I’m sure a few of you guys will be at Cars and Coffee at the mall. Head on up to the stadium afterwards. 2nd autocross of the year is happening today. Weather looks to be perfect.
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I hit 11 cones lol. My worst performance ever. Cleaned up my last run and managed 2nd in Pro and 5th in PAX. Not a happy guy. Needs way more downforce in back. I was fighting for traction all day long. New aero rules suck. My car was better with a spoiler on it.
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Do you hit speeds that would generate downforce? I would have thought a spoiler would be minimal impact.
Maybe just add some weight to the trunk 
It gets wickedly complicated lol. I’m just learning the aero stuff. Basically a wing can produce massive downforce, without a lot of drag. So…if you hit a road course and want to go 175mph down the straights you can, and also make enough downforce to handle the corners. With a big spoiler it would make so much drag that the car would likely only get to 165 or so. However…in autocross, you basically have to crank the wing angle so much, so that it acts like a big spoiler, just 2 feet off of the trunk instead of attached to the trunk. It’s the dumbest thing that has happened to the class since I started.
In the video I had the wing at about 2 degrees, and it wasn’t doing a damn thing. You can see the ass end slide out at the finish. My car would have been glued to the track if my spoiler was on there. I was hitting cones all day with the rear end. I’ve recently updated the wing and am doing a HUGE race in PA this weekend. We’ll see how it goes.
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Me and Mr. Smith will be racing in PA this weekend. Doing an Optima Batteries DriveAutoX event.
I wish I could find the link with angle of attack vs. drag.
I would suggest going for max angle to start and then dial it back.
FWD on a big track wing makes a difference even in slower corners (50mph), but I like a loose car so in the dry it hurts my lap times. Helps rear stability in braking and corner entry. In the wet a wing is a huge help for novice-intermediate drivers to keep the ass planted.
From what I’ve been seeing on the successful guys that are running wings in autocross, they are running the wings on such a high angle, that they aren’t really behaving like wings at that point. They are behaving like a spoiler, but just elevated above the trunk a few feet. A common sight is the main wing at a steep 10-15 degree angle, and the second element significantly steeper than that. Drag really isn’t important to me as I have enough power to push through it, and the speeds are slow enough that it probably won’t matter. Road course would be a different story. I’ll update tomorrow after the first day of racing. I’m running a dual element one now. Total area is around 6sq/ft. This setting is my “towing” setting. The wing is roughly at 1-2 degrees and the 2nd element is at 15~ish. I can adjust it in 30 seconds with 2 bolts and set it at 8/23 and 18/33~ish. It will produce a lot of drag, but as long as the ass is planted I will roll with it.
