The wing end plates increase the effective span of the wing. They will increase downforce a bit as they keep the wing loaded more at the tips. They will reduce drag some too, at least for a given amount of downforce.

The notch likely reduces the endplate effectiveness slightly. If the notches ran all the way to the wing surface, it would be worse. But as-built, they should be fine, let aesthetics rule!

 

Talk to Aeromotions. I'll send you a PM with one of the guys email address. I think they would sell you just the blade. And what's super cool about that is that you could upgrade to their active setup later - if you use their blade for the wing. I've been talking with them and they are smart guys, and willing to work with you.

PM in route.

 

+1 on the Aeromotions. I have talked with them quite a bit 2 years ago at Nationals when Vic was first running their wing. Awesome idea, design, and implementation.

 

I got the foam cut and bonded to the Al frame this weekend. I'm filling the small gaps with body filler right now. Should be ready to do the carbon soon. Just need a full day in the garage, I've been either sick, or throwing princess parties for 2 year olds recently. And now the snow is here and the ski resorts are open.... calling me.

I'll try and snap a pic of the wing with the foam core in place.

 

yeah, well think warm rain on those hills this week.
where are my sand bags?

 

I did a little more work on the foam core. I'm kinda disappointed with the overall fit and finish of the core concept in general. This has been a learning experience for sure. It's hard to get a nice smooth uniform airfoil surface when you have a handmade aluminum frame and six separate pieces of foam all stuck together.

The body filler, Bondo, ate the foam to a very small degree, leaving some residual low spots. I'll need to figure out a way to smooth them. I should have used something more like a non-reactive putty. I was bitter after seeing that tonight and filled the rest of the seams with liquid nails. It's still rough, but I think I can smooth everything out with some work - right now I'm just filling the larger gaps.

Some pics showing the ugliness I need to work on.





If I did it again I would use a single, more dense foam core, and simply wrap it in carbon - and eliminate the aluminum frame. Then I would rivet and bound pedestals to the exterior surface of the airfoil. This is what APR and others do.

I know production shops also use female molds. I don't know how they form the airfoil in a single step. It's easy if you make two pieces and bond them together. I've got some ideas on how you could do it in a single step, but I'd love it if someone knows for sure?

 

lightweight spackle is the stuff. sands smooth, the only way to go on foam. has about the same material hardness. just make sure you get the lightest version you can find, there is a brand that gets rubbery, weights a bit more

 

Yeah I should have started with that off the bat. Oh well. Next time!

 

Thanks guys. Piggy has been taken care of... Tamiflu FTW!

So I tried my hand today at laying up my sample piece. Couple things I learned.

- If you tape the edge of the carbon fiber fabric to stop it from fraying during handling and storage you can't remove the tape without ruining the fabric. So you need to plan to cut it off or leave it there for trimming after it cures.

- It's cold in my garage. The resin I'm using has a 45 min "gel" time. After 45 mins in my garage it was maybe gel - but it took over 3 hours and coming into the house to actually harden. This will give my working time to wet out the big panels of material for sure. But I'll need to bring the parts inside once bagged to cure.

- My little vacuum bag leaked like crazy. I needed the pump on full-time to hold the vacuum. But I didn't want to do that. So I just pulled a vaccum every couple mins to make sure the resin matrix stayed tight as it cured. I went up to 1/2 vacuum without crushing the foam.

- To me the material seemed to dry out during cure. I used 110% resin by mass, compared to the mass of the fiber. It was wet enough to have excess on the material when I bagged it. After curing there was resin that had made it into the catch fabric - but visually there is no excess post cure on the parts. I'm not sure if there is enough resin left on in the matrix or not? I'm sure the foam sucked up a bunch as well.

- I'm considering taping off the foam to seal the surface so it can't steal resin away from the fabric. But at the same point the catch fabric and linen peel play seemed to soak up excess resin - so maybe this is just the amount you end up with?

Some pics.

The setup.



Bagged. Layering goes: parts, linen peel ply, catch fabric, bag.



Out of the bag, catch fabric off, ready to remove the linen peel ply.



Raw.



Trimmed a little.





Close up. The linen peel ply leaves a textured satin surface.

 

We used foil tape to cover the foam on our side skirts. Liberal amount of paint was also used in combination with the tape. The West marine resin was really hard to work with. Switching to a aircraft poly based resin allowed the fabric to adhere much better and was very workable compared to the West product.







They need to finished with bondo and then molds will be made and the light weight copies can be pulled and installed back on the car. I have learned a lot about working with the fabric and resins. I have no experience with vacuum bagging yet but my friend Charlie (Function First Motorsports) has the equipment and knowledge. I need a much larger rear wing to generate more rear down force to balance the amount the front has increased to.

 

I believe when the time comes I will contact Pennon to build me a rear wing.

 

Jid,

never did glass on foam vacuum bag, but it seems to me they would use a mylar or similar on the finish side of the product and a blotter at the ends/sides....?????

is your layup stout enough the foam is non structural? if you are using the foam, I wouldn't use tape. Do a test with a mylar and only as much epoxy as you need to wet the carbon.

again, I'm shooting " no scope"


in fact, wet the carbon against the velum and place the foam on the skin. If its all happening at once make two skins, the second is placed on top in situ. place the blotter around the ends of the skin sandwich. worry like hell it doesn't snafu. And as your thinking, just enough vacuum to pull it together, you don't want to telegraph every little warble.

make sure you have release on the velum or it is naturally non stick.

 

apexy e, That is a total package. What's on the front?

 

Foam was used to form the air guides. After cutting and shaving the form they were painted. Then mold release was applied. Taking a short brush apply the resin and lay your cloth over the part. Work the resin through the cloth. After drying we popped the fiberglass air guide off the foam and fitted to the car. Next bondo needs to be applied and sanded to a smooth finish. The center section has a opening that we covered with aluminum. Eventually a larger and lighter intercooler will fill the lower center section



The splitter was designed to extend 80 mm beyond the nose. The 1st test required trimming 2 inches from the splitter to reduce the massive front down force it generated. A large rear GT wing is sorely needed!



The front is generating a great deal of down force in this trim. When the under body plastic work is complete and a large GT wing is built and installed the original depth splitter will be replaced and tested. White plastic will extend out, attach to and will lower the rear diffuser to within a few inches from the ground.



Charlie North is the builder and my teacher on this project. His company Function First Motorsports has been designing building custom race cars and small aircraft for nearly 30 years in New England. He is one of the original Mitsubishi fans having started modifying Dodge Colts in the mid 70's. It's still a unfinished rough idea but you can see what using some raw materials and thinking can start! I hope to finish the underbody work and install a custom GT wing to complete the package for this summers NASA ST2 season. I could attend a Time Attack event but without a full race motor I would not have a chance against the developed teams AMS and Sierra,... unless it rained!

 

Apex, nice work! I love this stuff.

How are you framing up the front fascia behind the bumper? I'm guessing with the original length, you saw a bit of nose-diving?

I can't tell from the pictures, are the rear wheelhouses integrated with the diffuser (or put another way, have you channeled the wheelhouse to the rear of the car somehow)?

Have you had any tunnel time with the car? I'm really curious what the exhaust dumping into the rear diffuser like that does to the airflow. (ie. Is it far enough forward that it intermingles well enough to not screw with airflow too much? If so, that's a lot easier than coming up with something else to get the exhaust out of the air path.)

(jid2, sorry for hijacking your thread, but it's nice to see reasonable discussions of this kind of thing here, by people actually racing, rather than talking about racing. )