Celica Hobby - [EXTERIOR] Front Bumper Air Splitters and Air Dams

a little FYI about front bumper Air Splitters... Air dams and splitters have the same basic purpose: to help the car create downforce (or reduce the amount of lift) primarily at the front of the car. Downforce is good because tires have more grip when they have more force pushing down on them. Air dams and splitters force some of the air that would otherwise go under the car to go over the top or around the sides of the car. By doing that they create a lower air pressure under the car which helps to pull the car down. They only have an effect when the car is moving and have more effect as the speed increases. A splitter is basically an air dam with a horizontal lip added to the bottom of it. The splitter can be used to add downforce to the front of a car because there is an area of high-pressure air in front of the car. The high pressure is created when the car is moving because the air is suddenly slowed down when it runs into the front of the car. That area of high-pressure air also forces air through the radiator and allows “ram air” systems to work. Adding a horizontal lip to the air dam gives the high-pressure air a surface to push down on, creating downforce.

In general, adding an air dam to a production-based car will tend to reduce the total drag and reduce the amount of lift at the front of the car. The reduced drag will increase the top speed and the reduced lift will help the front tires grip better. Adding a splitter lip to an air dam will further reduce the lift at the front of the car without a significant change in drag. Based on the rules you have mentioned, if you were trying to get the most downforce, you would want to make it as close to the ground as possible with the largest possible horizontal lip, and extend it under the car as far as you can. If you can make the ground clearance adjustable, that will give you another option for tuning high-speed handling.

Now that I’ve explained a little bit about how air dams and splitters work, you need to consider if adding one to your car will`actually make it faster. Since air dams and splitters have an aerodynamic effect, they will effect the high-speed handling much more than the low-speed handling. Since your car is new, you may not know how it handles yet. The thing to keep in mind though, is that adding an air dam or splitter will create more oversteer in high-speed turns. If you currently have understeer that’s good, if you already have oversteer that’s bad. If you need more understeer in high-speed turns, then you need more downforce at the rear of the car. Running the stock rear wing is usually a good idea, they do make a slight amount of downforce and in some cases actually reduce the total vehicle drag. Since you can’t add a different rear wing, you will have to evaluate if adding an air dam will improve your handling or make it worse. Increasing the total downforce on the car is always better, but if adding downforce to one end makes the handling worse, the car may be faster without it. Testing with careful lap-time comparisons should lead you to the best compromise.

For a track like Daytona, adding an air dam or splitter will probably make the car faster by reducing the drag. You will have to test to see how it affects the handling.

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