Phantom Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 FWIW - those of you that want to play around with the effects of lowered air dams & side skirts I would suggest the rubber trim molding you see around the base of the cabinets in kitchens. I used some years go on the first S30 I owned. I ran it from wheel well to wheel well on the sides and used it to 'extend' my spoiler to about 3" off the ground. Since it is very inexpensive and also fairly flexible it deals well with speed bumps, etc. I thought it had a noticable effect but really don't have any good substantiation as that was nearly 20 years ago. I would imagine the stuff would be obtainable at Home Depot or Lowes. On the side I mounted it upside down so that the lip curved between the underside of the car and the panel joint that is spot welded together down the side. I just drilled a bunch of small holes and used sheet metal screws to attach it. Easy to put on and looked pretty decent in black. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 JM... all of these things are to increase downforce... at first this cancells lift.. but if you keep improving things you will end up with net downforce.. which will at some point have to be accounted for with stiffer springs... AIR DAM, hood slope, redirecting radiator cooling air, rear diffuser, side skirts, rear spoilers, etc... they all increase downforce... you cannot look at these as 2 different effects... reducing lift and increasing downforce are the same thing... it just depends on how you approach it and how far you go... A true inverted wing with end caps is what a Formula car IS... they dont have an airdam to speak of... they use the top and the bottom to work like an upside down wing... this is impossible in a passenger car... The front and rear of the car are in line with each other when turning a sweeper at speed... unless you like to exit corners overrotated.... then you would be going less than 45MPH anyway... The sides of the car are not presented to direct airflow when turning...A 5MPH crosswind on a straight would have more effect than turning at speed.. If you have trouble imagining this then look at an overhead picture of a long train... the front and rears of the cars pass over the same points....even when turning... I grant that a car only steers with the front wheels so there is a slight difference in the front and rear track.. but it is measured in millimeters in a fast sweeper.... NOT NOTICABLE... even Formula cars make NO provision for this.. Nismo280Zed... I understand... I like the ideas for underbody panels... They are cool as hell... I had an MR2 with a great deal of underpaneling... but it had gill vents over most of it's surface area to allow air that passed through the radiator to ecape under the car... I agree with you... unless you completely seal the underpanel it wont cause you any trouble... if nothing else the radiator cooling air will run down the tranny tunnel... But.. what will probably happen is this... The S30s take in WAY TOO MUCH AIR throught the GIANT grill opening... if you impede flow with too much well sealed unpaneling you can force that air to escape elswhere... like into the passenger compartment through any hole or crevice.. BlueovalZ has the radiator air comming up out of the hood... as with the new Lotuses... I have seen folks cut out the sheet metal between the inner fender and the outer wheel wells.. near the batt tray and the clutch master... to allow extra air to escape into the wheel wells... this keeps underhood temps lower... especially when you add an under tray that goes past the front crossmember... I wish I could find a set of pics I took... they show some varied approaches to reducing airflow into the grill opening... one idea was to make a mask that blocked most of the flow except an adjustable slit at the crease between the mask and the top edge of the airdam...It looked like a Z car with a hockey mask... ugly... another is the Gnose... if it wasn't so damn ugly... the gnose helps with downforce on the front end because it pushes more air over the car...it's front edge is much lower than the stock hood... Lowering the front edge like this is the best approach...It pushes the air up over the car in a more gradual manner than forcing it to part to both sides... and it keeps the grill opening much smaller... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 The front and rear of the car are in line with each other when turning a sweeper at speed... unless you like to exit corners overrotated.... then you would be going less than 45MPH anyway... The sides of the car are not presented to direct airflow when turning...A 5MPH crosswind on a straight would have the same effect as turning at speed.. If you have trouble imagining this then look at an overhead picture of a long train... the front and rears of the cars pass over the same points....even when turning... My Z doesn't have rear steering, so my rear tires don't pass over the same points as the front when turning. Besides that issue, if you aren't getting ANY yaw out of your car when you're driving at the track, you need to step on the long skinny one a lot more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted April 25, 2006 Share Posted April 25, 2006 Reread above post.. I tried to cover all the bases... And no.. you don't drive a 240Z like a Porsche or a Corvette... you just don't.