Truenotch

Info dump from the rabbit hole I went down last night. The extruded wing blade I have is an older PCI race wing - this was their original style and is was advertised as a low drag wing and was mainly used for FWD cars. The cord is 220mm and I had no idea what the profile was, until last night when I found a note about it on an old website that said the profile is an Eppler 421. Airfoiltools has a huge list of profiles: http://airfoiltools.com/airfoil/details?airfoil=e421-il I plotted it against a photo of my wing (which has some parallax error, so doesn't perfectly trace it, but you can see it's close). It was a common profile for old can-am cars and seems like it gets used for some fixed wing drones and helicopter blades too.... Which means the extrusion is available on Alibaba if anyone wants to go into business selling wings 😉 Current plan of attack is to build the wing stays and test with this wing, then add a gurney flap to see how much effect it has... And then possibly add a 3D printed second element later if I want lots of downforce (this profile is a common base for dual element wings). The other rabbit hole (vortex?) I fell into was 3D printed wings and the range of techniques people are using to create strong wings. This is too interesting not to try at some stage.... It's such a cool way to experiment with different wing profiles. Most people make them from 3D printed sections with aluminium tubes that slide through the length and aluminium sections at the mounting surface to get a strong mount: And some people are having success with carbon skinning and vac-bagging the wing afterwards using as little as 5% infill on the prints to keep it light. Some people have said their finished wings are as light as 2.5kg, others add more material and it gets as high as 7kg (still not terrible). The results look pretty impressive tbh, so I'm keen to give it a try. Ok, back to the grind.

Yep, I think the foam core ACM panels I have in stock will get used for testing. If that works, I'm quite keen to attempt a PU foam core carbon splitter since we have all the equipment and supplies at work already. It's true that the further back you extend the plane, the better things will get, but it also adds more admin and makes it more difficult to keep engine bay temps down (which is already a problem with no splitter). Having said that, it's an option to add a fixed panel at the back of the engine bay later on. Should I just steal the factory underfloor from this thing?

Eww, mismatched hardware! What are you, poor or something? 😂 ... You have to remember that @vivaspeed has a mismatched chassis and driveline because it was the only way to make his British car go fast enough for the racetrack. I'm going to try to make the splitter and undertray easy and cheap enough to remake without crying every time I break one. One piece seems like the least faff in my head, but that might change.

Haha, this is epic and probably pretty effective at scaring other hillclimb dudes.

Yeah, we have a set at work for the CRX. They look OK but I reckon the Honed kit will be harder to get in alignment than the one I shared above... Plus the one I shared would be so easy and fast to make with a laser cut piece and a folder.

Nice. Does your engine hang too low to run the tray right back to the axle line? I reckon you could improve yours a lot with a longer plane area under the car and a more rounded leading edge.

Nice, that looks easy to make and easy to fit. My undertray will extend back to the crossmember with a slot to fit around the sump pan, so I'm planning a couple of pins similar to yours for the rear, then laser cut something like this for quick and easy installs, with a couple of pins that will be accessible from under the bonnet:

I mucked around with the front bumper mounts today. I'm thinking I'll leave the front bumper as Uras intended this time.... because it drives onto my trailer as is and my ideas for modifying it were getting too complicated. My last bumper took weeks of nights after work and I know if the juice will be worth the squeeze a second time around... The new plan is something more like this 👆. An easily removable splitter that mounts independently of the bumper. Here's a hotboy S13 that kinda illustrates what I'm thinking: I have an experimental idea for making the splitter/undertray too. Two sheets of 10mm foam core ACM stacked together (it's super light and rigid) with aluminium angle sandwiched between the layers for mounting and then wrap the whole lot in Carbon for extra strength and wank factor. Aaaand now I'm thinking about aero, so it's time to revisit the rear wing idea 😁 The idea is growing on me...

Wicked, it's getting so close now. Do you have a plan for keeping the engine bay cool? I didn't and my under bonnet temps got high enough to melt the exhaust side cam sensor... Even after adding heat wrap to the extractors. I'll be adding a couple of extra ducts to cool the exhaust and maybe the alternator next time around.

Bumper arrived today thanks to @Stu for hustling to get it here. Someone left me a few notes on the packaging 🤔 I had a good giggle! Anyway... Now to do some jigging, poking, mounting and repairs to get it looking like the last one.

Haha, it was always the car that came up in discussion back in the early 2010s. "People will start turning up in bloody EE80 Corollas and they don't have chrome bumpers". Now R32s and S13s are genuinely old and Sheepers is chauffeuring in the next era of OS. I reckon it's great cause there are loads of good 90s cars appearing at events now.

I guess this means Gnarlydude's EE80 is oldschool now.

I checked last night and the left rear fastener is a bit loose, which explains the excess movement around left handers. I'll whip the seat out and have a closer look next time it's in the workshop.

Ahem, you're forgetting the 3K-R, which is the only engine in history to overcome a lack of pushrods by running eight quarter race cams (16 lobes!!).

I actually looked at the footage from that roll you mentioned (the facebook link in the quote above) and I don't think the seat mount was his issue at all 👆. The thing rolled twice and his belts were so loose it's not surprising he got hurt. My car will get a new seat one day, but I'm happy enough with it for now. I think the left rear anchor is a little bit loose at the moment, so I'll check that before the next outing.

Thanks for the concern man. It obviously hasn't been high on my priority list.

Found a front bumper in Auckland, so the next game is relaying it to the South Island over the next little while. It's a genuine Uras kit and is slightly cut up already, so will be a perfect base for me to modify without feeling guilty. The corners have been chopped to fit N2 flares. I think this time I'll try to make the bumper 2 pieces, with a separate lip thats easily removable for loading on a trailer etc. It'll also allow me to mount the main bumper more solid since it won't need to be removed every time the car goes on the trailer. Here's an old picture with the front lip split off the bumper. I'll come up with a plan to make the lip lap over the bumper and might make the lip section from carbon fibre... we'll see 🤷

Over the weekend I competed in my first actual race meeting in the South Island at Highlands Park with the SS Cup Class. It feels like this has been a long time coming and I was pretty fizzed to have a run at the "A&C" format of the track that has its first turn straight after the start finish line. The car was looking pretty good! Until I had small a moment in qualifying and went lawn mowing... Unfortunately my front bumper tucked as I landed on the grass and got dragged under the car. This is all that's left of it now 😅 Oh well! nothing lasts forever, especially not Fibreglass. Here's some photos from before the excursion: I threw some tape around it to secure the flares and went back to it. I'd qualified 10th on the grid (second in my class) and it looked like there would be lots of good cars to battle with. The racing was definitely good all day long! We had 4 x 8 lap races of different formats (qualifying order, reverse grid with staggered start, reverse finishing order, another reverse with staggered start). I ended up finishing 10th, 7th, 9th and 2nd in the 4 races and was 2nd in class all day behind Josh from Crowesport in his WRX. Here's a vid from the last race of the day:

See the GX71 wag around the corner that's slammed on Watanabes? He's a local tattoo artist.

Check out that Hiace in the background. Gear!

Took the 86 for its first hoon of the year at Teretonga. It rained, so the day was all about skids. Not complaining.

The TRS dry sump and tank setup is really simple, so I reckon it'd be about as easy as they come... But the layout would be super tight in a FWD car.

Haha, I was going to suggest a little oring like a mountain bike shock.

This is exceptional @Bistro @LoveChild.