At speeds beginning at 120 the US DOT raised ride height Pantera's front end will start to float. If you lower the Pantera to Dallara's originally designed ride height with the A-Arm's flat and parallel with the road surface, and with a short and well clearanced GTS fiberglass or a short blade type front spoiler, we can get to 155 MPH when it's all you can do is hold on to it in two lanes of traffic as I experienced at the Silver State. With a group 4 or group 5 front spoiler you are good up to about 180 MPH when the roof and deck lid design will begin to lift the roof and unload the rear of the Pantera so you need a rear spoiler and diffuser to break up the rear lift to hold it down. A wing will do the same, but you probably won't have the HP to be able to get there with most wings, and it then it will become rear heavy and unbalanced. So if you were to get air under the front end where you end up like Junior Wilson and/or the Audi Prototype car at Le Mans 10 years ago, going a spectacular 70 feet in the air going end over end until final impact. A simple Nascar type blade spoiler to break the lift without adding much drag is about all you need. Mike Cook told me with the aluminum front hood skin, that at about 185 MPH, it was pushed (crushed inward) in from the frontal air pressure just above where the vented hood vents would have been. So at speed, the typical radiator front hood vents would probably be putting more air under the Pantera aero design, further destabilizing it. Now let all that data settle in.
Larry Stock
On 2/3/21, 1:20 PM, "detomaso-bounces at server.detomasolist.com on behalf of dan at excaliburre.com" <detomaso-bounces at server.detomasolist.com on behalf of dan at excaliburre.com> wrote:
Regarding the aerodynamics at high speed, when Cook Sr. built "The
Beast" in '71 he used rubber thongs on the vented fiberglass front deck
lid, which allows it to float at high speed.
On the rear deck lid he installed a huge stainless steel wing, like
something off a B-52.
The wind didn't appear to help enough.
On one infamous Silver State Challenge the rear of "The Beast" was
lifting above 170 mph.
About 1/2 way through my run "The Beast" stabilized and started holding
the road again.
After arriving at the finish line someone asked me what happened to my
rear deck lid (now fiberglass and without the B-52 wing) and I realized
it was gone.
I'm guessing it flew off at the same time the car stabilized.
Dan
Dan Courtney
La Jolla, CA
(858) 337-7019 cell
Dan at excaliburre.com
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