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Experimenting with rear spoilers


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  • 2 weeks later...

Do any of you really understand how the flat spoilers work that the Mustang crowd uses? Just looks to me like the make the air think the car is longer... can't find any thoughtful discussions (on line) regarding how they supposedly work.

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I think the idea is that by making the car longer the air recirculating off of the top and bottom doesn't converge right at the back of the car. This lowers drag and lift. I tried to get McBeath to comment on this with regards to the whale tail on a Z, which also doesn't really have a huge angle to it, yet produces pretty significant downforce. He said at that time that he hadn't done too much testing on spoilers. I let my RCE subscription lapse, so I haven't kept up with his aerobytes articles as of late. Maybe he's dealt with whale tails. If so, I think that would be applicable or at least analogous to what is going on with these drag/LSR spoilers. My gut says if they didn't work they wouldn't be so ubiquitous.

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My guess is that they are drag reducers when you straight liners have a air brake out back, maybe they incidentially help keep things tidy back there too.

I would have to agree with that. Drag Reduction.  Pro stock cars are particularly susceptible to poor track prep and wind gusts.  On a slippery track they are the first ones to complain as the cars skate all over the place on the top end. They have very little down force.

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