The 24 Hours of Corvette (Photos)
 

The 24 Hours of Corvette (Photos)
By Tony Greene

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...52d5339339.jpg

look at the rear wing AOA difference between the cars! The vette is running far more wing angle than the ford. (note the leading and trailed edge of the wing on the inside of the end plate)

That diffuser on the ford must be doing the job, therefore needing less rear wing. Would be interesting to see the speed traps between the cars, but I would speculate the ford would be faster all else equal.

because I was curious I loaded the image into Solidworks. If we assume that the top of the endplate is level (typically they are setup to be):
Corvette wing is approximately 7.4 degrees AOA
Ford GT wing approximately 1.7 degrees AOA


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...ccf012137d.png

It's an awesome race to watch! I stayed up and Fox did really good with the coverage. After the race, I don't think Corvette got the podium ��

I believe IMSA states the diffuser must not pass the trailing edge of the body. It seems Ford bends this rule by making the uprights for their wing as the border line for the body leaving them a few extra inches to play with. I may be wrong although I have always wondered, if I'm not mistaken by my interpretation of the sanctioning body's stipulations, why Corvette racing didn't attempt the same thing by moving their uprights farther back to give to car a much more pronounced diffuser. Anyone smarter than me have any insight?

The GT is a true keel design much in the same way as an F 1 car which is why it has less drag and needs less wing than the Corvette and needs less fuel and tire stops. To answer someone's previous statement, if all things were equal (hp, weight etc.) the GT would be unbeatable in the straights as well as in the GTLM class in general. I made this comment last year and nobody even gave it a sniff but the GT was designed for 2 things, win at Le Mans on the 50th anniversary of Fords '66 win and make a design and engineering statement. Some have called it a "cheater car" but the truth is the road car and race car were designed side by side and it follows the WEC rule book to the T. The real "cost" for this is the car will never be able to carry golf clubs, doesn't have cup holders, is hard to see out of and could never sell in the numbers to the public to justify a real profit "production" run. http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1...the-street-car

That's a good catch but AOA doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the wing the Ford GT has to run a taller Gurney flap than the Vette per the BoP Technical Bulletin the GT has to run a 15 mm Gurney where the Vette only has to run a 10 mm Gurney.

Also according to the tech bulletin the Ford has to run at least 2 degrees - damn cheaters lol!

http://competitors.imsa.com/sites/de...lm_gtd_bop.pdf