[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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