RXRX

How would you think a wing or spolier would look on the rx-8?

Immi

Check the pictures section for some examples...some look really nice actually.

T-RX

I think the car should have one of those big-*** aluminum wings that APC makes....like the ones in Fast and The Furious..those are the s**t.

ThaBrkrs349

And how about those awesome popup doors?

Hey, a guy can dream!

wakeech

sure guys, whatever...
i'd prefer to have some real aero peices to the car, like a more aggresive rear diffuser, and a small (Miata style) spoiler (NOT a wing... nobody needs that kind of downforce, and a diffuser can make more anyway!!), with a nice looking diffuser lip for the front air dam (a la RX-7 R1, or R34 Skyline GT-R...)

velociti

iTrader: (1)

*RICE!*


lets not turn this car into a civic.

Rich

I'm with Velociti. IMHO, there's nothing that ruins the look of a car than a spoiler or wing. Well, racing stripes, add-on bodywork, and 20" chrome wheels are nearly as bad, but to each their own. I have no problem with it as an option, and I imagine there will be an option for it.

wakeech

i still think that a solid aero package is much more attractive than the stock setup, which is usually optimized for cost before drag and lift numbers...
i still think that a small ducktail (similar in shape to the designed into the Miata's trunk lid...) spoiler, and understated front and rear diffusers would kick serious ***...

and, well, i don't think cars that achieve that real race car look or performance are "rice" (i know it's the word to use, but i don't like the racial connotations.... i think someone on this board coined "racerboy", so i'll stick with that, and mean the same thing)... many are quite attractive (i especially like nice replica rally cars, easy to do, and pretty good lookin'). what i find "racerboy" are those piece of sh*t APC wings which just look ugly and produce NOTHING but drag, don't fit the car, set at +45 friggin degrees AOA, stickers covering each other up, putting "V-TEC" "TURBO II" and "COBRA" badges on cars which are base model, painting wheel covers with bright silver paint and getting spray over onto the tyres, having a glowing skull shift **** (or variant), a cast model of your car on your dash board, stupid collectors dolls in your back window, side windows colored to match the body colour of the car (FULL of screw-it-up-yourself-bubbles), etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc... that crap looks stupid.
a phat sound system, nice. good lights, or a really sweet custom paint job, nice. lame junk like that?? well... ya.
sorry for ranting, i'm done. my 2 bucks

rototlewski

Save a bever bash a Ricer!

I agree you don't cover your car with stickers unless they are your sponsers and are paying you to do that. Why pay for the stickers your self just so you can drive by people so they will know how bad a ricer you are! Its like "look I didn't really put this on my car but I want you to think i did" :o

Quick_lude

Is my club sticker on my quarter window ok? :D :p
I do race at auto-x and track...

wakeech

c'mon 'Lude, i know you hate them too... they give you a bad rap only 'cause you drive a Honda... it's not that i hate Honda, it's just that the one which personifies the company in this country is the FRIGGIN CIVIC!! i mean COME ON!! <<sigh>> i mean, the sentra has just as good an engine... there's at least as much performance crap (stuff) for it too... jeez... i just don't understand that infatuation at all...

anyway, autocrossing is very cool, and i think would be exactly my speed if i had a car to race (dreaming of an '89 or later FC RX-7)...
btw, i really do like what you've "done" with your car... almost nothing at all. the prelude has really nice lines, and doesn't need to get f*cked up with a Shogun air dam or anything retarded like that... (ya, i've seen the mags...)
but, i'm sure that you could still go pretty wild on it, and it'd still look nice... i really have fallen in love with that aerodynamic touch that the Nissan R34 GT-R, and Peugot rally car, Porche cup cars, and many many others have (that front end diffuser which often runs under and around the brake duct, going through the corner of the bumper and exiting just in front of the wheels...).
a functional, and not too big, diffuser like that would kick some serious *** on nearly anything with a square jaw under the grill.

fuz

A wing just doesn't look right on the short decklid, maybe just a lip spoiler would be ok. Unless it improved the aerodynamics, or was necessary in high speed driving, I would not put something like that on my car. Waste of money, just another part to break, and unecessary weight.

Although, I'm heavily biased towards the sleeper look, so take my opinion as you will.

wakeech

:D yes yes ladies and gentlemen, another vote for the functional aero package.

thanks fuz.

Quick_lude

I definitely cannot stand the "ricers"... in any car.. I've seen so many stupid things out there.. Simple, classy, tasteful and functional. That's what a car should look like. No purple windshield nozzle led lights, no lights on wheel caps, no neons inside/outside.. and my personal favourite, fake disc brakes wheel covers! Or unpainted body kits, VTEC stickers on a domestic, Turbo stickers on a n/a vehicle.. the list goes on and on..

