Here is some of the video of the strings with the wing in the low, rearward position with the angle at zero degrees. As you can see the flow is pretty laminar here. The flow stayed attached at all positions we tried. With the wing at zero degrees in the far forward position, the straightaway speed was the highest at around 133 mph. With the wing in the old position, it was 127 mph. In the low drag position, low zero trim and forward, Dai complained about the lack of rear grip and the lap time increased by 2 seconds even with a much greater straight-line speed.
We looked at the data on every run to see where the wing changes affected lap time and top-end speed. Eventually, we settled for the low, rearmost position with 3 degrees of angle. This allowed a 130 mph top speed and a lower overall lap time. I had nailed the chassis set up changes in one attempt and Dai was pretty happy which allowed us to use the rest of the runs to tune the aero!
In the meanwhile, Eddie Lee of Titan Seven wheels catered a bbq lunch for all teams running Titan 7 wheels. Eddie has great taste and ordered bbq from the famous Franklin’s BBQ. Franklin’s is considered one of the best BBQs in the world and I have to say this was the best I have ever had! The sweet smoky taste permeates the meat fully and the meat melts in your mouth. Thank You, Eddie!
Meanwhile, Dai had asked me to take a look at the setup on the Spoon Civic Type R endurance racer that Spoon had brought out for exhibition passes. Although it is not built as a time attack car, it was turning respectable lap times. It was set up for the rough and bumpy Thunderhill course and there were a few things that it was doing that Dai thought could be better. I did some stuff and the car gained several seconds a lap.
Running 3 cars, two in the same run group was pretty hard especially when the IAG and Evasive/Spoon pits were as far apart as possible. I was walking 5-6 miles a day in between the two!
5 comments
I saw you there on Saturday, Mike. Like you said in one of the pics, you didn’t look happy, though, so I left you alone. Congrats on finding the time on the Tesla. I was so confused on why I never saw the Tesla out on track more, but now I know!
It’s hard doing 4 cars!
Not sure about that splitter on the Tesla. AFAIK, the Tesla has a completely flat bottom, which is perfect for ground effect. The middle section of the splitter should be turned up and radiused to enhance airflow to the underbody. As it is now, it’s effectively reducing airflow to the underbody, especially on corner entry (when all that weight transfers forward) and you are losing downforce when you need it most.
Also, by adding side skirts you can move the CoP rearward and make a ton more downforce with very little drag penalty (the most efficient solution.) These are super low buck modifications, so they should be simple to do. It won’t look great, but you can use fiberglass lawn edging from Home Depot to make very effective side skirts. Don’t ask me how I know. 😉
I helped design the aero and it works just fine. There is more to it than meets the eye including suspension tricks. Also a lot depends on what the owner is willing to do the car cosmetically and spend and how sophisticated of a shape that we can create with our homemade molds and bucks. We are actually trying to reduce drag as we have more than enough downforce. Our aero is currently pretty slippery. With 440 hp we are only a few mph slower than the stock car at this slightly uphill straight.
Great article! Thanks for all your hard work.