Randy V

I like all your offerings - except this one.

It will greatly tarnish your reputation as an innovator of well-designed, useful products.

Carl Fausett

I absolutely expected some comments of this type - especially those about changing the smooth lines of the beautiful 928.
...and I cannot say you are wrong... beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

For me, I have to make them to help further coordinate the chin splitter and large CF rear wing that we have on the race car. So, I thought, maybe a few others would like them too. Not for everyone - but then again, few of my products are.

As to the techinical merits, I do not need to defend. The value and effectiveness of canards (winglets) are so well documented in world class GT and F1 racing that I do not have to defend them.

In fact, their merits are bringing them mainstream, and you will see them (in less agressive formats) on production cars in the future - like the Ferrari 360 Modena right now.

From the magazine "Tuning Salad" about the Ferrari 360 Modena fitted with canards:

Carl Fausett

On the late-model front end, I did not want to attach them to the lexan lower area. I could, I s'pose. Where you see them mounted on that 91 GT is as low as I can put them and still have them on metal.

I am making them for the OB fitted with an S chin spiler, and they do mount much lower down, and compliment the chin spoiler well. On the OB with a S spoiler, they look much more natural and less out-of-place.

I do not have a good picture of that with me right now or I'd post it.

RyanPerrella

Never heard of "Tuning Salad" but i can assure you their writers arent aero men. Just the types that believe all the BS that one car salesmen says to an uninformed customer. You apparently take it as gospel.

The 360 Modena is going on 10 years old now, and it sports no such canards. The challenge cars also have no such things on them. Nor does the Enzo or the MC-12.

And as i detailed in my other post, F1 cars use aerofoils to manage airflow to much and from the main downforce generators which are the front and rear wings.

Your reply presents no factual information as to the validity of your initial sales pitch and im not sure why you even bothered to post it. I expected more honestly. But i guess "Tuning Salad" was the inspiration for this gimick.

Im going to check out tuning salad and see what i can find

RyanPerrella

found a pic from the Tuning salad blog (whatever that is)

As for the 360 modena package, you can see that the canards mentioned above are a full length (or wrap around in this case) spoiler such as what Mark Kibort suggested and which he has on his car.

heres the car

I have to say i dont think that crap on the Ferrari would do much of anything for the LA cruiser crowd that most likely buys it.

Just more junk to attach to a beautiful car to make it.......less beautiful.

Brett928S2

Hi

For what its worth....you will never be able to sell them to any UK owner...

We have a stupid law here that basically says that if a child could run their hands along the body and anything sticking out could hurt them,,,then its illegal...

Unless it will somehow be blended in ?

All the best Brett

Carl Fausett

Wow - bring your nails in a little. Its just an idea. Not everybody likes every idea.

No, TuningSalad was not my inspiration for the canards. I'm home trying to pack for my trip to Sharktoberfest and I thought I'd pop on here and answer a few questions. Tuning Salad was one of the first to pop on Canards in my google search for you.

My inspiration for the canards comes from function. Remember "Form Follows Function?"

I have watched their application for two years at the Pikes Peak hill climb, and I can assure you nothing is added to a hillclimber that does not provide true value. So, after I saw the Mitsubishi teams, the Pontiac Solstice teams, various open wheel racers including Paul Dahlenbach, and the record-breaking Suzuki all make use of them, they caught my attention.

Two weekends ago I spent 2 days with a friend at BHF raceway tuning suspension. I was tuning out my 928 oversteer, and Chris was trying to tune out some understeer he had on his 911. Both of us were using accelerameter logging software and traction circle logs. Chris was able to quite clearly show me the effect of his canards on his 911, even at the relatively slow speeds of a 2-mile road course with 7 turns in it.

Their application in automobile racing in GT-type cars is relatively new, so there is not a lot written about them. But - if you would like to read some of what I have studied, I recommend Competition Car Aerodynamics: A Practical Handbook by Simon McBeath

Here is a link: http://www.amazon.com/Competition-Ca.../dp/1844252302

(Note the canards on the Ferrari on the cover)

Anyway - their effectiveness when properly applied is beyond arguement.

Whether you like them cosmetically or not is a completely personal choice.

Carl Fausett

Brett: Now THAT's interesting. Thanks Brett - good to know.

Perhaps they will go no further than my race car and those of a few other fellow racers.

This is why I posted... should I make a couple sets for me and my firends, or 20 pair cuz everybody likes 'em? Sounds like - from the reaction I'm getting - that I should just make what I need for the racers.

RyanPerrella

again Carl

When used in combination with some other element they can help to clean up airflow

BUT THEY DONT DO ANY OF WHAT YOUR SUGGESTED WHEN THEY ARE JUST TACKED ON AS YOUR PICTURES SHOW.

Look at your example, there is a full lower spoiler to cut airflow under the car. That air is diverted to the sides and the lower front corner fo the bumper and the canard is used to smooth the airflow away from the car so the car cuts through the air. You just simply tacking on those stupid things and saying they create downforce is absurd.

