I wish I could kick this process into high gear and have these available tomorrow but I'm doing everything possible to keep moving forward on this.

 

Your doing just fine Sir....keep up the good work. We're just anxious to get our grubby hands on one of these.

 

 

don't rush it man, take the time to do it right the first time and everyone will appreciate it

 

Have you estimated a price?

 

Not concrete but we trying to be in the ball park of 450 to 500 for fiberglass and 650 to 700 for carbon fiber. Trying to keep price as low as possible.

 

Hey man, first off I want to say that the diffuser looks excellent. My question is are you yourself an automotive engineer, or are you working with one on this project? I really want to believ that the functional one will generate downforce and not damage the transmission or differential, but I'm sure I speak for others when I say I need some assurance. I'd love to be an early adopter of the product, but without that confidence I will likely wait a year to hear feedback from people who are using the piece

 

I think that is a very reasonable price you should be able to sell a ton!

 

JD_black_00 I understand your concerns. No I am not an engineer. I'm a fabricator. I took this on because it was going nowhere for quite a while. I started with a oem C6 diffuser. How functional it is on a C6 I could not tell you. My under pan to make it functional is based off of the ARP diffuser. Again how functional this one is I can not say. As far as transmission heat the pan does not reach or cover it so no air restrictions there. They have used them on the C6 with no known issues with differential overheating.

 

I am all for what you are doing. I thought your objective was to
sell your "diffuser". Before you start selling them--you should
talk to a lawyer concerning your liability. To be frank considering
you have no R&D, you could be making a product that the
consumer will think is a diffuser that will produce downforce at
high speed (it may do that I don't know) and does not. Someone
get's into a wreck with injury and they will come after you. You
don't want that. A lot of manufacturers try to cover themself's
with the words "for race use only". Sounds good . Check with a
lawyer.
I am still working on the picture's.

 

So every time someone puts a wing on their car and wrecks they can claim the wing didn't give them enough down force and sue?

 

I primarily took this project on as add on piece just the same as a spoiler or side skirts or front splitter. Mainley for me it is purely for aesthetic appearance. If the the under pan makes down force then great. Really don't know how you would measure how much it produces. I am contacting other manufacturers that make the C6 diffusers to get thier input and what kind of testing has been done on the products they sell to the Corvette community. Definitely will be looking into liability clauses. But progress goes on.

 

Here is a.pic of a fully functional diffiser. To make a diffiser fully functional you would need to cover the whole underside of the vehicle in order to channel the on coming air properly in order to create down force. I think that this would require more than just an under pan to achieve proper down force. I am discussing this with some of the top players in the business for their input and advice. I will relay my findings.

 

I use a lot of of APR Performance products because they do R&D
on what they sell. Have you contacted them?? At this time they
do not make a C5 diffuser but they do make a C6 diffuser.

 

Ok I have talked to 6 different makers of Corvette diffusers. I am not downing any of the manufacturers or their products. They all have very high quality and beautiful products. I'm just trying to clear the air on what is available for sale is truly functional or aesthetic in purpose. Or a bit of both. What I have found out is the main purpose is for looks. There are a couple manufacturers that have some guys that race and use their products and give them feed back. But none that I talked with has done any wind tunnel testing to provide solid data on down force produced by their product. They all told me that it may produce some benefit with the under pan but how much they could not say. When 5they advertise their race version diffuser it is basically refering to a more aggressive design from the stock look. They also reported no issues with transaxle overheating. They confirmed that there is still air flow through suspension components and transaxle. I think that to make a truly functional diffuser would need to be engineered by a full race shop that would consist of a full underbody enclosure panels from front to back. This is something that most all of the manufacturers I talked with, was not practical enough to do. Seeing that most of their sales are for street cars. Not that you couldn't use their product and under panel your car yourself to make it more functional. But totally enclosing the underneath of the car to achieve a truly functional diffuser I can see the potential for heat issues. So with this information I have gathered, I will still make the under pan for mine. Will it make it functiona, to some degree maybe. I can't make this claim. But none of the other's I've talked to can make a positive claim to this and no R&D or wind tunnel testing to provide solid data.

 

Honestly, I wouldn't bother focusing to much time into making a "race fuctional" diffuser unless it's just something you really want to do.

95% of the people that would buy one from you just want it for the looks.

 

I appreciate the input. I know that there is going to be a certain amount of debate on design and function. To produce a fully functional track diffuser would require more than what would be deemed cost effective to reproduce. This most likely would have to be done by a specific race car shop. I am carrying on with my current design and I will incorporate an under pan for those that want the more aggressive race look.

 

I myself like the way yours looks , that being said, I could see one on my car!!
And I think that you are doing a wonderful job!!

Keep on keepin' on!

 

same here!! carbon fiber please!!!!

 

I wish their quality control was better too. And I wish they had integrated a diffuser like that one, into a stock style C5 bumper assembly ... without the C6 style back-up lights. If they added heat escape vents exactly the same in size, shape, and location, as those the stock C5 rear end has in place of the integrated back-up lights, this diffuser concept would be my slam dunk choice.

I don't want a C6 rear end look on my C5. I want to keep my C5's identity. But I want to add a diffuser that looks OEM, like this one could with the changes described.

Anyway ... I'm enjoying this thread a bunch ... but that's my 2 cents on what I really want.