Elara

There's a guy in our apartment complex with the fake disc brakes on a friggin GEO STORM. I despise racer-boys, or whatever we are calling them. Quick_lude, I admit I usually find Preludes annoying, because they are one of the more common around here with the fake mods, but yours is VERY pretty- nothing extra to make it "look" faster- just nice and sleek, and all one color. Congrats on changing my mind about them!

And as for a wing on the RX-8- since I seriously doubt anyone on this board would EVER be able to get an RX-8 going fast enough for a wing to make any real difference (no, I'm NOT asking anyone to jump up and scream "I can too make a wing useful on that car!", because, in my limited understanding of aerodynamics, no, you really can't) my vote, if there does happen to be one on it, is for small and unassuming, if anything. I am NOT a fan of excess form without function.

fuz

Well, a lip spoiler reduces the turbulence at the back of the car, reducing drag, lift, and adding a very slight downforce, depending on how large and angled it is. Done correctly, (if it can a difference in the first place), it will increase gas mileage very slightly as well.

Those big racing wings add downforce in a brute force application, and create a large amount of drag; but it is highly effective when used correctly. (laffs at ricer poseurs) The more drag, the more gas you use. Improperly tuned, it can make a vehicle hazardous to drive at freeway speeds, if you're not flying already. Totally unnecessary for street driving.

The low profile wing acts more like a lip spoiler, but in most cases does nothing and is purely decorative. These I hate the most, as they do nothing, and in most cases, make a car look worse. Not to mention blocking the view from behind and presenting a major PITA to wash and wax.

I don't really care for an aero package, as where I live, the bumps in the roads would make it a bit hazardous. Expensive, easily scraped wheels are bad enough. Well, maybe just a very sublte areo kit, though the RX-8 already looks equiped with one.

Grimace

Here is a vote for a subtle lip spoiler, and a thumbs down for a wing. I've seen the photoshop jobs, and no offence to anyone's photoshop skills, they just don't do a thing for me.

On a side note, when are automotive manufacturers going to start putting smooth undertrays on cars to reduce aero drag? I guess gas prices have to go up a whole lot more.

RX - 8

i think a little lip spoiler like is on my touring rx7 or even the one that came with the r1 models would be nice and trust me, it really helps with all those times your might have scraped the front bumper....i think a very very small wing on the back would look very nice..kind of like the ones that i've seen on some C5's

fuz

When I meant lip spoiler, I meant the edge of the trunk. Sorry for any confusion. I usually refer to the front end as part of the areo kit or ground effects.

As for smooth underbody panels, there are some cars the have been using it for quite awhile. I know the underbody of my BMW is quite flat, and the G35 is particularly flat. The only other car that I've actually seen underneath is the A4, which is also quite flat. Needless to say, any serious sports car has a flat underbody. The thing is, you don't want the underbody to be totally flat, or it increases lift by making the whole car like an airplane wing. To reduce that effect, most cars only have the front half of the car covered in underbody panels. An effective rear diffuser is necessary if you want to keep the underbody totally flat, and you probably need additional downforce by other means to stay stable at high speed.

Besides, the priority for airflow management is first, the rear, then the a pillar (for noise), the sides, the bottom, then the front. It's in that order that airflow drag on those parts have the most effect.

zoom44

yeah, i am still trying to figure out why anyone would want to have a large amount of downforce on the backend of a front wheel drive.

Quick_lude

It's called rice.. or the Fast 'n Furious disease..

"I need Nawz.. The big two bottles.. by TONIGHT" Riiiight..

wakeech

alright!! it seems everyone likes the small spoiler idea... that's terrific...

but, there's a couple of misconceptions that maybe some of you'd be interested in clearing up?? i don't want to sound like i really am a big-headed-know-it-all, but here goes...

