A friend and I are tossing around the idea of producing a new wing for the 2nd gen RX-7 and I would like some feedback to see how many people out there might be intersted in such a wing. It would be fiberglass, possibly with an aluminum horizontal section, and would utilize the stock mounting holes. However, we plan to make the angle of attack of the wing adjustable from low to high downforce positions by means of an elecrtical servo motor and pushrods through the mounting holes. The servo would be activated at a preset speed to automatically go from one position to the other, and the driver would also be able to lock it in either position full time if he wanted. We plan on making this actually areodynamically useful and NOT just cosmetic, although it will look cool as hell in any case! We want to test the wing on the car using digital strain guages, etc to measure the actual downforce it is producing to come up with the best design. We want it designed such that there would have to be no permanent alterations to the car other than possibly drilling a few mounting holes for the servo. I have an engineering degree and my friend is an all-around ingenious guy so I think we have the ability to make this a very nice, functional, finished package. We want to price it competitively with all the other non-moveable spoilers on the market, so out target price is around $250 to $300. We haven't sourced all the hardware for it yet or built a prototype, so we can't pin down the cost exactly yet, but it will be as low as possible without sacrificing quality...it has to be stable at those triple-digit speeds! So if we could offer a wing like this at about the cost of other standard aftermarket wings, how many people would be interested? Please share any questions, comments, or suggestions you may have!!

 

I WANT ONE!! A.S.A.P!!

 

company called art piece in korea produces this. email me for sales information.

scott

 

 

That's interesting, so what kind of NACA airfoil do you plan on using, and what general dimensions for the cord and span? Are you going to vary the angle of incidence like a stabilator, or will you have a separate moveable elevator/flap/trim tab and a fixed horizontal stabilizer? BTW, it's going to cost you a lot more than $250-300 to make it, but it may be worth a try to see what you can come up with.

Here is a link to the adjustable Takakaira wing:
http://www.takakaira.com/php/template.php3?id=586&cat=1

 

Not sure on the airfoil...this is all still in very preliminary stages. I need to get into some of my old fluid dynamics books first, and get some specs on different airfoils. I used to have a book of NACA airfoils and ducts, but I lost it in moving a while back. As for the chord and span, I want it to be as wide as the car, and a chord of maybe 8 inches or so....close to a conventionl wing. The entire wing surface will be moveable, not just elevator tabs on the back. The biggest difference between our esign and the one in that link is that ours will look much cleaner...like a conventional wing, becasue the servo will be mounetd inside the car in the area by the spare tire instead of made into the mounting pillars like the other design. The servo rods will exit through the stock mounting holes. I would expect greater than 15 degrees of movement, more like 30-35 degrees, but this will be determined by testing. Also, ours will AUTOMATICALLY raise and lower in correlation to vehicle speed, not just be manual like the other one. We have access to a lot of fabrication equipment, so I think we can build such a wing reasonably cheaply. You can make a fiberglass wing for well under $100 in materials if you make your own mold, and the only additional expense is the servo unit, which would be the biggest additional cost, and electronics, which I can build dirt cheap. What would you guys be more interested in...an aluminum style "Le Mans" type wing or a fiberglass one more in line with how the stock one looks?

 

I am all set but I think its a great idea, good luck. I can always appreciatte true custom parts

 

ALUMINUM WOULD BE NICE!!!! AND IF U COULD LOOK INTO CARBON FIBER ALSO THAT WOULD BE GOOD!!

 

So it would be like a Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 wannabe? No thanks

 

www.artpiece.co.kr sells adjustable wings a lot cheaper than that!

scott

 

I will admit this wouldn't be a big hit with everyone...we all have our individual tastes. But I think there is a little bit of a niche out there for something like this. It will definately NOT be a 3000gt wannabe...like I said this would be FUNCTIONAL not just cosmetic and another "cool" button to play with. (dont get me wrong, I like the 3000's ok) I have a decent background in fluid dynamics and such and an interest in road racing...Mercedes built some active dynamic downforce cars in the 80's that were freaking unbelievable...so much so that they got banned in about 2 months I think. I think something like (though obviously not that extreme) for the our RX-7's on the street would be interesting.

 

Oh yeah...I don't know about carbon fiber....I've never worked with that before. Anyone ever built from scratch with it before?

 

too bad wings don't do anything till you reach 100mph.... chances are if you're going that fast for any period of time you're on a road track, which means you wouldn't have much need to lower the wing for less air drag at slower speeds.

 

Wings do nothing till 100mph?? I think it's a bit less than that.

 

Got any preliminary pics?&nbsp The majority of the rear spoilers out there do VERY LITTLE in terms of down-force.&nbsp Ever seen the newer R.E.Amemiya FC3S rear wings???&nbsp They are HUGE, and the horizontal airfoil is WAY UP above the roofline - there is a reason for this:&nbsp the FC (and FD) create lots of turbulence in the back hatch area.&nbsp Wings in a turbulence area have very little effect.&nbsp You need to have wings outside of the turbulence area, which means putting them high up (practically).&nbsp This looks gaudy (rice?) on the street, but it's effective.&nbsp On top of everything else, I doubt the majority of us (me included) would have a clue on what the "angle-of-attack" should be on the rear wing...aero tuning is pretty tricky and if you screw up at high speeds, you're could end up pretty hurt or dead testing your settings.

A recent Option video shows some testing with an FD and three rear wing configurations.&nbsp The stock wing was based tested.&nbsp A Mazdaspeed (GT-R type) wing was then tested.&nbsp Last was that huge-*** R.E.Amemiya rear spoiler that's also on thir JTCC car.&nbsp The results were minimal between the stock and Mazdaspeed rear wing, but the last wing showed phenomenal increases in speed and lap times on the track!&nbsp This goes to show how important it is to get the rear wing out of the turbulence area...



-Ted

 

I have been worried about that too...maybe having to put the wing up really high. I don't want to do that for just the rason stated...looks way too ricey in the street. As for the 100 mph thing, the actual physical truth is that wings do have effect at very low speeds, it is just so small it is negligable. Force created by moving air (drag, lift, etc) increases with the square of the velocity of the air, so you get a hyperbolic shaped force curve when it is plotted as a function of vehicle speed. In other words if you double your speed you get 4 times the force. So if a wing produced 100 pounds of downforce at 100 mph, then it should produce about 25 pounds of force at 50 mph. We don't have any pics yet, we have finals this week here in the wonderful world of med school. But next week we are going to do some preliminary drawings and I will post those on here as soon as I can.