Short answer: I don't know.

I never claimed to see the vehicle in final trim. For the sake of discretion and to not lend clues to the source of the images I have seen, FVS is the only one who knows the details of exactly what I saw. In our joint effort to produce the renderings we released, there was a certain level of artistic liberty taken by FVS to attempt to fill in gaps based upon spy photos and leaks we had available at the time.

 

Of course there will be some grill work and features inserted in the open areas of the paint shop fascia. Exactly what is still a guess but I believe the camo pics are suggestion of winglets or cannards is not unreasonable.

For a rough idea have a look at the Camaro. The same design cue of delta shaped splitters and filled openings give a hint IMO.

 

Ok, fair enough, ... but the swirl wrap cars show it, and your renders on the other site include it, in a very well represented fashion, I might add. I sure hope it does, as the giant open grills of the ZR1 look rather hideous to me.

 

I think the winglets/cannards make sense and may provide air splitting or downforce in some way. I am sure Shaka can provide more info here. Maybe these winglets will be extended in the Z06/ZR1 variants to wrap around the side of the car as seen on the C8R ?

 

Well, you can't split a splitter.


Those silly things protruding from the Camaro and the C7 are required for European pedestrian laws to make sure the victim flies over the car instead of becoming a speed bump. A front splitter is a flat platform under the front of the car horizontal to the road. The air under it goes faster under the car than it goes over the top causing low pressure below the car. It is very pitch and roll sensitive as is the diffuser at the back. For some reason, the splitter follows this silly shape on the street cars. Looks cool I guess. The diffuser at the rear has a ramp, the angle of which is governed by the race authorities. Some road cars have vari ramps. There is a huge low pressure region at the throat of the ramp and depending how it is fed, can actually be chocked. (Barge boards on F1 cars create a massive vorticy that regulates airflow to the diffuser to prevent choking.) The further the splitter is forward of the front of the car, the further forward the center of pressure is moved. You balance it with the rear wing, spoiler and other things to bring the C of P close to the center of gravity of the car. Lots of things can move the C O P fore and aft. Air pressure and temperature, DA. Hard braking can change pitch and can actually increase downforce in the front and the rear. Diffusers are funny things. All race series require fixed aero devises but street cars don't. The C8R in the picture has a device which appears not to be horizontal to the ground. There are such things as front diffusers. Works the same as the rear but extremely sensitive to roll and pitch. The F488 has one in the GTLM category.
Here the diffusers are working.

Here they are not


At the center of the car, the front and rear diffuser has more energy, same with a splitter. The splitter performance drops off drastically towards the sides of the car and also where there are big intake holes. The Ferrari above has the radiator air exiting out of the top of the hood but would create more downforce if the car had a splitter instead of a diffuser.

Another observation, slightly off point, is the location of the rear wing ion that C8R. No current rule book allows this. I've looked at the LeMans rules for next year and it is not there for 2019. I believe the C8r is entered for 2020. The entries are published in January of the year of the race. A car that has not been previously homologated has to be entered two years in advance. Those entries are not published. We will see the C8R at Sebring next year and the published entry in Jan. 2020.

 

 

I edited my post above. I typed C7R instead of C8R. Anyway, It is said that Dale Earnhardt could see the wind. I love NASCAR because NASCAR drivers use the air as a tool. When you learn what they do to each other's car by disrupting airflow, you will enjoy the hell out of it. Kyle Bush is the greatest stock car driver in history. There are all types of appendages that condition airflow on modern cars. You can only guess what they are doing in each application. You can be sure that large auto manufactures have fancy computers and programs with all kinds of add ons. I lease cheap stuff like Autodesk Flow Design and Solid Edge with a CFD add on. The multitude of things at the ends of splitters are generally termed vortex generators or as the Air Force names them, boundary layer energizers. They create a vorticy beginning with the side wash from the splitter with a left or a right rotation which may interact with high pressure air coming out of the front wheel well or from those oil coolers you spoke of. This can be modified further by air coming out from under the car that has it's own turbulence because of a velocity change at the exit. Why would you create things like this? Well, what you want to prevent is separation of the boundary layer over any surface on the car, especially at intakes, wings, and things. The sides of cars are the biggest challenge. Separation is drag. The sides have notoriously large Reynolds numbers( a dimensionless value that measures the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces and describes the degree of laminar or turbulent flow.) The areas of dive planes and winglets, etc., have insufficient surface area to create lift (downforce) or directional stability or control, however they play a big roll for events happening downwind. I mentioned the location of the rear wing on the C8R. Wings used to be mounted really high in order for them to be in 'Clean' air. Imagine if you will, placing that C8R on your computer screen and are able to move that wing around in virtual airflow with CFD animation. The wing becomes an airflow conditioner. It does it upstream as well as downstream. Without the wing, there is separation over the rear glass. Move the wing down and forward and suddenly, there is full attachment over the glass. The bottom surface of the wing gets full attachment as the air is squeezed between the rear deck and the bottom of the wing. There is a massive velocity increase. This means that you can create much more downforce with a huge angle of incidence with full attachment under the wing. The downforce is created at the top of the wing and not the bottom contrary to popular belief. Impossible to achieve this in clean air. Another thing, you can have a huge increase in the ramp angle of the diffuser without it stalling with the wing in the right place. All the aero parts on the car work together all around the car. Sometimes huge inlets on the side of the car are not necessary because of the massive low pressure at the back of the car. Now the most amazing thing about air, I mention attachment over the rear glass, well there is no glass there. The air forms itself into the shape of the glass that isn't there. You get air flowing over air which is a lot less drag than air over glass. People put the tailgate down on their pick up trucks to reduce drag to no avail. It is far less drag with it up because the box fills with un turbulent air and air flows over the top of it. A lot of new cars don't look very aerodynamic these days, yet they have very low Cds. Just imagine the shape that is more aerodynamic than what you see. Put air in it's place, that's all. .Amazing. This is where designers and aerodynamicists can come to blows, excuse the pun.The Corvette engineers are tuning the car in many areas, not the least of which is aerodynamics. The challengers of cooling coolant contained in aluminum with air and then oil, then compressed air is another story to behold.

This C5 is the fastest street legal Vette. The crude looking box at the back reduced the drag because it created a perfect shape made out of air.

 

 

Thanks, another typo. I typed splitter instead of diffuser. Corrected above in bold. The old brain is not what it used to be. What program do you use?
It would be very nice if Corvette would publish a book with a detailed report of the C8 including 'Renders' and the people involved. Look how popular this discussion in the C8 section is and how it finds it's way into local and foreign publications. Auto and Design does this on production cars. The best one I ever seen is I paid $100 for it, so it is a steal for $20. They could get a scribe from Auto Week to document the car from it's inception. There should have been such publications for the last 3 generations and sold at the museum.
This is one of the most anticipated cars in modern history. All sports car enthusiasts and manufactures are hanging on biting their nails.

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