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nismo280zEd Posted April 26, 2006 Share Posted April 26, 2006 Reread above post.. I tried to cover all the bases... And no.. you don't drive a 240Z like a Porsche or a Corvette... you just don't.... LoL... I try to but Sh*t keeps breaking, I drive it more like a an MR2 now. Until my wallet catches up with my driving style. Till then i'll drive the 911 like a Porsche. -Ed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoov100 Posted April 26, 2006 Share Posted April 26, 2006 so whay your saying is, that you want to put more air over the car to provide down force. and you want as smooth as possible and less air going under the car? couldnt you direct the air from the air dam through the radiator and back down into the tranny tunnel?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2126 Posted April 27, 2006 Share Posted April 27, 2006 so whay your saying is, that you want to put more air over the car to provide down force. and you want as smooth as possible and less air going under the car? couldnt you direct the air from the air dam through the radiator and back down into the tranny tunnel?? You might be getting this backwards. The point is to minimise the airflow under the car.....by keeping the airflow under the car to a minimum, you effectively minimise the airfoil effect of the car's boby which creates the lift. To better understand the concept, you may want to read about the basics of lift for airfoils (aircraft wings). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nismo280zEd Posted April 27, 2006 Share Posted April 27, 2006 yes and no at the same time. Kinda two ways of going about it... you can try to keep air from going under the car... or... put the air that is going under the car to work for you. Or a combination of both. -Ed but yes.. smoother and flater the bottom of the car is the more stable at speed it's going to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoov100 Posted April 27, 2006 Share Posted April 27, 2006 i have an idea we tried on a freinds late model race car, when we first started testing it, he said that the car was geeting light at high speed, so we made an air box that went 1" below the front bumber, and basicly created a giant funnel, then at the bottome of the bumper on the side of the air box, we put some HUGE brake ducts, with all the car was ALOT heavier at higher speeds......could this have been the solution? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted April 27, 2006 Share Posted April 27, 2006 the wheel wells are a low pressure area.. you were directing air into areas that could use the airflow as well.... It sounds like you directed air that was going under the car to the wheels wells where it escaped out to the sides... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OlderThanMe Posted April 27, 2006 Share Posted April 27, 2006 So here is my idea. just vent the engine bay like has been talked about except...I think a floor should be made on the bottom of the wheelwells to keep air from the engine bay from just going under the car under the driver and passenger and evacuate it in like a Daytona coupe side vent. With the wheelwells sealed from the bottom then you won't have to worry about air going back under the car plus evacuating air out of the side or top of the fender reducing lift. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 Here are some pics I took of a Ford GT40 with the mentioned aerowork.... ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ON3GO Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 loving that orange! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OlderThanMe Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 very much like my sketch. I have been doing lots of reading on areo stuff on mullsane's corner...I made this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New-to-240z Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, but I had a quick question . . . When adding the 'plate' to the aerodam, would it make a big difference having the plate attached to the top part of that lip . . . Or should it be under that space? I want to make sure that the airdam doesn't flex at all and was thinking that it would be better to place the aluminum UNDER that lip instead of on-top of the lip. It may not look as clean but it would at least brace the airdam more (I would think). I'm guessing that this doesn't see a large amount of force so it really wouldn't make a difference . . . but I was just checking to see what the thoughts are on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluDestiny Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 I don't think it matters either way. Honestly you'd probably want to completely box that space along the sides as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
260DET Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 (edited) Put mine under simply because it's detachable for reasons of access and damage. The tiny amount of difference between under or over would make no difference aero wise. Edited July 17, 2015 by 260DET Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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