AGAIN the canards themselves do nothing for downforce, the lower splitter creates the downforce by forcing air that would otherwise go under the car, to now go around the car and reduce lift more so then create downforce. The net result is the same. Less lift can be interpreted as MORE downforce.

AND AGAIN, look at your example, aero is a package, what are you doing on the S4 to reduce airflow from going under the car? Without a splitter diverting that extra airflow from going under the car you have no reason to clean up the airflow off the front bumper.

When you suggest that that stupid thing will add downforce you show you have no real concept of aero design. Oil filler caps and tow hooks are another story, i think you have those concepts correct.

docmirror

Carl, comparing your spoilerons to those on GT and/or F1 cars is - well, disingenious. They spend hundreds of hours in wind tunnels and tufting tests, along with fuel totalizers and load plates on suspension to determine the effects of the aero package. I don't think you have any idea what the air is doing in that part of the fender. If you do have tuft test data, or airflow dynamics, or smoke trail analysis then I would like to see them. You can PM them to me if you don't want to share publicly.

I've done a modest amount of aero work on planes and helicopters in the past, and I can tell you from experience that what you think aero stuff does empircally, has no relation to what is actually going on. There are so many variables at work that it's complex multi-variate calculus to determine the aero effects of something this small. You may in fact create a high pressure tip vortex that given your aspect ratio(extremely high y over x) is making the total resistance to flow worse. If you see those little turn up areas in the Ferrari above, that is designed to minimize tip vortex flow. Much of the air pressure on your spoiler will be blowing right over the edge, and creating a huge air spiral right at the wheel opening. I have no idea what that does for the airflow within the wheel well and I freely admit it. You are making a big, bald assumption that it will 'improve' the airflow in that region with no engineering that goes into aerodynamics.

Also, I'm guessing you already know that things working on the aero package on a GT car don't get going until about mid-race speeds. Below maybe 70-ish the aero fillets, and spoilers, and splitters, etc don't do much anything except increase aero drag. I think you'd do better to design a modification for an active suspension pnuematic system that is rate-based from either a gyro or pezio accelerometers. I'd use pezio, but I don't know much about them cause I'm old school, gyro stuff. But that would be a benefit for our later, heavier cars.

Carl Fausett

Ryan - I quickly hung them on my GT (which does not need them) to take their photograph. I thought it a lot more expressive than taking pictures of them laying on a table. The photograph was provided for illustrative purposes.

Again, I wish I had at this PC the pictures of the canard on my race car with full front chin splitter and S type chin spoiler - it is much easier to see their function there. But I don't.

But where you state that they can do nothing for downforce you are wrong.
A well-designed and placed canard will generate a vortex over the open fender well behind it, and increase the low pressure area at the hub of the tire. In so doing, they help remove air under the car (as it flows toward the low pressure) and cools the brakes a bit also.

It is by lowering pressure in the fender well and beneath the car that they contruibute to downforce. As M Kibort pointed out - they are quit small so the downforce the add as a wing is quite small.

Both of these items I posted in my first thread on this subject. I have yet to see where I am wrong.

And I'll point out - I can debate the merits/demerits of the idea without resorting to "its obvious you know nothing about aerodynamics" and other such high-handed BS. You should try that sometime.

Randy V

Told ya these would not benefit your reputation.

And we're only in page 2.

Just wait 'til Kibort shows up...

Nicole

I would love to see a German vehicle inspector when you drive-up with these things mounted. He would probably get a heart attack, and you'd likely have to get the car towed back home...

Do they have to be made of thin sheet metal, like blades? Or could this be a thicker material with more rounded edges?

As is, they are a pure track accessory. But maybe you can make them such that they can be left on the car while it's driven on public roads?

I've heard that this has been tried before without success. Apparently, just flattining the bottom messes up high speed handling.

But I have often wondered what the air does when it passes the tank and hits that opening to the rear bumper cover. Maybe one could cut out the license plate area and put a diffusosr in its place. Then you'll have an interesting time finding a new place for the plate, though...

smudaaar

Carl you ever think of making the front spoiler on the 928s out of aluminum? I would be very intrested in this if you could produce a spoiler that would provide extra downforce!

Carl Fausett

Randy: Yes, you did. But I found out what I wanted to find out before I went on to manufacturing, didn't I?

Smudaar: I know the "S" spoiler is expensive and becoming scarce, so yes, I have thought of making a replacement. Aluminum would not be high on my list for street use - it will show every dent and insult. I have thought of fiberglass too, but if you want one of those I can think of at least 2 companies that make them so you don't need me. By the time you consider materials, you end up thinking it should be molded out of some resiliant material... and by then I am back to OEM.

I have made a chin splitter out of aluminum for my own car... but there the suspension travel is very limited and the track is clean and clear (not like the streets).