Dear Scott:
What is happening here?
If you do not have experience in this field, simply posting a picture of a flipping race car . . . to possibly discredit the design, is along the lines of scare tactics.
Me? Scare
YOU? Hahahahahaha! Nah!!
Me? Discredit your design? No way!
What is happening here?
What is happening here is the normal, messy human-to-human process of communication, aided and hindered by the electronic medium through which you and I communicate: the forum board.
When you started your build thread and I started reading it, both you and I did not know a lot of things (be patient! Just follow along a bit longer).
Here is an example you gave of something you did not know of before you encountered it:
Got to admit, I was not very pleased with my work on the e-brake set up, nor the room it was going to take up in the center where i had run the cables. . . . In comes American Shifter Co. with what appears to be the answer for me.
You did not know something, you found out, you learned, and you changed it.
Here is what I did NOT know about you before the aerodynamic question of your SLC came up: your aims and your methodology.
What
DID I know before the aeronose question arose?
Granted, it has not been wind tunnel tested, but from my knowledge, neither has any other kit or component car that is used as a track mule or race car.
On the contrary . . . this kitcar company does do real Aero development. . . . I have full surface scan data for the SLC and we were sponsored by a CFD company while racing the factory car.
The guy running the CFD is ex McLaren and he did the MP4 12 C and P1 aero studies So as I said we did many hundreds of connotations of Aero and it's amazing how small of a change makes a big difference.
18th December 2012, 02:00 PM #2
Re: Aero tweaks?
We spent months last winter doing CFD work on the whole car ...
No one thing made the difference ...a whole laundry list of small tweeks added upto 390kg more front downforce with an overall drag reduction of 15%.
The front splitter is now a true wing profile and we pull air over the top of the car from the high pressure area under the splitter.
The rad is now moved forward and laid down more too....
Canards are no longer needed ...the car ran the original race tail in 2012 as opposed to the street tail in 2011...
Old 26th June 2014, 08:35 AM
. . . The stock SLC is a very slippery package as designed, our full race aero package gives us well over 1000lbs of downforce at 100mph , this is obviously significant and the feedback I have had from every driver pro and semi pro that has driven the 01 car is that "this is how an aero car should feel"...not bad for a car you can buy in pieces and assemble in your garage...
So, Scott, because I knew what Fran and team had done, and I did not know that you would pull back a design that is unsafe, I posted the cautionary photo of the Porsche. As you yourself noted, even Porsche, with all their computers and history and knowledge, did not account for a car that
. . . crested a hill under acceleration while following a car generating dirty air in the rain . . .
So, who is afraid?
Me.
For whom am I afraid?
You.
What am I afraid of?
Your safety.
BUT,
NOW I know that you are:
. . . Just trying to explain abit of why I did what I did and the theories behind it.
and that you have
. . . have really spent months in the background designing the body to be as functional as possible, with looks falling to the second consideration.
and
. . . if I had one smidgen of an idea that my design would have negative effects or generate lift at speed, I would not have gone through with it.
to the extent that
I have zero problem with having a competitive driver test the nose on the west coast, so I could drive it to them and be there for the testing at my expense . . .
because
. . . I also encourage any people that have experience in testing aero dynamics to speak up if they see a problem with the design. . . . I do love a good technical debate. Keep it technical with good examples, and i have no problem listening and going into further detail.
The time lag of the forum introduced the misunderstanding.
Fortunately, you told me (and all of us) more about yourself and your design goals, and Fran is telling you more about the SLC's aerodynamics.
Whew!
You are in good hands.
Les
