Hey Guys;

I have done a search but couldn't find what I was looking for.

Does anyone know how much downforce our cars create at certain speed X? I was reading an article on lotus and was amazed how much it was producing.

Sorry if I am using the incorrect terminology.....

I did find one post that talked about the rake of the car and the safety of going a certain speed though; had a pretty good link too.

Anyway, just curious

Thanks in advance,

Glenn

 

I have read the rake is important on these cars - would like to see your link!

 

Here is the original thread that talked about the rake:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...ight=downforce

This is the link that was also embedded inside the thread that takes you to a "Race Car Design - Aerodynamics" website.

Pretty good info.


http://www.gmecca.com/byorc/dtipsaerodynamics.html#FA

 

If I were to guess, and it would only be a guess, but the car probably does not produce downforce. I would guess things like the chin skirt and rake merely reduce lift.

I'd find the body design and aero to be an interesting topic for Dave McLellan to talk about. Maybe one day he'll talk about it in one of his podcasts. I've also always wondered why they changed the side skirt design on the ZR-1.

 

Drag coefficients are easy to come by, but you don't see Lift coefficients released very often, from the manufacturers.
Maybe it’s a liability issue?

A few years back, I team taught an "Introduction to Engineering" summer school class, for high school kids, at a local college.
We got to play around with a small wind tunnel, learning about airfoils, drag, lift, etc.
I managed to have them take a bunch of 1/18 scale models, set the ride heights, cut open the radiators, tape up the windows holes ,etc., and test them for Lift and Drag.
One was a C4, similar to one of these models



I dug up the graph results, for the vette ....



BTW...
Some people don't believe much in the amount of lift cars can generate.
I was fascinated by this video of a Tornado going across a parking lot.
Watch the two sedans, parked nose to nose, lifted up towards each other.
They are lifted up, not blown sideways, like you would think.
Now that's aerodynamic lift.





A Force-5 Tornado has winds from 261 to 318 mph.
The Max, Force-6, Tornado has winds from 319 to 379 mph.
Assuming typical sedan dimensions and lift coef's (CLfront = .136, CLrear = .246), total lift would be about 2600 lbs at 300 mph, and 3500 lbs at 350 mph.

I thought that was pretty amazing to see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKmMuFL2Fhs

 

That's pretty

Yes, our cars in stock form produce lift.

Think about it, round on the top, flat on the bottom, it's a wing.

Take a look at what happens to this Camaro racing @ Bonneville

This RX7 does a backflip!

All the additions you see to racecars like the C5R, C6R and to counteract it, and make downforce instead. But racecars don't have to deal with things like speed bumps


You can get some nice bodywork that helps out a lot, Greenwood's kits come to mine.

But it's not easy to engineer.