AkumaNoZeta Posted November 9, 2008 Share Posted November 9, 2008 This is what I've been thinking for the aero of my car when I get the money, can people with more knowledge tell me if I'm heading the right direction or not? From reaction research: Subtle Z air dam and front fenders, 940Z quarter flare. My reasoning on that is that the air dam has that kick-out in front of the wheel that will promote air exiting out of the wheel well and the reason for the 940Z quarters instead of the Subtle Z ones is the the 940Z ones also have that kick-out whil the others don't. I want the covers for the headlights of course to cut off drag. I want the grill opening to be completely ducted and sealed to the radiator (possibly intercooler in the future). A wind splitter that protrudes a couple inches in front of the air dam and doubles as a belly pan that covers the entire bottom of the engine bay to the cabin area. Either put vents in the hood or do what JDM cars have which is having the back of the hood raised an inch or two (be a little more complicated for our cars because the hinge is in front instead of back). On the belly pan I was thinking of putting some vortex generators at the back before it hits the cabin in an attempt to keep the air flow smooth until it meets a diffuser type deal in that runs from the end of the floorboards to the bottom of the roll pan, its not so much a diffuser as a peice fabricated to keep the air smooth. It would have the fins on there, but not big ones so it wouldn't be near as effective. I want enough negative lift to be generated so I can run wingless but I really doubt that would happen so I would probably keep the 3 peice spoiler that came with the car when I bought it on the back. Does this all sound good or am I just gonna cause my car to turn into my own little private jet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted November 19, 2008 Author Share Posted November 19, 2008 Well, no one has replied but oh well. I have a few other things that came to mind that I would like opinions on as well. I've read that the air from the side is able to flow under the car to create lift so I was thinking maybe make a little platform that protudes straight out under the rocker panel an inch or two to create a wall that wont allow air to go underneath. Would that actually decrease lift or cause my car to flip over at 100mph (exaggeration)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 19, 2008 Share Posted November 19, 2008 I think a belly pan all the way back to the floor is going to be a problem because of the exhaust. It's a good idea but I just don't think it's workable. Side skirts to prevent airflow in from the sides of the car is a good idea. I doubt you'll be able to produce anything like the force you would get from a wing with the underbody mods you're talking about on a Z car. I'd like to be proven wrong though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted November 20, 2008 Author Share Posted November 20, 2008 On the exhaust note, I was thinking of an SR20DET and have the downpipe go directly from the turbo to exist out of a big hole on the side of the fender. That's what I want to do at least, but looking at the engine bay of the Z it looks like it would have to be routed between the steering arm and the brake master cylinder and I fear that it would either melt the steering coupler, heat up the brake fluid too much, or both. Also I wouldn't go wingless, wish I could but that just creates more body work from removing the 3-peice spoiler and I've grown attach to it too lately (Ok, that's not a wing but it should still reduce a lot of lift right?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Yes, a spoiler should at least cancel some lift if not provide some downforce. I don't think the 3 piece spoiler was tested in the wind tunnel, but the did test the larger one piece, and the results would probably be in the same ballpark. I'm changing the title of your thread. It needs to be descriptive so that people don't have to open it up to see what it is about. I should have caught that before, but didn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted November 20, 2008 Author Share Posted November 20, 2008 Yeah, after I posted it I realized the title sucked but I didn't I was able to edit the title after I've posted it. I'm not a very good title maker but I'm getting better. Is there anything else that could be done to create front end downforce? A wing is an easy solution for the rear but having a big wing on the hood would just look...stupid, lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Splitters and getting neg pressure under the hood are two methods that I would pursue to get front end downforce. It sounds like you haven't seen the threads dealing with these issues. You might do a search and read up, as there were some LONG discussions previously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
260DET Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 There has been heaps of discussions with pics on this underbody aero thing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted November 21, 2008 Author Share Posted November 21, 2008 I've spent most of my time on this subforum. There's some on splitters, a couple on hood vents, rear diffusers, but I've never seen anyone make a full body belly pan yet (which I keep on looking at and the only thing that seems a problem with that is the exhaust and is why I want it to come out the fender instead of under the car). I've also not read much about anything on the aerodynamics of the body kits from reactionreasearch, to me they look like they'll function really good with proper ducting and everything. What I'm hoping for is the Subtle Z front end with the 940Z quarters will extract air from the wheel wells the same way they do on stock cars (Nascar). Another concern I have with the full body belly pan is not having enough airflow around the transmission and differential to cool it efficiently. It may though, I don't know. Maybe some of the air coming past the radiator and hitting the firewall will go through the transmission tunnel to the differential and maybe have an exit for that air at the end of the diffuser or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Challenger Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 Was the aluminum wing used on the front of the yellow primaddona car useful? Would that provide any front end downforce? Ive always thought about (not actually wanted to do) but make a huge opening in the floor of the car and have it go out the roof... something like the ford gt's front radiator opening. Im sure it would provide sufficient downforce... