Jaydubgt

Bought my first Corvette last Oct. I absolutely love it!! I'm an Ex-Porsche owner (30 years) and ex-Shelby Mustang (10 years) owner.

The car is a 2013 GS 6 speed; a 60th Anniversary white with silver stripes. The car has 16k miles.


The problem I'm having is that the "under body spoiler" keeps scraping on EVERYTHING. It scrapes entering and exiting my relatively flat driveway, even though I enter/exit at an angle. It scrapes on road unevenness, etc. etc.

The under front bumper splitter is no problem.


I measured the ground clearance to the spoiler and it about 3~4 inches.


Is that normal?


Also, what are the downsides of removing the spoiler, assuming I don't exceed 120mph?


Thanks in advance

User Omega

The car is a bottom feeder. That actually helps move air through the radiator/condenser. I would leave it alone. We all scrape it. It won't hurt a thing. Every now and then I fix the two push pins in the sides they get pulled out.

Bob Paris

When I drove my new '13 GS vert off the dealer's lot, it scraped going down the driveway. I was totally embarrassed and still don't like how the sound makes people turn around to see where the noise is coming from. Getting used to it.

rkj427

and when they wear down or look bad enough that you would want to replace them the (3) pieces are available individually.........

center section is a rubber type material, the outer pieces are plastic type material............

Corvette_Ed

No, it's not. The C5 was a bottom feeder; the C6 is not.

While I agree the air dam is designed to scrape, and even says so in the owner's manual, it doesn't help move any air through the radiator as the C6 gets its air through the opening in the front bumper. It's purpose is to cut down on the air running under the car at high speeds, which helps to prevent lift.

Turbo6TA

Do what many have done .... Remove all 3 pieces of it, and your problem is solved. You wont notice any difference at all in engine temp.

Otherwise, leave it installed and just put up with the scraping.

You really don't have any other good good choices that I can think of.

Icecap

I replaced mine last year after having a nasty encounter with a piece of re-bar that had worked its way up from anchoring a speed bump. Considering that it wasn't very expensive to replace I will just let it rub when it rubs and replace it when it starts looking bad. The noise it makes is a lot worse than any actual damage that it does.

User Omega

I do agree that its not 100% a bottom feeder but I cannot buy that the air dam does absolutely nothing to help feed cool air through the rad. I have read it both ways but am not the engineer. Have there been more in depth technical discussions on this? Most of what I have seen were opinions.

All in all do I think removing the dam will hurt the cooling ability of a daily driver even in spirited conditions? No.

jrose7004

It doesn't really hurt anything. Think of it as self leveling.

Cherokee Nation

As i have said on other posts on those damn air dams i remove my on my 08/Z51 in or about 2010 after they were torn to ****.I can not see in any way that they would help in cooling.GM had a write up in Car and driver in June 2013 when the C7 was about to be released and they said the C7 was making a change on the cooling by leaning the Rad a little more forward if i remember right and also making a change to the air dams because the C6 design was..(In My Words) a **** design....As far as decreasing lift i don't think so...I ran at the Texas Mile at 178.7 mph and my front end still feft heavy.

Kurt D

The base car does pull air from underneath, there is an opening in front of the air dam and in theory removing the air dam can hurt cooling.

On the GS, Z06 and ZR1 the bottom opening is blocked off and all air for cooling comes from the bigger mouth up front. In theory the outside pieces help create a high pressure area right where the brake ducts are to push air through them to the front brakes; this was the reason given to keep them on the C7 Z51 (C7 is a mouth breather too) but remove the center so the other drive line coolers can get air. C7 wide bodies I don't think have the air dam at all, brake ducts are in front. I'd assume the same for C6 minus the needing to remove the center for coolers. Some remove them from the wide body cars and all I can tell are there are mixed reviews on down force at speeds that I won't be achieving anytime soon, but no cooling issues.

Aerodynamics and the GM engineers aside, the air damn does make a pretty good early warning system for scrapes. It sounds horrible but when you check it out the air dam looks intact; once removed the chin spliter is next and it doesn't hold up nearly as well, wants to roll under and can easily be ripped off the front bumper damaging it too. Then there's the radiator supports at almost the same level as the spliter for even more expensive carnage.

MoeLarryCheese

I don't think so. Lift is created by air rushing over the top surface of an object.

Dano523

The lower air dam is used to create a low pressure zone behind it, so the air into radiator has a place to escape out the back of it. This is the reason for the air dam placement at the center bottom line of the radiator, and not forward towards the front of bumper instead.

As for scrapping the air dam, pretty much normal, and I lightly scrape it twice coming out my neighborhood ever time on just dips in road.

Vette_Fan

I did the push-pins mod tonight...

Don-Vette

Remove that bottom air damn, and the next scraping noise you hear will not be pretty. Try slowing down over bumps!! I avoid steep inclines and driveways.

ls1121

Mine scrapes and was worn so I replaced all 3 pieces. It still scrapes no matter how I drive. So I figure it will scrap until it get to the "Proper" length and it will stop making noise.

SnakeQ

[QUOTE=05c6silververt;1596760383]I don't think so. Lift is created by air rushing over the top surface of an object.[/QUOTE

Be careful, your ignorance is showing! Lift occurs when air passing over an airfoil travels faster over one surface of the foil faster than the opposing surface. The faster speed is normally the result of one of the surfaces being cambered (curved) higher than the other (can also be done with higher angle-of-attack (AoA) of airfoil when the airfoils surfaces are symmetrical as with high performance fighter aircraft wings). The higher cambered surface requires air to flow over that surface to flow faster than that of the opposing surface to maintain a smooth, non-stalling, flow. The corresponding faster air speed creates a lower static pressure situation over the higher cambered surface (Bernoulli's principle of fluid dynamics) and a corresponding coefficient of lift is produced in the direction of the more cambered surface. Best example for this discussion is the rear air foil (wing) on a race car; the bottom surface has a higher camber, thus creating lower pressure on the bottom surface and a corresponding downward force. In actuality, the term "lift" is a misnomer because the static pressure differential caused by the Bernoulli effect actually causes an airfoil to "sucked" in the direction of the higher camber/AoA., but since lift is the preferred term in most aerodynamic discussions, it suffices for our purposes. So all that being said, lift can be generated in any direction purely by changing the camber/AoA of the airfoil in use!!!!! Never pass up a chance to keep your mouth shut (or your fingers off the key baoard)!!!

69 L46 4 Speed

OP, I have a 13 GS that I purchased new and it always scrapes going in and out of my driveway. The splitter scrapes when I reach the bottom of a dip in the road and sharp drops on the back roads at leading edge of bridges. No problem. It may sound bad but it is not an issue. I did replace my splitter at 30,000 miles because it looked like someone used a cheese grater on it. I put the new one on, sanded the rough bottom of the original and hug it up in the garage to wait until I scrap the new one up then I will swap it out again. I'm at 42,000 miles now and will probably swap them at 60,000 miles. Just drive it!!!

1bdvet

I just had mine replaced after 13 years of scraping my driving when leaving the garage, and entering shopping plaza's it comes with the territory of owning a Corvette.

Corvette_Ed

Thank you, I was just about to post the same thing, although in much less technical terms.