Canards & front aero
 

After making my diy front plywood splitter i am looking for some way to direct the air coming off the sides of the bumper up, thus creating more downforce. Which brings me to canards, or "barn doors."

Something like this:
http://image.importtuner.com/f/93320...sx+canards.jpg

http://949racing.com/miata_challenge...ion_2010_a.jpg

Lets discuss how we can mount the canards (bolts, Rawl bolts ect), what material (metal, ABS, wood?) would be good to use and anything else we can discuss about this.

This is what my car currently stands when its in track mode:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y23...r/IMG_2696.jpg

I thought the point of canards was to make vortex's down the side of the car to keep air underneath it, mainly to benefit a smooth bottomed car? As a side benefit directing air how you want it that would normally be hitting the front tires.

I wonder what the optimal angle is?

yes, main purpose of a canard is to make vortex down the side.
but in practicality, canard makes very little down force overall, especially on a true race car. BUT canard benefit most amateur track car well, because it is being used more of a tire spats.
Snowboarder: you definitely need some kind of tire spats. you are getting a ton of drag and negative down force with air hitting front tires.

don't tell these guys that. they must have spent some cash on that deli slicer on the rear.

Attachment 199116

I had no idea the canards were used to make vortex's down the side. This is good info guys, thanks!

May we discuss how one could more effectively use the front fascia for an amateur track driver?

most important mods for front end are:

1. splitter. there are a few articles that says optimal length is around ~4".
2. tire spats. to block air hitting tires, lifting tires off the ground. better would be a wider bumper to hider the tires from air
3. extractor hood - relieve positive pressure under the hood, which lift the hood up.
4. smaller the radiator intake the better (before overheating). for both down force (more surface area for splitter to use) and drag.

I'll give Adrian Newey a call for you guys while we kick it on my yacht.

The way the Miata nose recesses below the bumber has to be piss poor aerodynamically. It's a big wind catch between the bumber and the splitter + we need spats or canards to route air away from the front tires.

It's pie in the sky to think it would ever get made but I still think the track guys could use a cheap plastic nose like the stock car, oval and circle track guys get. Something like this one from speedway for $125. With the cheap plastic you could cut or create any kind of opening you like for the radiator and other heat exchangers. With such a limited market I doubt any of the manufactures would want to create the mold for our cars though. Anyone have an "in" with an injection moulding company?

http://images.speedwaymotors.com/RS/...91054205_R.jpg

http://www.mulsannescorner.com/Ginet...s2009-RCE1.jpg
"For a number of years now the Zytek (Ginetta-Zytek these days) has run these vertical vanes outboard on the front fenders. Best guess is that they are a drag reduction device."

I'm pretty sure rharris was going to build a front bumper that was wider and integrated wheel spats... Not sure if anything has/will come from it or not. I am hopeful though...

I think he's too busy trying to figure out why his cars are always fast but fragile to sit in your dingy.

I made Canards and spats for mine.

The spats are sort of just mudflaps made out of 1/8" abs and fastened to the wheel arch and the splitter.

For the canards I used the universal drawings on APR's site as a guidline for a pattern I changed it slightly and made them out of 1/8" ABS. I put a lip on the outboard edge on them made out of thin aluminum angle from the hardware store. Looks close to the APR universal ones but cost about 1/10th as much. I only put one per side. I bought some eurathane ones off E-bay for $6.95 that actually weren’t too bad but but I just used the hardware that came with them.

If you look close in the side on picture you can see the road grime line left from driving in the wet making a line shooting strait off the canard and arching over my front fender flare. They are cirtainly changing how the air flow goes down the side of the car.

Bob

bbundy, That is a great example of what i am looking at doing. Would you mind posting a few more pictures?

Have you had the opportunity to get on track before/after these, and difference in lap times/feel?

The mine thing i am looking to see is how they are mounted to the bumper skin, and how that little lip on the canard is mounted to the abs.

I believe it is Bob who once posted that he felt significant down force from an extractor hood.

there are some awesome fabricators on this forum.

This looks good:

https://www.miataturbo.net/forum/att...4-p1010014.jpg

Yes the differance the extractor hood made was significant. The stock hood will try and lift off the car at 100mph with a lot of force trying to pull the latch loose. I think the net force on the hood I have now is down. I mistakenly ran it with no pin clips in and no latch once and it did not lift even at 130mph. It might even make a bigger change than the front lip does in terms of net downforce.

Bob

Holy shit. I guess I need to put mine one then. Paging Machismo and his dremel skilzzz

I used aluminum pop rivets to hold the lip on the canard. The canards are held onto the bumper with 3 little thin steel angle brackets and screws. this hardware I got from E-bay, I bought a set of cheap urethane canards for $6.95 plus shipping and they came with the hardware.

I got one test in on my aero setup at a full speed track. I left the rear wing at a pretty high angle of attack sort of my autocross setup. The aero balance I felt tended towards making the car push at higher speeds and would allow more oversteer coming off low speed corners. Seems the rear wing is really effective. I might reduce the angle a bit.

I also got a good test of the robustness. The splitter did a nice job of whacking through some scotch broom bushes and scooping up some dirt at pretty high speed and sustained pretty much zero damage. One of the canards got whacked by a cone that flipped in front of me from another car. The ABS cracked at one of the mounting holes and one of the angle brackets broke. I welded it back together with a soldering iron and replaced the broken angle clip.

Bob

i bought a pack of those little angle brackets (they even have holes drilled on each end already) at a local home depot type store for $2.99

hopefully, one day my vented, headlight delete hood will be made.
until then, my jdm drifter hood will have to suffice. i believe it's helping a little with the lift. i've tested, and there is air shooting out at speed.