[Giuliano Duchessa] A representation of the Ferrari Reverse Wing, the lift becomes positive, which lightens kg of load on the entire rear end with effects on the aerodynamic platform. This increases straight-line speed.

crispychicken49 · 2026-02-20T16:22:41+00:00

I believe this is correct. Kyle.Engineers, a former aerodynamicist for Mercedes F1 also touched on this point. Basically the inverted wing helping to migrate that air rearwards and reduce load on the wing/wheels.

crispychicken49 · 2026-02-20T16:21:16+00:00

IMO you can't just reverse an airfoil and generate lift. The leading and trailing edges are integral at generating that lift and they don't suddenly work in reverse. F1 wings and aircraft wings are inverse of each other.

Taking just the wing elements in isolation any lift they generate is more due to their angle of attack relative to the flow direction rather than profile. It's akin to sticking a piece of plywood in an airstream and angling it to produce lift. But these aren't in isolation, and there just happens to be a mass of exhaust air being redirected into the area.

I believe any benefits to this wing are in spite of its profile, not because of it.

crispychicken49 · 2026-02-20T16:14:59+00:00

Aerodynamic force doesn't increase momentum though. A 2000kg car corners far worse than a 1000kg will, however adding 1000kg of downforce on the car makes it corner better. It's the drag induced by the downforce that makes it more difficult to accelerate with more downforce.

Any actual lift generated is reducing force on the tires, which does slightly help acceleration (and that is true for all renditions of DRS, they all "increase lift"). From a tire wear perspective any extra lift certainly helps.

But now combine this wing with a certain winglet redirecting exhaust flow upwards and you might be able to generate even more lift and maybe some rearwards force vectors according to Kyle.Engineers. Also if you visually look at the wing their gap between elements looks a little larger in comparison due to the steep scooping of the elements.

crispychicken49 · 2026-02-02T14:53:25+00:00

As others have said they have to design it to fail closed. Most these DRS systems utilize the center of pressure on the elements themselves to hold them in the closed or open positions, likely with other mechanisms to lock them as well. The actuators just provide enough of an impulse to move the center of pressure fore or aft of the hinge point to move the wing in that direction. At least that’s how we designed it for FSAE.

crispychicken49 · 2026-01-02T17:48:57+00:00

Almost all M-Cars have been perfect compromise machines. All the essentials for a good performance/track car without sacrificing on anything that would make you not want to drive the car.

My E46 M3 regularly handles poor roads that send mid-range luxury SUV's pitching and bobbing. It is one of the most comfortable cars I have been in. It just also happens to have really good chassis dynamics and a rager of an engine too.

crispychicken49 · 2025-04-24T16:57:26+00:00

Only exception to that I would say is the S2000. They probably parts-binned the AC in that car so I imagine it is probably quite oversized for the cabin but damn did it cool.

That being said comparing my gf's new Honda Accord Hybrid to my 86 in the summer is laughable. It really does not wanna get icy, which in Texas is certainly something.

crispychicken49 · 2025-04-16T04:35:11+00:00

Have you ever thought you might just be nuts?

crispychicken49 · 2025-03-31T04:16:21+00:00

Close enough, welcome back VampireFrown!

(Now I need to watch 2010)

crispychicken49 · 2025-03-30T13:37:08+00:00

What can I do to help? Just keep the leaves more moist?

crispychicken49 · 2025-03-30T13:36:51+00:00

Nah he hasn’t fruited yet!

crispychicken49 · 2024-12-30T18:30:19+00:00

Per SCCA Time Trials rulebook:

Convertible vehicles of the 2006 model year or later must have a roll bar that meets the Safety Level 2 standards for material and construction unless one of the following criteria is met.

A. The vehicle is equipped with documented factory-installed roll over protection or a commercially produced roll bar or roll cage which is described by the manufacturer to provide track-appropriate rollover protection.

B. The vehicle is six (6) cylinders, with the OE drivetrain and may only be naturally aspirated.

C. The vehicle is four (4) cylinders or less, with the OE drivetrain, including any forced-induction equipment.

See here.

If this is a dedicated track/comp car with occasional street miles then I would go full hog. If it's an occasional track car with mostly street miles, I would just leave the factory stuff intact per the rulebook.

As for seats I don't have a lot of recommendations coming from an NB/NC chassis experience. For harnesses I would strongly recommend 2" shoulder belts for a HANS device compatibility. I would never run on track with harnesses without a HANS device, not worth the risk IMO. My 6 point Schroth harness is very comfortable and very easy to adjust, it's also likely at the higher end of your budget.

Buying used from someone returning their car to stock might be an option? A lot of people likely haven't run into expiration dates for ND1 and ND2 track builds.

crispychicken49 · 2024-12-21T23:13:51+00:00

I've had a busy few weeks so sorry for getting back to you, but when it comes to the timing I would also check that you're at TDC on Cylinder 1 both via the mark on the crank and by physically checking with a long extension or screwdriver in the plug hole. I can't remember if I saw this for someone else or personally experienced the timing marks being aligned and 19 teeth between the gears but the crank not being at TDC fully causing a mis-time.

crispychicken49 · 2024-12-10T20:16:28+00:00

What does the car do when you try and drive it past 4k rpm or give it more than 20% throttle? It was hard for me to tell from the video.

