I can't leave well enough alone. It's 66" wide, 52" from the ground to the top. I cut some masonite supports which will be 1/8" aluminum, and used a piece of cardboard for an end plate. I haven't decided on end plate material, could be CF, FG, lexan, aluminum, whatever.

It's about the same height as the engine scoop.

The whole thing will be wrapped in two layers of fiberglass cloth. I'm going to add a wicker bill to the trailing edge too. I'll add a diagonal between the support plates.

You left all those damn wood supports in there, didn't you??? !!!

How much weight did you add? Is the spoiler on some sort of quick change bracket, so you can take it back off?

I haven't weighed it yet but the wing along is only about 5 pounds. Not a big deal. I had to leave the wood ribs in it, as that is what maintains the shape.

I can remove the wing from the supports by pulling four pins.

Nice work!

Don't be surprised though if you get rubbernecked by jealous ricers!!!

Isn't that tool chest support going to slow you down? I could not resist.

Yeah alpha wood is a little heavier than it might need to be, but for a lot of people it is what they have, and can work with. Sure he could have made a mold and laid them up in CF, or built a buck and mae them out of AL, but for the first attempt I think it will work rather well. Each revision will get nicer, but if it does the job, I don't see the wood being a design flaw. And at 5lbs, I don't think Paul will noitcie the weight difference at all. I do believe he adds weight to make his class minimum. ICBW on that.

It matches the rest of the car

I knew someone would comment on my tool box. That is my "pit box" not exactly NASCAR level but it hold my jumper battery, tool box and other crap at the track.

I agree with you 100% on the wood. I'm not going to LeMans here. It's low-tech car that I drive on Sunday. Sure I could have spend 10x the amount of time and money and it would have weighed 3 pounds and when done it would have performed just the same. Actually I've was thinking of making a smaller wing to mount above this one, but now I'm thinking to make this one the top wing and make a larger bottom wing.

Joe, I've been waiting for your comment and that is the best you and do?
I'm a little disappointed quite frankly.

Thats cause Joe is feeling a little wing envy. After all he ripped his off a civic in a parking lot. Only thing he is missing is the shopping cart list on the right front door, and ????? on the rear.

Of course I have nothing on the back of mine so I am going to go take one off a Plymoth Super Bird, hey its orange it would match the pumkin.

Ah crap my translation joke did not turn out. the ???? in the above where supposed to be this. According the Goolge it is supposed to be Japanese Symbols translated into Japanese Symbols.

Yea I have wing envy.

Actually more like "Wish I could fiberglass as good as Paul".

Going to make a rear trunk lid and glass in stantions for the wing I have. Then maybe make a bigger version of the itty bitty Civic wing I have now.

Balsa.

Pine

Paul,

It looks like you're going to need some more downforce up front for balance. What do you have planned for that? More front splitter?

Actually I think the wing will balance it out. The problem has been high speed oversteer so I think the front sticks pretty good.

Man Alpha, you must scrounge better than the rest of us, titanium, and now you want stringers made of balsa. Pine is easy to find, cheap, Paul probably sourced it the same way he did his splitter. Whos missing a sign???

Joe, I understand, my fiberglass skills are no existent, so I would build it out of AL, and spend 100 times more than simple wood/ composite build. Actually they are pretty good, but I just don't like how things turn out. Maybe I need to lower my standards and realize the rest of the car is a POS so why not the wing deck lids, fenders, doors, etc.....

After all I am not building a car as nice as Brant - in steel, or Joe and his 914RS out of New Mexico, I am more of a beater kinda guy.

I just make mine go fast, Sexiest thing in my car is my new co-driver.

Wife will graduate from her RX-8 and start Autocrossing the 914 this year.

Starting to look like a Chaparral, Jim Hall would be pleased.

Thanks. I'm sure the ricer crowd will like it too.

I picked up my aluminum uprights this week. Today I spent about 2 hours getting them to work with the wing and the tubes I welded on the back of the car. What a royal PITA. I didn't help that tubes are not the same distance off the ground. And somehow the mounting plates that I built into the wing are a little different. Here it is held together with clamps and chewing gum.

Next I need to cover the wing with fiberglass and make the end plates.

Time for an update on the wing ding.

The end plates are almost completed. I used carbon fiber cloth (thanks Larry) for the outside surface. I placed the cloth on a place of glass wetted it out with resin and layered a piece of foam board and several layers of f/g mat and finishing cloth. Low tech but it worked. If I had more c/f cloth I'd been able to make them much thinner but I had to work with what I had on hand.

I popped it off the glass, trim the edges and polish the face. They are VERY pretty and shinny.

The wing itself was wrapped with several layers of fine f/g cloth and sanded smooth. I used "Cap-o-Sil" for the first time as a f/g filler. The stuff is like f/g powder that is added to your resin mix to thicken it up. You can add it until it is thick as cold 20/50 oil. It stays where you want it with out running down the surface of the piece. Gunnar Racing uses it a lot on thier projects.

The end plates will held on with socket head cap bolts thru the plate and into the end of the wing. I added threaded inserts into the wing ends than glued and glassed them in. The plywood end piecs are used to hold the wing while working on it.

