Holiday Specials

[DeaconBlue]

The heck with waiting around.  I just signed the waiver and sent the funds via PayPal for the Mandeville FC front brake upgrade. 

Thanks Joel!

[frijolee]

Thank you John,
 
Reminder: All holiday specials end on Christmas Eve.  If you're planning to place an order you'll want to do so soon. 
 
The FC GT wing is now on my car and just ran an autocross plus some freeway testing while set at the max angle of attack.  It's solid and I'd love to move a few of those.

[josh18_2k]

whats freeway testing mean?  highway pulls?  lol

[frijolee]

whats freeway testing mean?  highway pulls?  lol

Don't you know you're not supposed to incrimenate yourself on the internet...   

Nothing too special, just took it quite a bit faster than I could at the autocross.  I'll have to wait for a track day to push heavy triple digit speeds.  Practically speaking I think the sheet metal would yield before the wing failed (and that's despite locating the mounts right next to the internal support brackets).

[digitalsolo]

You can always set it up like the JPGT cars and run supports from where the wing mounts to the body, down to the frame, on the inside. 

I think we might be getting a little silly at that point though.

[largeorangefont]

I was figuring he meant free wind tunnel testing on the freeway...

[largeorangefont]

You can always set it up like the JPGT cars and run supports from where the wing mounts to the body, down to the frame, on the inside. 

I think we might be getting a little silly at that point though.

Well this is what can happen in competition if the mounts are not strong enough.

[frijolee]

I actually spent a good bit of time analyzing that Subie failure.  Seems to me that the big place he got burned was by putting too much bending stress into the wing attachment points. I argue that this was caused by two things:
 
1) The pads at the bottom of his uprights are too small and/or the trunk he bolted this to is too flexible.  This means that most lateral and vibration forces get carried by the wing attachment points up top at the point of max cantilever. Not surprisingly this is where it failed.  Compare that to our FC mounts where we wrap the rear deck and use three bolts (instead of 2 like RE-A does) and the uprights themselves are quite stiff laterally so our wing attachment points don't need to carry as much.
 
2) The Subie's wing attachment points themselves aren't as structural as they could be.  From the failed area it looks like APR just had a skin on either side with filler in the middle (likely cabasil).  Compare that to our design where we have a full depth layup for the two sides of the T and we should be a LOT stronger.  Oh and just for good measure we increased the radius at the point of max bending AND made the mount point 1/16" thicker than the RE-A version we started with as a basis of design.
 
I can't promise that this is indestructable (nothing is) but I can certainly say it's a good bit stronger than many of the "high end" brands on the market.
 
Back on topic...  8 days left in the deal.  Anyone want to order one?

[largeorangefont]

I agree on all points Joel. Not many of us are pushing that hard yet at those speeds, but this failure does illustrate the need for over engineering the area that mounts the wing to the car. (not saying this to you or your wing, but just in general). In extremely high speed applications like time attack, a robust wing like yours should be braced to a solid structure that can effectively transfer all the downforce into the car. Upon rebuilding their Subaru time attack car, 12 lbs were added to the wing mounting structure, to tie it into the frame of the car.



And pics of the new mounts.

[frijolee]

We'll have to think about how we might do that for anyone hardcore enough to yield the sheetmetal.  The good news is that mild steel tends to bend and fail gradually so at a minimum I think we should be able to avoid catestrophic failures like the above.

[largeorangefont]

You are right, and this was more food for thought than anything, but there is definate potential to market that wing to the Time Attack guys as a "best of breed" part as opposed to the ricer crap some of them use.

[frijolee]

Getting close to last call for alcohol.

[digitalsolo]

Getting close to last call for alcohol.

Gimme one scotch, one bourbon, and one beer...

[largeorangefont]

Woodford on the rocks...

[frijolee]

It's the holidays yo!  I was thinking Eggnog and Myer's dark myself.