Air Tabs

[Synlubes]

I saw these here and would like to get some comments from you engineers here.

This is not related to a street car but a track use car (s30).

Thoughts on mounting some of these on the roof, say just in front of the hatch to draw the air down on the slope of the rear hatch?

Or somewhere else on the car.

[mario_82_ZXT]

Dunno if all they claim is true, but I think the new Lancer Evo has something like that just above the rear glass.

 

Mario

[Pop N Wood]

I know Smokey Yunick wrote in one of his books he often built his cars out of wrecks, that way he could modify the roof region above the rear glass to do just what this product claims to do. (The rules forbid such types of body modifications).

 

I have often thought just some type of spoiler, like a flat piece of metal, would do the trick. Not sure what advantage the shape of this product would bring.

 

Ahh. Just found this from this site http://www.shoclub.com/editorial/smokey.htm

 

'Cheating,' as it were, has been around since the inception of stock car racing. The year 1966 produced two of the most notorious violations of rules quite possibly witnessed in the sport of NASCAR racing - and believe it, or not, both cars passed technical inspection prior to the Dixie 500 at Atlanta. Junior Johnson's "Yellow Banana" Ford Galaxy and Henry "Smokey" Yunick's "little" #13 1967 Chevy Chevelle, complete with an offset chassis, raised floor, roof spoiler, balloon in gas tank and a host of other brilliant rules book interpretations. NASCAR finally disqualified Yunick's creation in 1968 when it was found to be some 200 pounds underweight."

[HeatRaveR]

Dunno if all they claim is true' date=' but I think the new Lancer Evo has something like that just above the rear glass.

 

Mario[/quote']

 

It's called a "Vortex Generator", but is made up of fin-shaped pieces that generate vortices off their tips. This tab-thing seems to generate them in a different manner and direction.

[2126]

I saw these here and would like to get some comments from you engineers here.

This is not related to a street car but a track use car (s30).

Thoughts on mounting some of these on the roof' date=' say just in front of the hatch to draw the air down on the slope of the rear hatch?

Or somewhere else on the car.[/quote']

After looking at the poop on the little devices, I don't think they will do what you want..."to draw air down on the slope of the rear hatch". If these things do as they say they do it would deflect the air away from the hatch. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a low pressure (lift) area created over the hatch area in stock form already and hence, why rear spoilers are added for some down force?

[Synlubes]

I know that the air tabs & vortex generators are a bit different, but. . .

I serched the net and got alot of info on airplane wings and vortex generators.

The pics and some videos I looked at with airplane wings showed the air tucking right down on the trailing edge (w/ vortex generators), but without the vortex generators the air was turbulent at the trailing elge of the wing. (simular to the air flow over our cars)

I thought it was simular looking at info for the air tabs (the way the air tucked in behind the trailers instead of being as turbulent without the air tabs).

 

I have a 3-peice rear spoiler on the car, I was just thinking that if more of the air coming over the roof was directed down onto the rear spoiler (using air tabs or vortex generators), all the better.

 

I also came acrossed info on other cars with simular devices mounted just above the rear windows.

 

What about these types of devices being mounted elsewhere on the car in problem areas?

 

I’m still curious!

[HeatRaveR]

Hey, I just had a random thought: what about mounting these things at the mouth of the radiator opening to smooth flow or whatever through the cooling system?

 

I wonder if the Airtab people considered their applications for motorsport use or what they might have to say about putting it on a small, relatively aerodynamic (compared to a truck) vehicle.

[pparaska]

Michael (Ol) will probably see this sooner or later and give you his Phd aerodynamicist opinion.