…gives you wings apparently.  In my case 1/2 of the Anzac day holiday gave me a wing…

This first pic is from inside the boot.  The wing needs something strong to push down onto – if you want to take full advantage of it.  So its mounted into the rear subframe, where all the suspension is mounted.  The idea is that every gram of down force that this thing produces gets fed straight to pushing the tyres onto the road – rather than the force going into flexing the rear body work.

And the other side.

Close up.  This shows the mounting plate where the alloy strut (see pics a bit lower down this post) mounts to the car.  It bolts on under here so that it can be removed if required – but it keeps the bolt heads etc out of the air flow.

Here are the alloy struts.  They go through the boot lid and attach to the mounts shown above.  I choose to do it this way to keep all of the mounts etc out of the air flow that is running over the car.

There is a single hole at the rear edge of the wing, where it can pivot.  The holes in the front edge allows the angle of the wing to be changed, meaning that I can create more or less downforce as required.  This change may be based on circuit characteristics or just to even out the balance of the car i.e if the back is sliding at speed, I can add more angle, and therefore more downforce to the rear to balance it out.

With the wing sitting in place, set about about half way through its range of adjustment.

A shot from further back, so better see the scale of the wing in proportion to the car.  I’m not sure if I haven’t gone too far rearwards with the wing to make it look right.  We will see when the wheels are back on and its out of the shed.

LOTS more to do before Wanneroo!  I did a list last night of the things remaining to be done – its a little scary…

No just kidding, that last picture was the first mock-up, but it was waaaayyyy too high!  It was over 30cm above the roof line.

So I kept working on it and think I’ll end up with a height like this.

Again, the mounts are just scrap pieces for mocking it up.

The real mount will look like this (except wont be made of cardboard – just in case it rains).

And on the car, will look a bit like this

Just need to source some thicker alloy to turn this carboard cut-out into a real wing mount.

Once I have that, I can position it on the car and make the framework that will run from the rear chassis up to the underside of the boot lid to support the aerodynamic loads that this wing will generate – well over 100kg of force when on the Porsche that it came from.

After that’s all done, will need to start working on the front end to make it generate more downforce to match what the rear end will be capable of now.

Here is the final (well I think it is – I’m still not 100% convinced of my own decision…)

I also spent a bunch of time trimming up the metalwork that is going to stay on the car.  I want small tubs to remain over the wheels to keep water, stones etc from filling up the rear  of the car.

A view inside the car.

Inside the wheel well.

Then spent a bit of time making the fuel filler flap lighter, sealing it permanently shut as the fuel filler will be on the other side of the car with the new fuel tank (once I build it :))  Also put the rear bumper back on, some of the rear trim and the boot lid – ready to start on the rear wing mounts.

Still trying to work out exactly where to run some of these bars, to make it all look right.

Not sure about this layout….

Another view of the mock-up, from above this time.

View from the rear (standing inside the boot actually :))

I’ve now welded in most of the bars, with the one running up to the rear strut towers still having a question mark over it.

More soon.

So, after a couple of good events, there is now a 6 week break until the next event.  So i figured I’d just quickly cut the rear of the car out….

The first step was to remove the fuel tank and then cut the boot floor out.  Quite funny really considering the amount of time I spent making this new floor and welding it all in a few years ago (I removed the spare wheel well to fit the fuel tank in a better location)

The first bar work was the rear end, joining the subframe to the rear cage structure.

The next part was to join the front of the subframe to the rest of the new chassis.  At this same time, I decided to replace the original part of the subframe that supports the nose of the diff.  This took a lot of weight out and it also made the rest of the chassis a better structure by running up to the nose of the diff.

The next lot of bars were more about supporting the suspension pickup points than supporting the diff or the chassis.

Another view above.

Below you can see the floor, and the bars supporting the nose of the diff.  The next step is to remove this floor.  At the moment, it is in the way of a bar that I want to run to one of the upper suspension mounts.

More soon.

The event went well, the car worked good – just need to get the boost control a bit better to make maximum use of the power that she can make.

Finished 4th outright out of the 80 odd cars.  Made a mistake on the last run – tried a different line that did not work……  I don’t think it would have been enough for 3rd place, but it should have been a faster lap (was faster everywhere else in the lap, just lost it all on the one corner and following straight)

I have now bought a new solenoid for the boost controller – hoping that will help to control it better.  Will have to do a quick test run before Waneroo.

Next on the agenda modifications wise it to:

• Tube frame the rear end
• Clean up the aero underfloor of the car – was only very roughly put together for Collie
• Mount the new rear wing that has been in the shed for the last year (see previous posts on the acquiring of the wing)
• Add some more front downforce to balance up the new rear wings extra downforce.
• Fit some stiffer springs as an experiment.

Some more posts and pictures of these mods as soon as I get out to the shed to make them 🙂