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted November 21, 2008 Author Share Posted November 21, 2008 I don't know about that wing on the Primadonna, I remember a drawing of what someone was thinking the air was doing after the radiator is all sealed off preventing the air from going around it and the drawing showed the the turbulant air was sticking out pretty far in front of the car (where the Primadonna wing is) and even if thats really what happens it would still catch the ends of the wing. Then again if you look at the front end of the Primadonna Z the radiator opening is drastically smaller so I really doubt it would have the turbulant problem anyways. Just want I'm thinking about it, I'm no aero-engineer but wish I was, lol. Also I'm always going back and forth on having the air exiting the radiator being ducted out the top of the hood, but I would think that would pretty much just completely seal off any air in the engine compartment and therefore no air for the engine's intake and no air to possibly go through the tranny tunnel to cool the trans or anything like that. Which is why I'm thinking of just a simple set of hood vents to vent the excess air over the top of the car. Raising the back of the hood up like people do on S13s doesn't really appeal to me on the Z, it just doesn't look right at all. But a classmate of mine did it on his S13 and I thought it looked cool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZR8ED Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 Aero work on our cars is not new, but has been mainly conducted by the racers/drag/Bonneville racers. The wind tunnel testing was done last year, with some interesting results. Some of the issues with the results are that not everyone is interested in Aero ONLY mods. Most of our Z's are street driven, and heck doing all this custom stuff takes time, money, trial and error testing etc, so I think it could take some time for some of these aero mods/experiments to happen. Some people experimenting with track only aero mods to race cars have had some scary results, and the average joe is not looking to get killed testing some wild mod. Now that aside, there are a few guys here going ahead and trying to use the information here to mod their cars, but it will take some time. I am planning a much larger belly pan on my z than I already have, but even for me, it will take some time to figure everything out, and actually find the time and money to do this. I expect by next season I will begin fabricating a trial unit. I say this, because my currently front belly pan is almost 10 years old, and is now due for a redesign, as I am going to remove my signature front airdam lip, so "while I'm at it" I will expand on my original design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 Was the aluminum wing used on the front of the yellow primaddona car useful? Would that provide any front end downforce? I don't think the little wing in the front did anything at all. It's in a really bad spot for airflow since there is a lot of turbulence around the grill. Putting it on top of the hood would have made an enormous difference. Ive always thought about (not actually wanted to do) but make a huge opening in the floor of the car and have it go out the roof... something like the ford gt's front radiator opening. Im sure it would provide sufficient downforce... I was told that back in the 70's or 80's they used to do this in NASCAR. Basically have ducts that ran from under the car to a low pressure spot on top of the car. I was told this a LONG time ago and I've never seen any proof of it, but it doesn't sound out of the realm of possibility... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soundmasterg Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 I would think that a full belly pan could work around the exhaust being there. The had a full belly pan on some of the Mercedes 300SL Gullwings and it really increased their top speed.....and those had exhaust under the car too. Maybe I'm totally ignorant on this subject, but I would think that it could be figured out to where it would work? Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3star2nr Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 The belly pan is a good idea. We call them skid plates back home. Basically the idea is to make the underbody as smooth and as flat as possible. If you've ever looked under a 911, it is prefectly flat, even where the engine is. As for the exhaust issue IMHO its not a big deal, You can use heat shield products like a thermal wrap etc. Thermotec sells these. Or you can have the entire exhaust ceramic coated. Plus keeping the heat in the pipes has the added effect of speeding up exhaust flow which will yield more hp! The underbody is a good place to improve aerodynamics but its the one place that is often over looked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideways Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 For what its worth vipers also have exhaust above the belly pans. The belly pans are however easy to remove- Theres a series of bolts along the frame rails. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AkumaNoZeta Posted November 23, 2008 Author Share Posted November 23, 2008 Thats how I want to do it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 Go look under a Viper and I'll bet you that the underbody is recessed or the trans tunnel is large enough to accomodate a flat floor. Go look under a Z and you'll see that it is not. It's a great idea, I just don't think there is room in a Z. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideways Posted November 24, 2008 Share Posted November 24, 2008 Go look under a Viper and I'll bet you that the underbody is recessed or the trans tunnel is large enough to accomodate a flat floor. Go look under a Z and you'll see that it is not. It's a great idea, I just don't think there is room in a Z. I work on Vipers But sort of. The exhaust runs through the side panels, then loops around between the differential and the body (Theres a good open space here since the gas tank is up high- right behind the seats), and then wraps around the differential and out the back. That said, just use the lowest point on the car as the guide for where the bottom of the flat pan should be. Make sure to think about peices that will need maintaining and section it so you can get to them easy. With a couple brackets to give a flat mounting surface, you could do a flat pan with a little thought. Pop rivets would do wonders for most of the areas, id use thread-starters and bolts in the sections that need to come off of course, drilling constantly would be no fun every time you want to service your differential. I dont think itd be the easiest thing to do, but with some good planning i dont see why it wouldnt be doable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexicoker Posted November 24, 2008 Share Posted November 24, 2008 What is the purpose of the car? If you really want to make downforce from an undertray/diffuser, you need to run it within a few inches of the ground, and you're going to need to run very stiff suspension to keep it very close, and very level to the ground. If you can't do that, you're either not going to make any appreciable amount of downforce, or you're going to make the car very hard to drive (center of pressure moving all over the place when the car pitches and rolls) So, can it be done? yes. Is it worth it? only for a dedicated racecar, in my opinion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.