[DeTomaso]   Grp 4 air dam

JDeRyke at aol.com JDeRyke at aol.com
Mon Sep 21 15:16:16 EDT 2009


 fresnofinches at aol.com writes:
> Despite what I was told by one vendor during his repairs to 2511 aftermy 
> off-road-adventure, there IS more than one way to install thisspoiler. The 
> right way, and the wrong way.   For me the right way is one that lets me 
> drive around town without tearing it apart on a weekly basis. The vendor had 
> installed it with a MUCH greater angle, and it scraped on just about every 
> driveway in town, including his shop's.
> 
To expand on Larry's nice description above, some people who want to push 
more air away from the front end in high speed events but cannot afford to 
drive the car that way every day due to constant damage, do several things:

1)- I've seen stiff rubber strips bolted/rivited to the bottom of a 
moderate-angle spoiler to extend it downward without being rigid and incurring 
constant road-damage. The rubber should be stiff enough so that high speed air 
doesn't fold it back. Can't tell you how stiff it should be; too weak and it 
folds under. Too stiff and you'll still crack the main spoiler on the 
ground, especially if you're also braking hard in a turn. Far stiffer springs on 
aftermarket coil-overs might be needed to help combat nose-dive.

2)- Hall used to sell a hydraulic cylinder that looked like a screen door 
closer hooked to the frame and the front a-arms and driven by an on-board 
compressor. This when activated raised the whole front some 2-1/2" so as to 
allow one to use public streets with low-mounted air dams. The system may still 
be available; heavy,complicated and slow-reacting but they did work.

3)- I once had a low-,ounted wrap-around air dam on a non-Pantera autocross 
car. After cracking it three times   on city streets, I fabricated a new 
center section of 050" sheet aluminum, retaining the stock complex ends of 
fiberglas. The aluminum central dam worked well and could be straightened 
(weekly!) to look more-or-less OK with pliers and a mallet. Rattle-can touch ups 
were needed too. The whole rig eventually got to be more trouble than it was 
worth and removed and I sold it to someone more patient than I.

Final thoughts: one Pantera owner ran such an airdam on his street car and 
found that on-track, it pushed so much air aside, he burned off a set of 
brake pads in 1.0 event due to inadequate cooling air to the brakes. This had 
not happened before. He wound up ducting air hoses to the rotors- more 
complication. Personally, I think low-hanging front spoilers are too much trouble 
on the street for the benefits one gets on-track. All the foregoing assumes 
you will actually drive the car on the street as well as at competition 
events. For show cars, anything's possible at 8-10 mph. Good luck- J Deryke



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