n2 ae86 - aerodynamics

[redsprinter]

hi guys .. ive been reading speed secrects by ross bently .. and he talks about having weight over the front wheel will help your front with traction .. he also speaks about having too much weight is also not good.. so a way to go around it is using downforce produce by the car ( for this the front lip of a n2 ae86).. now ive seen some really hetick n2 front lips... would these lip really benefit a n2 ae86 .. with down force? ive never driven a n2 car or replica so i wouldn't know how fast they really are.. but I'm think would they really produce that much downforce to help give the car traction as in compare with say... a f1 car .

[anastasios]

of course they would, but not in comparison with a f1 car i don't see too many 86s goin 400 ks an hour

[ghetto ke]

An N2 car does not produce much down force with the N2 kit and front air-dam alone. The AE86 is NOT a very "aerodynamic" design, as it is very square and angular to begin with. The front air-dam does lower the front edge of the front bar significantly, so that less air goes underneath the car and directs airflow around the bumper and also to brake ducts. But as an aerodynamic aid - it would do little to increase down-force like the front airfoils/wings on a F1 car.

The TRD "ducktail" wing does help the air flow off the back to be more laminar (stays closer to the surface of the hatch) and produce a lower pressure area off the back of the hatch, but it would not produce much effective down-force. Example on Keiichi Tsuchiya's TRD Levin has additional "Gurney flap"/extension on the wing (see pics below, also shows the front splitter that divides air going over/under the car) Tsuchiya was also against the use of GT wings for the sake of "period correctness" but Dori-Dori almost had no choice to keep up with the competitors as he struggled for grip on the sweeping corners of Tsukuba (actually using the GT wing from his "street" Trueno).

If you look at most of the N2 AE86's in todays competition they use additional front splitters, canards (little side extensions on the front corners of the bumper like Spirits pictured), rear diffusers, flat under-body trays, and large GT wings to increase down-force.

[verm69]

i was watching a thing the other night on F1 aerodynamics... they're pretty amazing... it's a pity they banned the lotus "ground effects"

apparently they could have gotten corner speeds so fast that the drivers would have almost need G-Suit's to stop them blacking out!

[RobertoX]

for their time ae86 was 0.38 drag coefficient not bad at all really

[redsprinter]

i want that rear diffuser .

[ghetto ke]

The drag coefficient C_f has more to do with frontal area of a shape in relation to direction of travel, rather than the overall shape of the car and it's relative aerodynamics. (i.e. Porsche 928/944 was actually more aerodynamic backwards :blink: think of a streamlined tear-drop shape).

The C_f is used in calculating the total Drag force F_d over the surface, the airstreams laminar and change to turbulent flow is of more interest over the shape when talking about air moving around a airfoil/wing to create lift or down-force (depends on the shape of the wing) so a wing with large angle of attack will have larger C_f and result in more Drag F_d but create more down-force. It's a compromise...

[Bustin_86]

Karls brain > Internet

[ukato]

Last years n2 race had a pink ae86 where its front lip got smashed and most of it was rip off,
it started nearly at the back of the pack and finished 3rd, just shows that the trd n2 kits don't have that much affect...

the tech arts n2 ae86 has pretty good aero :2thumbs:

[ghetto ke]

Correct, but he actually finished 2nd :2thumbs: Car Factory Ai driven by Koizumi