[Shotimes] Do Air Dams, Spoilers, and Wings Work?

[Ron Porter]

Ay "smoke trails" I've seen on coupes/sedans in a wind tunnel show a
boundary air layer a few inches above the trunk, so a spoiler would have to
get up a bit to break the airstream. The Gen 3 spoiler his the little "lip",
plus IIRC it sits a bit higher on the trunk (I could get my drying towel
under it). Dunno, I don't believe the Gen 1/2 spoilers sit high enough, nor
do they extend far enough beyond the end of the trunk, to be any more than
an ornament. They may produce more of an effect at very high speeds, but
other spoilers, probably like the Gen 3 and even the early Porsche Carrera
F&R spoilers, started to work at speeds over 60 mph.

Ron Porter

-----Original Message-----
From: shotimes-admin@autox.team.net
[mailto:shotimes-admin@autox.team.net]On Behalf Of Donald Mallinson
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2003 9:03 PM
To: shotimes-admin@autox.team.net
Cc: shotimes@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Shotimes] Do Air Dams, Spoilers, and Wings Work?


Ron,

Without true wind tunnel work, you can't really say the Plus
spoiler and gen II 93-95 spoilers (since they are virtually
identical) don't do anything.

It doesn't take much to disturb the airflow falling off a
trunklid.  "breaking" the airflow slightly at the back of a
car yields big benefits way out of proportion with the tiny
amount of spoiler needed to accomplish the goal.

The benefits are less drad and increased downforce.  The
first can yield measureable results at regular highway speeds.

Don Mallinson

Ron Porter wrote:
> Since the spoilers on the '91 Plus through all of the Gen 2 SHOs is barely
> more than an extension of the decklid, I don't believe that any of them do
> anything practical (other than the Gen 2 holding the CHMSL!).
>
> Ron Porter
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