I added a piece of flat aluminum stock as the diagonal support between the uprights. The makes the entire structure very ridgid. I'll drill a series of 1" holes in it to give it that racer look. I cut and fitted the aluminum pieces under the wing which will be drilled or slotted so the angle of the wing can be adjusted.

The most work has been in keeping wing, struts and endplates true and square with the car. The wing needed to be centered on the centerline of the car of course. The struts need to be vertical and stright with car. The end plates need to be parellel with the side of the car. And it all needs to be mounted level with the ground. It is not like you just bolt all the stuff together and it's right.

Sweet!
I hope those flat braces are strong enough. I guess you could estimate whatever lbs downforce at 65 mph, then stack some weights on them while mocked up and see how stable it is.

What type of resin did you choose for the carbon fiber piece, polyester or epoxy?

The struts should be OK to support the downforce. Even if something were to happen I won't be flying off into the grandstands on the Indy front stright.

I used cheap 'ol poly resin. No reason to go with the good stuff.

thought about cable braces in an X pattern?

Yes. Next question.

Nice work Paul! Can't wait to hear how it works out.



I thought about that too... But I decided to use 'em!

This is the wing I built for track days with the 3.0 car. The end plates (7075 T6) slot into the trunk and are held with two bolts each. The wing elements do have ricer origins, but the were cheap and have a half-way respectable airfoil profile.

The whole thing can be put on or taken off in about ten minutes and fits in the trunk when disassembled. No need to drive to an event looking like a Honda magnet.

More pics...

'Nuther...

Last one...

Mike, that's cool. Have you tried it at speed yet? How it work?

The only concern I have with regard to cantalevered wings (Mounted that far back on the car), is that without careful testing they can unload the front tires (lift) at speed.

Anyone have any experience with this?

Andys

You need to balance it out with a front spoiler.

You are right, it is essential that it be balaced with an aero device in the front. I would look toward a splitter rather than only the spoiler. If the rear wing lifts the front of the car, it will defeat the spoiler effect.

Andys

My front end...

Tried it just this last weekend as a matter of fact. My PCA region ran a DE/autocross at The Streets of Willow Springs. The wing worked really well.

My car doesn't have a bunch of front downforce (Yet, I'm working on a splitter), just an "IMSA" style airdam, so I used a suspension set up that was a bit tail happy and used the wing to plant the rear in the fast stuff.

It really worked great. The initial suspension set up was a bit too loose and I was having trouble getting the power down in the slower sections (Though the fast bits were fine) so I stiffened the front bar just a bit and it really came together. A couple of the fast sweepers that were a throttle dance last time I ran there were flat with the wing. You could really feel it stick.

I'm gonna keep it...

Cool wings fellas. I like the adjustability of the black one also. Can't wait to hear how well yours works Ury.

Here are a couple of pics from the Streets of Willow event last Monday.

This shot was taken on the front straight at around 115mph. Interesting to compare the rear rim to fender lip distance in this shot with the static position in the earlier post...

Trail braking to keep from ramming the tail-dragger...

Hitting the apex, unencumbered by 911s...

Last one (I promise...).

The fact that you were not pushing through the corners indicates to me you were not making a whole hell of alt of down force.

I would like to know what the wind looks like back there going over the cantilevered wing.

Great looking car!

Thanks Grants!





I'm not sure why you would say something like that.

But by way of additional info:

The pic labeled "Last one" was taken exiting the pits, so no, I wasn't pushing there.

The pics taken at the "apex" are entering the first, early apex of a double apex 180 deg. left coming off of the longest straight, so there is little pushing to be done there other than to carry your speed up to the point where you really shut it down and start pushing.

The other pic is on the straight...

As I said in my previous post, I'm not using the wing to generate a whole ton of downforce. I don't yet have the front aero needed to balance it. Instead I'm using a suspension set-up that is quite loose and using the rear downforce to make it stable in the fast bits. It works well at a track like Streets of Willow that is made up of a few relatively fast sweepers connected by tight corners and straights. In the slow stuff where areo effects are minimal, the car throttle steers with ease and tracks well under power with very little push. In the fast sweepers the wing comes into play and plants the rear. As I said, a couple of the fast sweepers that used to be "as much power as you dare" were dead flat with the wing.

This was the first time out with the wing, but since I am one of the crew that is responsible for the event I only got about five laps practice before the timed laps. I had to make a sway bar adjustment, then ran my timed laps without being able to test the adjustment. In the DE sessions after the timed laps, I was able to push much harder as I got more comfortable with the set-up.

Still, in timed runs I was 12th fastest out of 70 cars, about 4 sec behind TTOD ('07 GT-3 on R compound tires), if I recall correctly.

I was about .040 sec out of the top ten.

I won my class! (PCA AX/TT class HI)

I was about 6 sec ahead of the car that finished second in my class.

I was driving my daily driver (I don't drive around town with the wing though, thank you! ).

I was on 1 1/2 year old G-force TA tires (Daily drivers, 340 tread wear rating, or something like that).

Overall I was pretty happy with the set-up!

I guess the point is that there are several different ways to use the air to find an advantage. The important thing is to remember that what works on one car might not work on another and to work the whole thing as a system...

Now, any more progress to report Paul??

My progress, gee I had forgotten this thread was about my wing. What a hijack.

P

You are making a wing?
Looks like a 60's surfboard. Wood core and all.

Ummm...

Sorry 'bout that...