Splitters and air dams

[charrbq]

I bought an airdam/splitter for my Honda when I first started racing it. The thing was a beautiful piece of engineering and worked great on my car. It was made of quality material so it wasn't cheap.
The first race, a SM missed a shift, spun, I spun avoiding him and went off track. As I drove back on course, I saw my very expensive, well made, now rumpled and crushed air dam lying on the ground.
Since then, I've been making them out of ABS. It's strong, flexible, easy to work with and modify, takes abuse, can be repaired, and looks pretty good...not as good as the metal one, but not bad.
Every once in a while it gets well good and screwed, but I just get out the jig saw and heat gun and make another one.

[p99ro]

Hi
I need one for a 89 CRX. I too dragged mine on the track then melted the plastic on the pipes. I drove over it even before I mounted it . I need one that can be remove to put the car on the trailer. So if anybody has any Idea`s let me know. I had a Blaney nose it worked fine but I`m not sure what good the d. NASCAR guys say they need to go over 125mph before anything happens. But I have stuck my had out the window and it has a lot of force so what do they know.
Scott CRXsi 07 NER and board. It`s so nice in CT wish LRP would do a track day. Somebody`s must be on that track.

[paulydee]

Sorry I am chiming in late on the subject. I have been off the forum for a while. I decided on an aluminum solution to the splitter option. I have some good pics of the work up here:

http://www.iridiumracing.com/NewMods.htm

It is kind of nice to have the metal because when I have an off road excursion, it generally just needs a little massaging to get it back in place.

[Jiveslug]

Ok guys, so this talk about splitters got my curiosity going and I decided to take a few measurements and see what I could come up with for my Corolla. Looking at the front of my car, I realized that it would probably be best to build the splitter and air dam as one unit. No one makes decent air dams for the TE72 Corollas. ANYway, as of right now, the car has a ride height of 10.5” at the rocker panel. Granted, this is with the stock suspension, stripped interior, and half the motor out. Anyway, I can basically drop the car 5.5” from its current height and be legal. Lets round that to 5” to be safe. Ok, so the lowest hanging section of the front end is the tiny valence that just pokes down below the bumper. It’s 13.5” off the ground as of now. Thus, if I drop the car 5”, it will be at 8.5” from the pavement. Cool. Subtract another 5” from the 8.5” to stay within legal ground clearance, and I have 3.5” of empty space under the valence that I can fill. I then looked for the best theoretical mounting point for the air dam, which just happens to be right below where the valence mounts to the car. I measured from that spot to the ground and got another 2”. Ok, so it looks like the air dam can be a total of 5.5” tall if I use that mounting point (the air dam will cover most of the valence). Ok, now, I had to guesstimate (didn’t feel like removing the bumper) how far out the bodyline of the car went. I measured the distance forward from the air dam location to that point and came up with 3.5”. Thus, if the air dam is perfectly perpendicular to the ground, that leaves me all 3.5” to utilize in building a splitter. If the valence is 56” wide, then I’m looking at an assembly that is 56” wide (duh!), by 5.5” tall, with a 3.5” splitter.

Ok, here come the questions.

1. How far around the side of the car can the airdam go? I have about 7.5” before I hit the front of the wheel well. Can I go that far back?
2. I was thinking of putting hinges on the front of the airdam so it can swing toward the front of the car and up in a 90 degree arc for transport. Is that legal?
3. Anyone have any general thoughts to this design?

I’m going to have to make final measurements and whatnot, and of course I’m going to make sure to have the 3” holes for brake ducts. What do you guys think so far?

[dickita15]

Your air dam can be lower than 5 inches. What limits it is17.1.4.D.8.c “

No part of the car, except the exhaust and suspension components, shall be lower than the lowest part of the wheel rims”

The test is to measure from the ground to the bottom of the wheel and make sure that air dam does not hang below that. This will be different depending on what profile tires you run. When I went to 45 series it allow more air dam.

To be honest you can start working on the design now but if you want to go as low as possible you will not be able to finalize that until you have the race tires on and the ride height set.

[benracin]

Do you think this would be more bad then good on a car that's a bit rear end happy like a first gen rx7? I know that they sure do look cool!

[Andy Bettencourt]

Do you think this would be more bad then good on a car that's a bit rear end happy like a first gen rx7? I know that they sure do look cool! [/b]

Depends on when and why your car is loose.

[lateapex911]

here's my rather generic version.

[bldn10]

If you are thinking of going lower than you are now and/or extending a splitter its max allowed distance forward, you MUST take into consideration the effect on getting the car on and off your trailer. Unless it is easily removable, you will be amazed at the reduced slope that will now be required.

[JLawton]

Also remember those spots on the track where your suspension gets compressed big time. In my 944, it was the done hill at Lime Rock. Between cornering and hitting the bottom of the hill, my extended spoiler would scrape the track. It was sheet metal so I would just pound it back.