Richard S

Last year at the Pony Express open road race the car felt a little light in the front end at speeds over 130mph. The car is a 1980 with no front or rear spoilers. So this year I decided to build a front spoiler, taking a page from Marc and Susan's book of high speed 928 experience. I remember asking Susan many years ago how they made the spoilers for the White car when they were driving it over 200 mph. She said they used Wal-mart lawn edging....cheap and effective! So armed with $50 in plywood, a roll of 5.5 inch lawn edging, some bolts, staples, and tape, I went to work on the poor man's front spoiler project. The best part is that I didn't have to modify the car, the mounting points were already there! I bolted the whole assembly to the 6 bolts under the front section that are threaded into the body of the car. Then I taped the top edge of the spoiler to the lower front area for added support. Here's a few pics:







The whole project took a couple Saturday's, the hardest part was getting the wood cut to the correct shape...took a couple models to refine it.

Here's a shot just before leaving for this years Pony Express:



All in all, I'm happy with the results. The car felt a LOT more stable in the front at speeds over 130mph. Before the install, front ground clearance was 7.5 inches, after install only 2 inches. I scraped every bump and parking lot between Sacramento and Battle Mountain! No big deal, the plastic took all the abuse!

Richard S

Here's the front spoiler's primary job at this year's Pony Express.....







Mormon Crickets were out in force this year, nasty little buggers! The stink was terrible! Especially burning on the radiator and exhaust!

mpesik

Richard S . Great job! Thanks for giving me some ideas! Mike.

heinrich

<shiver> those are disgusting animals!!

Randy V

That's hilarious - a cricket target!

Do you keep track of the number of 'cricket points' you accumulate?

Mongo

I hope you washed your hands real well after handling that critter

Andy

MileHighRush

I love the target. That's good humor in my book. Great job!

Robert_H

Richard,

Oh man, that cricket just gives me the creeps... I hate insects.

When did you get the Cup Ones? I don't remember them on your car last time I saw it.

Rob

grimbro

Richard-

If that spoiler was a little lower, we would have sent you out first to scrape the road clean! Have you managed to remove the stench yet? My car is still banned from the garage until the underside is sterilized. BTW, we had a great time in spite of the shortened race. Good to get to know you better (and your better half).

Tom Moore
'93 5sp

jorj7

Rich,

The spoiler looked good, now you've almost as little ground
clearance as me. I did notice in some of the "at speed" photos
that the spoiler seemed to curl up in the middle.



By the way, this will give you and idea about the bugs:

bcdavis

Holy cr@p! That's a lot of critters!

Richard S

George, now you have solved my big question....what is really happening to the spoiler at those speeds! Ann wouldn't climb out of the car and over the hood to take a look.... I had thought of supporting the center section, looks like it needs it. So maybe it didn't do much after-all...Hmmmmmm.

Rich.