I agree with Leafy, at least for the ferrari. When you're making a lot of downforce with the underside of the car, you really have to worry about the splitter bottoming out and cutting off airflow to the underside. As soon as the splitter bottoms and you lose airflow, you lose the underbody downforce and the car lifts up off the ground. Airflow is restored when the car lifts, so downforce returns and sucks the splitter back onto the ground, cutting off airflow again. It's a vicious cycle that results in the car violently bouncing up and down, usually in heavy braking. A lot of cars that have serious underbody aero have a raised (or non-existent) center section on the splitter, so that the splitter can touch the ground without choking airflow to the underbody.

This problem doesn't just exist with flat floors and diffusers either. One of my friends tried a large, low splitter/undertray with really soft front springs, and he said the car was dangerous to drive in braking zones. It was so bad that he pulled the splitter off after the first session of the day.

 

Love the diffuser on the Corvette prototype.

I've wondered for a while about the vortex generating "foot" on the outside edge of the Mazda Skyactiv splitter which is pointed right at the front tire. If it were outboard of the front tire (which I'm sure they can't do due to splitter width restrictions) it would make more sense, but as-is it's puzzling.

-Ryan

 

Ryan,

I spoke to Henry from KazeSpec. He told me that they probably want to offset the front tire wake away from the underside of the car. Most of the tire wake is shed off the sidewalls and shedding a vortex in front of the tire will help deflect it outwards. This is true too of F1 cars, which have 2 vortex channels, one on the endplate and one pointed at the tire.

 

 

Interesting feedback on the guys using his services. Essentially guaranteeing a 3 second lap time reduction for $2k in consulting... not too shabby if you're looking to win.

 

One thing we really haven't talked about, besides downforce. I want to know more about reducing Drag since alot of our cars don't produce more than 300 hp.

 

easy, make more power and make mr. ferrari prowd.

 

this might be a good place to start:
http://kazespecengineering.com/wp-co...ero-101-20.pdf

 

interesting to get a figure....1/3 of the cars drag is cooling....

 

Well that was sorta short. Got anything else as cut-and-dry to read?

 

On his Facebook page he does little explanations every so often too.

 

I went to the Long Beach Grand Prix yesterday with a pit pass, which allows unbelievable access to all the cool cars, from Indy to GTLM. The Indy cars are all basically built to "spec", so there are no aero secrets out there. Teams were perfectly happy to let anyone poke around their cars, take pictures of the steering wheels, everything. The GTLM and prototype cars were spectacular, and there's something cool about a massive Bentley set up for racing.

 

What is this a picture of?

 

I posted this a while back, but I need more cooling and downforce on the front end to make up for the new rear wing I have planned.

 

THAT is a Gurney flap, or Wickerbill. It's appropriate that I took the picture in Long Beach, as that's Dan Gurney's home track.

Gurney flap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I knew it was a gurney flap, i just didn't know what car it belonged to or where it was located

 

I knew what you meant.. Lol.

I believe it the wing in front on the rear tire on an Indy car.

 

Indycar, Long Beach. Attached to the trailing edge of nearly all downforce-producing bodywork.

 

Is that a picture of the front end? Looks like it has a splitter followed by a recess to allow in air between the flat tray and the car? Could that feed air through the transmission tunnel and out the back by the diffuser?

 

What car is that? looks like a gumpert apollo maybe?