Front splitter is on car, Finished it late last nite. Took some dodgy (in the dark) photos but they give you a bit of an idea what it looks like. Prototype is in MDF painted black but finished version will be in 6mm black nylon, The mounting points on the splitter are slotted so you can either have it fully extended like in the photos or you can slide it back be about 1 1/2" to make it smaller.
Number plate mount is the original one just slid between the splitter and the spoiler and fitted in the original place.
pictures are on http://www.bookatrack.com/-pg?1982
hope the link works if not then go to bookatrack and look in the gallery.
Let’s have you opinions then, But dont’ be too rude
Well I went looking for the pics with an open mind and I quite like them!
Any chance of a wider view of the car to see how it effects the overall look?
How far is ‘fully extended’ (as shown) if 1 1/2" is minimum?
And while I’m asking questions, how is it mounted? A (lightweight) spring loaded retractable version, in case of grounding, would be nice!
Ian
[Steve’s reply]
Hi Ian,
The pictures show the splitter fully extended (about 2") The sliders will allow the splitter to go back about 1 1/2" to make it smaller. Mounting will hopefully be by screw and captive nut, This should allow the splitter to be altered without taking the front spoiler off the car.
Cheer Steve.
Any one seen this months EVO yet, if not there�s a feature on the development of a new Caterham, one picture shows a new rear diffuser fitted to their car, which looks very very familiar to me , in wind tunnel testing it was found in conjunction with a panelled in floor to produce 23lb of down force, now in conjunction with the 80kg of down force we already have, the rear end is going to be tide down quite well, what we need now is some sort of front splitter to balance the front end out
If you want to optimize the effectiveness of the splitter, it would be a good idea to chamfer the trailing edge of the splitter to smooth the airflow into the underbody. A sudden step in height of the underside will cause a bit of turbulence under there which would add drag, and reduce downforce.
I would do this in the middle, but not directly in front of the wheels.
Is 6mm the ideal thickness? You obviously need good strength and stiffness, but if it could be any thinner, it would help to keep down the frontal area, and therefore drag. It would also help with ground clearance of course.
Are you going to make the splitter in two halves as you originally suggested? This would mean that if you have to remove it for any reason, you’d be able to fit it in the car to get it home.
I guess you can tell I’ve been thinking about this
I’ve been considering making my own, but I’d probably make two parts which would have a gap in the middle slightly wider than the number plate. This would encourage air flow back to the diffuser, and help slightly with ground clearance. A full width, very low splitter can make the downforce very sensitive to pitch changes. Especially on a relatively softly sprung road car.
Suggestions Noted
The reason behind the 6mm thickness it because that is how thick the prototype is and it looks about right. The thinner it gets the weaker it is. Made from 6mm black nylon it would hopefully be strong enough to stand a few small knocks without snapping but would not be too thick to be too big and heavy. Obviously the best thing to do is to make it out of 2/3mm carbon fibre as on the Elise GT1 but then the cost for the splitter would be to high for us to produce.
The splitter is in two parts and they join at the center (as in the pictures) Ground clearance is only 6mm less than on the standard car so shouldn’t give too many problems (on track anyway) Might have to do a titanium tipped one for Uldis though.
Cheers Steve.
Very straight forward to fit, worst bit was one of the chrome fixings on the front of the clam being knackered (as usual the last one ). Now works fine as a screw . I hate fibreglassing though, and this reminded me of why, even though it was only a few bits.
Anyway after the last post I’ve had something to eat watched Top Gear and went back in the garage and fitted it.
The headlights have a smoked cover, but I use black fablon (sticky black plastic to give it it’s Blue Peter name;)) as it is easy to remove if selling the car or I deceide I don’t want it any more.
![http://www.exige.me.uk/images/splitter.jpg[/image]](http://www.exige.me.uk/images/splitter.jpg%5B/image%5D){kind=link}