| Re: Aerodynamics
Hi Bill
Roy and I have run his Mk1 GTD to 175+ on a few occasions and in general it felt fairly stable. This was done both with and without a front splitter and both in the dry and when raining fairly hard. (that was interesting!)
The car was always fine to 150Mph, approaching 170 the car was a little 'light' of feedback at the front but was marginally better with the spiltter than without. I suspect at faster speeds, the spiltter would have made a more notable difference.
One thing that was a little unnerving, was the tendancy to 'veer' in strong cross winds. You'd correct to allow for the wind from one side (load the steering slightly) and once it stopped, the tendancy was to veer the other way...
A bit strange at first but the trick was to ensure you don't over-correct, being as gentle with the corrections as possible.
We run larger diameter rear road tyres than the slicks, so there is a tendancy for the car to have a 'nose-down' atitude when on the 'road tyres'. This seems safer and presumably reduces the possibility of the wind getting under the main chassis flat area. I would think that at 170+, getting much 'nose-up' would be bad news indeed, generating enough lift to really spoil your day! - just my opinion as I have not done any maths on it....
One thing though, Roy and Ray Christopher did some experimenting with a 10th scale model and some DIY spoilers etc. Roy made a windtunnel comprising a 3-phase fan of some 10KW or more and fitted it with electronic weighing scales, drawing air across the model and making measurements from the scales. OK till the model took off and entered the fan blades..... One 'shredded' 40! - doh! |