Elara, ya, you really can make some very noticeable aerodynamic effect on a wing, even at a speed as low as 45 miles per hour... not huge, no, but it can make a difference (but you'd need a helluva lot of wing to do it...)... but at 60 or 70 miles per hour, ya, the wing is definitely working (i mean a REAL wing... even the small ones touring cars are allowed to have, not the APC p.o.s. things...)
uh, race cars want d/f on the rear wheels even when they're front wheel drive vehicles (assuming they have some smarts and negate as much lift as they can on the front so the effect is balanced...) just to increase overall cornering capability... fuz can enlighten further on the importance of rear wheel grip, even on FWD cars, can't ya?? :D

oh, and i know you didn't mean REAL ground effects when you said that fuz (just thinking of those trim peices that inhibit air flow to the bottom of the car...), but it's still a funny idea to consider a road car with an entire ground effects setup on their car... :D
low profile wing?? do you mean those retarded factory-"sporty"-option that so many people buy?? oh jesus... no they really are only decorative (ever look at the cord profile?? usually just a friggin TRAPEZIOD, so they can fit the LED lights in them!! )
yep, reducing the velocity of the air beneath the car will increase its pressure (the WRONG way, you want LESS pressure beneath the car!! ie, more airspeed under the car than over, or at least equal) and make it "like" an airplane wing (generating aerodynamic lift...)

also, someone suggested making the bottom of the car totally flat, and by this i am guessing they're imagining a marble-smooth underbelly, to reduce drag. well my friend, this is exactly the intuitive thing to think, but fluids like air are really screwy... hmm... how to explain.
think of when you look at a river, notice how the water near the banks doesn't flow nearly as quickly (the banks are flat, and smooth)?? now think about water flowing around a little "eddy" in the water... see how quick that is?? it's because of the adhesiveness of the fluid, or something, that they flow much slower when rubbing next to something, even very very smooth, flowing laminarly (in "sheets"). this layer that sticks to the surface it's flowing on, and by then sticking to the air running next to it slows the entire flow of air, is called the "boundary layer". to combat this, when you look at a manifold or head job done RIGHT, you'll see that it's slightly rough, in a random pocked sort of way (metal bits from sand casting come this way already, and create the same effect). that slight bit of turbulence along the surface of the material breaks up the laminar flow of that boundary layer, and creates a small buffer of turbulent air next to it. this turbulence acts almost like ball bearings, allowing the laminar flow of air to move past unabeited (spelling??). so, sometimes less drag is created with the bumpy surface, rather than the mirror smooth one. oh!! this is the same effect that the spoiler on the back of the car that everyone here likes works on... it drags along behind it a (small) vortex of turbulent air which facilitates a gentler flow "downwards" of the air coming down the back of the car, reducing drag and lift (the lift coming from the downward movement of the air from the top of the car; "...equal and opposite reaction" and all that).

i don't think that a net effect of down force is required for high speeds, though. if the net effect is zero (EVERYWHERE on the car), then that means the grip the car has at 200 mph is the same as the grip it has at 0 mph.

fuz

Yep, the mc laren f1 would be a good car to study all of the above on. It generates all its downforce without the help of an oversize wing, which is particularly important considering its top speed.

To see just how effective a wing can generate downforce, all you need to do is stick a peice of cardboard out a window a 30mph or so. You'll find that even at that speed, a fair amount of downforce can be generated on something the size of an 8.5"x10" sheet tilted at a 10 degree angle.

This of course means that on a car, you have to be going constantly fast around corners to get the best use of a wing. On straightaways, it's detrimental. Hence it is pretty useless on real roads as you usually have to slow down quite a bit for safety reasons, and you cruise on the highway for long periods of time--the two things that a wing is useless for.

Grimace

I suppose I should qualify my earlier statement. I didn't mean an entirely smooth underbody. At the leading edge of the object (the car) the air should be tripped to turbulence to reduce the friction between the airstream/underbody. I think most cars do this anyway with the front air dam.
Once the air is tripped to turbulence, it won't go back to laminar no matter how smooth the bottom of the car is.
Even though the air is turbulent, it still creates drag, so it makes sense to keep the underbody smooth. For example, keep exhaust pipes tucked up. Ever look under a 99-01 Camry? The rear pipe sticks a good 6 inches into the airstream. I'm not saying the gas saving will be huge, but a little more thoughtful engineering and very little extra $ could make the small difference.
Not to mention having a pipe stick down so far will catch every piece of roadkill you go over, cooking it on the pipe...

Rich

I'm with fuz and Elara. The only real effect that a wing or spoiler gives you in a street car is looks. If you're going fast enough around corners on public roads to need downforce, you're simply driving way past the legal, sensible, and ethical limits. You need to be pulling close to .9g at a high rate of speed (50,60,80 mph?) to both get and need that kind of aerodynamic help. As fuz pointed out, downforce won't help you in a straight line, and you'd have to be going way too fast around a corner to have the downforce help you. What if there's gravel on the onramp at 9/10ths? What if some car was dripping oil while sitting there during rush hour?
I also am "NOT a fan of excess form without function".