Aero chin air splitters

[ACCORDianated]

Hey all I was perusing a copy recent copy of Sport Compact Car magazine and they were making road race cars out of Nissan Sentras. The issue of inexpensive aerodynamics came up and they were creating chin air splitters out of plywood to bolt on the bottom of the bumper to channel air up into the radiator and create downforce. Any ideas on this? How hard would it be create one for a car? If you're interested in the read, its the SCC with the WRX on the front (too bad almost every other cover from them involves either a Supra or WRX (indifferent about both)).

[boosted]

ya i liek thier comment, "if using plywood was good enough for a high horsepower skyline, it's good enough for project sentra"

[MikeB23ft]

plyboard? geez youve gotta be kidding. Cardboard is where its at.

Michael

[boostdemon]

i'll have to check the magazine, but im pretty sure thats already a stock feature... although most cars have "lost" the piece that im referring to

[ACCORDianated]

The part they made of plywood sticks out beneath the aftermarket chin spoiler about 3" and has two metal supports to keep it from flexing that are attached to the metal bumper beneath the bumper cover.

The pix they have look pretty ghetto. It's a good idea, though. I like it.

They also have canards out there, but i'm not so sure on how well they deflect the air or if they just flex and look like crap- such as:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6763&item=2421458634

[boostdemon]

oooooh yeah ok, i know what you're talking about now. never seen 'em on a volvo.. if you're not racing im not sure they'd do much good? :???:

[ACCORDianated]

Sure, it'd do good. even at a low speed the deflection of air into the radiator would increase cooling efficiency by having more air shoved into the cooling fins to dissipate heat. If I had a beater car I would experiment with it... good thing I have my eyes on a ****box 1990 tempo for $200. Cmon- $200 that runs and is legal? I just can't pass it up.

[nohbudi]

ermm... my 240 has one, but i needed the stock air dam for it, and well... i pulled it off. so its useless to me

[RedDragon]

I once built an entire front spoiler for my 1979 Datsun King Cab pick-em-up out of 1/4" plywood and 1x4s.

It lasted at least a week before I hit a speed bump and busted the carp out of it.

It also liked to smack those curbs you find at the ends of parking spaces.

One time, my soul accumulated some bad karma when a rabbit (the bunny kind, not the car kind) tried to duck under my truck when I was driving way too fast at Carlsbad Caverns.

So, here's the bottom line: if you use a ghetto plywood spoiler setup, you need to augment it a little bit so you don't ruin it right away. My suggestion, which was not available for the '79 Datsun, is to go to a high-end car dealer, say Cadillac, and ask for all the parts to fab up one of those audible-warning collision-avoidance systems like they use. You know, those little circle dimples in the bumpers that pick up the onslaught of lesser vehicles and trip a screaming alarm inside the car to tell Grandpa Fester that he'd better slow down from 6 mph to 4 mph if he's going to avoid that teenager on a bmx bike at the end of the driveway? I think it shouldn't set you back more than about $2500 to custom fit the sensors, computers and alarms to your car. Add to that the price of the spoiler, itself, and you're in it for about $2503.

I call that a bargain, the best I've ever had.