Spoiler on a FWD car. Pointless?

[Khare]

Ofcourse the spoiler has to be of the good quality and well developed type. Not just the halfords special one. From what I've read road cars have a balance of between 60/40 and 52/48, so adding downforce at the back will help balance the car.

[danny_p]

look at the  fast stuff   fwd rwd 4wd  quite a lot of them have a spoiler of some sort.

aerodynamics has a massive effect on a car and how it behaves but the effect it has may not be the effect you first thought it would have   withou very expensive modeling software or a wind tunnel its all guesswork and experimetaition.

with a mk2  if you decide to flat bottom it   it has a mahoosive effect on front end grip and turn in but the back feels like it's gone light,  the experiment as doen with mk2 gti and a few sheets of 9mm ply tek screwd to the underside after reading niges build thread the question is did it make the back go light or was tehre no change and just loads more grip at the frount.

likewise wings can do funny things  on some cars i swear they bugger up existing areos and make the car worse

[clipperjay]

I say it depends who driving for instance lift off or follow through?
I'm sure the downward forces would change just from how you drive?

[lukeyyyyyyy21]

Because the general thought is it's used on rwd cars to help push the rear down for more traction.

previously.....

60mph that aerodynamics start to take effect isn't it?

hmmm you've answered your own question. Downforce is only created at speed, the more you go, the more you'll get. from that type of rear spoiler it won't be doing anything unless you're going fast, so pullin away it isn't. toe in toe out being the opposite to what fwd have at the front helps that.

[Horney]

Rear downforce is required for the same reasons on a FWD as a RWD car. It has very little to do with aiding the driven wheels with traction but instead it's all about keeping a good balance of downforce across the whole of the chasis. A RWD car with too much rear wing will understeer as the front washes out, so will a FWD car with too much rear wing.

I found when I added the front splitter to the MX5 it increased stability at speed and reduced understeer in the wet. When I then added the rear wing it dialed the understeer back in to a degree but further increased the high speed stability so was a good trade off.

Aero is hugely complex but cool. GO watch racign cars with lots of aero drive in the wet and it's brilliant to see the spray being contorted by the wings and canards etc.

nick

[Agreeable Slick]

negative pressure and votices.

Go look them up.

[Khare]

Yes, obviously it's going to create drag, is that what you're trying to say?

[danny_p]

not nessaseraly

drag is not all bad  if the grip the aeros  gives you makes you faster overall even tho it dents V-max   all is still good.

traying the car  or giveing it a smooth underside  will actualy reduce drag and make it faster

[Khare]

But without a diffuser and/or wings you're going to create lift aren't you?

[Seanl]

There is a very very noticable difference when I put my spoiler down at high speed. Cant say it feels any more twitchy, but there is a very noticable variation in drag, and wind noise. I actually never really noticed it until about 10 days ago, with the sh!te weather the wind really picked up on a trip down the dual carriageway. The Corrado isn't particularly aerodynamic, so I noticed it was being pushed all over the road. I put the spoiler down to combat it, and it really did make a difference.