wing to use that air flow for downforce

 

Hmm, I was hoping for something a little more subtle than an aluminum wing.

What about tubing prices? It'd be 2.5" and 3". Probably be about 10' of 2.5" and maybe 3-4' of 3".

 

sounds like you did your homework, lol. I think what you've done is awsome, and I can't wait to see pics of your work.
I've never really been that concerned with the aerodynamics of the car since I don't take it to the track, but my car is lowered too...and getting rid of that stupid POS air deflector would be great. Btw...are there any chances of you making some of these cf parts for to sell to us on the side...(like the front bumper, rear diffuser...maybe even a hood??
anyways i'm probably just dreamin...cuz you sound pretty busy with what you do for a living.

 

Need pics, good ones

Most of the spoilers are about the hight of the roof line arnt they?

a rear defuser would be nice, as I think that would be a benifit to almost everyone.

 

as far as rear wings go, you can get different height struts for them or have them machined for your needs....find a picture of a LeMans C5R and check out the wing...see how it's got a level change in the center to match the hatch...I like that a lot...if i can find one like that, I'd consider buying it....I'd have it painted black to match the car though...if people think it's "ricey" then that's kool..I don't care..
It's my car..HAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

i won't be able to manufacture new bumpers or anything major....but the carbon fiber brackets, underbody pieces, dive plains..blah blah i might be able to make at a later date...
I could write up plans and detailed instructions along with cutting templates...essentially a kit, for reproducing what I've done with the front bumper...I've gotta get MINE done first though