living with the shame

[Sidewinder]

If you really have a problem with the use of 'sports', how would you define an SUV?

For those real 'sportsmen' - darts players.

[GeoffC320]

Hey Megatron...check this one (my mate's car).

http://www.madspit.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

Now THAT could give a few people a surprise! Shame it suffered an unfortunate fire-related incident shortly after 99% completion and is currently awaiting yet another rebuild...

[MegatronUK]

Mmm... nice. I heartily approve.

[Mike 'MR2' McHugh]

I think you will find that a lot of the rear spoilers on road cars (that aren't purely cosmetic) are actually 'fine tuning' devices designed to improve stability. The Audi TT is a classic example - the original (a close copy of their show car) was unstable, hence the small lip spoiler at the rear. It's all to do with the Centre of Pressure.

McLaren added a pop-up spoiler to the F1 road car for the same reason. Incidentally this is also why pop-up headlights have now disappeared from production - at high speeds they alter the aerodynamics sufficiently to cause possible instability due to front-end lift etc.

But few road cars produce downforce even with large wings (stuff like the Escort Cosworth produced a marginal amount); it's getting more common now but is usually achieved with very careful underbody management of aerodynamics.

Any spoiler not specifically designed for the car in question, with at least some wind-tunnel time and consistent fitting points (!) is going to be a gamble at best as to whether it makes things better or worse.

Personally this is one area I wouldn't really mess with as I wouldn't want to find out the hard way that it produced some adverse effects!

i was going to mention something about the TT, when they were rare in the u.k.....i cant remember figures exactly but something like 33 out of the 250 that were in the u.k were roled before being recalled to have the lip spoiler fitted.....makes sense !!!

[GeoffC320]

[quote="Mike 'MR2' McHugh i was going to mention something about the TT, when they were rare in the u.k.....i cant remember figures exactly but something like 33 out of the 250 that were in the u.k were roled before being recalled to have the lip spoiler fitted.....makes sense !!![/quote]

If I remember rightly, they also had some work done on the rear suspension geometry/bushings etc - think it was allowing too much compliance and some unintended rear-wheel steering or something...

Drove one a while back: *how* unimpressed? Felt like an absolute gutless barge after my '2 - it REALLY didn't like going round corners!