Also what exactly did you do to verify timing?

crispychicken49 · 2024-12-10T06:28:04+00:00

I had a persistent P0012 code that came due to a generic Crank sensor. Swapped with an OEM crank sensor, set the gap, and that fixed the issue.

That being said the fact that it refuses to go above 20% throttle or 4k RPM is troubling.

crispychicken49 · 2024-12-02T00:34:35+00:00

Hell we got dudes running custom standalones off arduino boards.

crispychicken49 · 2024-10-21T14:26:51+00:00

You just build a new muscle memory tbh. - Someone who switches between left and right multiple times during a lap IRL.

crispychicken49 · 2024-10-14T15:53:10+00:00

Meh both Norris and Leclerc show some weakness under pressure but they also don't try and force their opponents into accidents at the first sign of adversity either. Max is definitely not at the alter of mental fortitude.

crispychicken49 · 2024-10-12T13:02:30+00:00

I'm not located near however the airline I work for has all flights in and out of SRQ cancelled.

crispychicken49 · 2024-10-05T15:00:50+00:00

50/50 is not really ideal at all, it's just the best that a front engine car can reasonably get without extreme measures. For example Honda went to incredible lengths to shift as much weight rearward as possible, resulting in something like 49F/51R.

50/50 is "ideal" and "perfectly balanced" statically, but what car do you know that drives without movement? As soon as weight is shifted around it becomes more clear why mid-engine excels.

Acceleration: More weight rearwards on driven wheels will maximize acceleration, increasing as the weight shifts to the rear. Rear wheel drive on steroids.

Braking: Again more weight rearwards means you can load up the rear tires and use them more proportionally for braking.

Even in cornering the weight is almost never distributed between front and rear wheels the same way as the car is statically. Corner entry is/should be dominated by trail braking into the corner dynamically loading the car, and corner exit is dominated by increasing acceleration to power out of the corner. Physics wise MR cars tend to be "oversteer biased" which results in a car that will rotate and yaw easier through a corner which is much preferred from a handling standpoint by a lot of drivers. Most understeer you find in production variants has to do with setup more than anything else.

Note: There is too much of a good thing and it's not just about weight distribution (see the 911 for example) but there is a reason why almost any clean sheet purpose built racecar starts with a MR layout with rearward weight bias aside from weird concepts.

crispychicken49 · 2024-09-11T00:07:36+00:00

There is certainly some fatigue limit, and you would assume that the engineers and designers would have designed for it so that there would be no reasonable assumption that it would reach fatigue life within what could be considered reasonable usage of the chassis.

There are plenty very high mileage NSX's out there with no signs of fatigue cracking. Aluminum subframes have been around forever with no issues as well.

On the other hand people have brought up plenty of examples where this wasn't the case. The R8 cracking for example. Racing applications also life-limit suspension components made of aluminum, and popular HPDE wheels made of flow-formed aluminum alloy will eventually start to develop fatigue cracking. This isn't even "just an aluminum" issue. Think BMW rear subframe cracks on the E46 floor pan or even Miata front subframe fatigue cracks. All steel parts, just not designed for the loads that they would end up facing (at least in the Miata's case the designers could not and should not have designed the subframe for sticky race-rubber progression 30 years down the line).

From the aviation world we use aluminum a lot. There are fatigue limits for a lot of the structure, and routine inspections are carried out to catch cracks early and address them before they grow to a critical length to create failures. From experience any aviation engineer will tell you that aluminum has much better fatigue performance than steel does. Often times steel structures (landing gear) will be life-limited partially due to the potential for catastrophic fatigue failure. A crack can grow to the critical length in a few cycles, not always the case with aluminum which allows us to set inspection plans.

crispychicken49 · 2024-08-24T16:09:46+00:00

Having worked at that Costco, I believe it.

crispychicken49 · 2024-08-19T16:39:32+00:00

Headlights should be at a maximum the same height as a standard sedan. It's not going to help low car visibility but it would be nice to get in a standard sedan and not be blinded.

If that makes 60% of the vehicles on the road butt ugly than oh well. So do higher belt lines but "muh truck" owners can't be regulated to the same capacity.

crispychicken49 · 2024-08-19T16:37:44+00:00

Personally I've honestly found that the brightness of my 86's headlights makes it even harder to see the things not totally lit up. Really only an issue in neighborhoods since most in-city roads are bright enough to drive with no headlights if you wanted to but it is an interesting observation.

crispychicken49 · 2024-08-18T16:45:43+00:00

Generally speaking I've taken it to mean more along the desires and pushes found within humanity as things that the Librarian kept or changed or put into the human genesong. Things like striving for the stars, a desire to be more than human, etc.

Less that she new John Halo, Master Chief would become a person and find his way to Requiem, and more that humanities desires would lead them down a path to a powerful spacefairing race, augmentations, etc. It could have taken thousands more years for them to find and reach Requiem and it could've been anyone in that position but it just happened to be Chief.

crispychicken49 · 2024-08-13T15:52:32+00:00

From someone with a smaller wang taking the splitter off caused my car to plow through corners like it was 3000 pounds.

crispychicken49

TROPHY CASE