i think he was talking about street cars

and really only the FAST racecars need them on FWD, hatches don't have to be quite as fast though to need them, but still

 

Well if youre talking about street cars then no one needs a wing regardless of drive type.


Except the Caparo T1.

 

Your 100% correct, However unless you set up a FWD car for tremendous oversteer at the limit, a rear spoiler just adds drag and increases weight, (neither is good)

one companay famous for actually using a functional spoiler on a FWD car is Real time Racing,



but those cars were specifically designed with such stiff rear suspension to REQUIRE that down force to maintain stability. they were known for their tendency to over steer on slower corners.

so do I realize.. of course my friend, I have been building race cars for over a dozen years. but I've driven my sentra at sebring with it's Factory "airbrake" installed and not installed and with the spoiler removed I can acheive 3 more MPH at the end of the back straight. (that's why we ran OLOA07 with it off the car)

but my car is also driven on the street so I cannot tune it for rear down force, I'm tempted to invest in a splitter and canards, but can't justify the advantage over the pain of driving that every day.

 

yeah, one big thing with the hatches though is that at high speeds there is an immense negative pressure right around the top back of the car, and it picks it up and no matter what your rear set-up lightens the rear end so much you oversteer. thats why most of the hatches have the big wing, it moves that negative pressure up over the car where the car is unaffected by it, and obviously corners faster with the air-brake

and yeah, real-time rocks my socks

 

Thanks, Jlude.

That's a logical and informative post, I have only set up a rare few Honda hatchbacks for autocross, and one for rally.. so the speeds and rear grip requirements are greatly diffrent. that's a good bit of info to keep in my magic box of rocks.

jeff

 

Anyone else have pics?