twitchy

Alright first off, I know full well that some of you have those big aluminum looking spoilers that are about 3 feet tall and look like they belong on the rear deck of a Le Mans car or something. But can ANYONE explain what the point of wasting that kind of money is on a wing like that? (no offense intended to anyone here)

I saw a 240 tonight, I am one of 4 in the town where I live that I know of. (S13 model)

anyhow, it was lime green and rust, had a big apple juice can muffler and sounded like a sick gerbil. But this wing.. Like..it must have been 2 inches taller then the roof, and it was like a double decker. I asked the kid what he paid, and he said 300 bucks!!! WTF??

i mean, it makes your car slower, adds drag, reduces fuel economy, and looks silly to boot!

You cant tell me that it makes downforce either, cause if a 150 horsepower car could somehow go 200 plus MPH and make enough of it, i suspect that the wing would rip apart or the downforce would dent into the sheet metal trunk.

Why why why why......

DRG1

Because they can and they want to. not my taste at all, but to each their own......

twitchy

i know, im not one to make fun of someones car at all, and I dont, but I dont get it. If I had 300 to blow on my car, it would be like a tranny / diff flush, oilspray, polish and seal.. Not a wing that makes the car slower and kills my mileage

but as you say, all to their own

DRG1

Same thing I would do. only wing that i would let touch my car(s14) is the kouki ks wing. it's o-so nice. I also like the wingless look. YOu're right though......i'd spend 300 on tires, tires, and some more tires.

twitchy

yeah I could use some tires too... Hey I was dared to tape a snowboard to my spoiler and drive around like that at "cruise night" here in Sudbury, and make fun of so many of the honda drivers..

do you have a pic of that wing you mentioned?

DRG1

someone posted it on his kouki s14. down an couple posts under silvia parts kouki ks wing

Bbandit

yes i saw one 240 with aluminum wing too here in town..
but i dont really care
but when he start to talk, "dude, my wing helps me a lot on my autoX run"... i will simply go mad!

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sykikchimp

Tell that to Adam H. on FA... he swears by his wing, and he competes in Solo I with SCCA.

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misnomer

Smack me if I'm wrong, but isn't Solo I higher speed track racing, where you could potentially benefit from a wing?

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pruto

for all you haters, do you know the drag, downforce, and weight of these wings? i doubt it.

granted, most big ass wings are not necessary, BUT, for most well designed wings, you don't need to go 200 mph for it to take effect. And how do you know that these alumnimum wings need that kind of speed to add to performance?>

I majored in aerospace engineering for about 2 years, and my limited knowledge about airflow and drag doesn't give me the right to talk **** about the usefulness of other people's wings.

But, any given wing has its optimal range of performance, a range of speed whereby the drag created by the addition of the wing is offset by the stability and downforce it adds. No wing has an optimal range that covers everything.

Whether a wing is optimal between 60mph-100mph or 180mph-200mph you have no friggen idea by just looking at it.

A basic wing DOES help in the case of most cars, including the 240sx, so actually going wingless (even though some people like the look) can degrade the performance of the car.... i can call you wingless cars rice, but i don't... cause i'm wingless right now =)

anyway, i'm not pretenting to know all, but in this case, if its all about looks, its subjective, so who the hell gives a damn, its not your car.

If you want to talk about performance, you can't UNLESS you have numbers to back it up (and you have to know what those numbers means).

anyway, chicken wings and hot waitresses awaits... bye bye

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Black and Red

THX1138

If you're gonna mount a big goofy wing to the back of your car, that's fine, but PLEASE, by all that is good and holy, put the friggin' thing on right! I've seen wings installed with the main element upside-down so they generate lift, or angled so that the bottom of the main element is facing forward, and even backwards, with the skinny edge of the airfoil as the lead edge. There's no surer way to make yourself look like an idiot than spend good money that could have gone to tires, brake pads, blackjack, or hookers and not even install the thing right.

logo20

most people who put big aluminum wings on their car is because they want their cars to look fast/sportier not because they care about performance, whether they have slow neon, honda, nissan or a van(I saw a chevy van with an aluminum wing one time). don't let it bother you, just laugh at them.

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THX1138

Oh, trust me, I laugh at 'em. But it's not a "holy crap, that's hee-frickin-larious" laugh, it's more of a"holy crap, I'm glad I'm not that doofus" laugh.

And I saw a 1988 Buick Riviera with an aluminum wing a few weeks ago...

dizastaman

I saw this on my trip to FLA last month. An example of very bad wing usage. (yes it is real, sad but true)

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HaLo

They do it fo' decoration man, it's only fo' decoration!

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PARTED: 93 Pearl White 240SX LE Fastback w/SR20DET
SOLD: 93 Super White 240SX SE Convertible w/Silvia Front

Bliss

Oh man, I'm so ashamed I live so close to those people! Talk about ignorance!

Alot of people also put on wings for show cars, cuz for shows you HAVE to have everything.

mvaters

in my town people are putting them on cavaliers. there are like 7 cavaliers with aluminum wings in a town of 25000

silviaparts.com

Once again, it's probably the fast and furious's fault. After that movie, those big alumimum wings became "must have" for kids who want their cars to be called "hooked up".

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Bliss

I fail to see how a poser auto-enthusiast isn't also a poser in life. If someone likes the wing, thats fine, no posing. But if they put it on for "downforce" and because others say it looks cool, thats posing. I can't stand haters, but this isn't hating. Hating would be "Man, why do those guys have those really cool wings and I don't?!?!"

realracersuseapc

i doesnt really make sense to me why all these people keep hating on aluminum wings, but the bomex wangan wing is all great. i agree the bomex looks nice, but it doesnt add as much downforce as the aluminum wing. Its not like the wing is heavier either, since they're comin out with all these carbon fiber 1s and all that. Theyre just judging the car based on how it looks, even though the person has no idea how functional it really is. yea sometimes its on wrong, but even if its on right and totally functional everyone still calls it rice.

determining that all aluminum wings are rice doesnt really make sense either. yea some people with wings are ricers, but not all. The reason alota people dont get them is because they look bad. This would in turn make that person a ricer, since they are disregarding the performance aspects of the wing and only concentrating on the looks.

silviaparts.com: i wouldnt say its the movie fast and furious only. its more the media. the media plays everything out, like hip hop and pretty much anything underground that they think could be marketable. down with the man! it would be kinda sad if only the movie the fast and furious that ruined street racing, since that would mean 2 hours of film could disrupt and entire subculture.

ps: all the bikers were complaining about how biker boyz would do the same thing to sport bikes as fast and furious did 2 cars, but after it came out, nothing happened. i just kinda wanted 2 point that out. they got lucky with that 1.

pss: damn this was a long post

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s13yo15

i have a bomex wangan wing and i think it looks great. I was actually looking at one of those universal aluminum ones too before i bought the bomex one cause it wuld've been cheaper and ligher. I think they look pretty good on a 240. I dunt like seeing them on civics or integras. The aluminum wings match up ok with the style of the hatch 240 IMO.

Dousan_PG

first
james, your my hero. serious. your rock.


second
wings wings wing
wangan wings, kouki wings
dont do CHIT
so who cares if it is park bench size or not

people can do what they want to do to their cars. oh wait..i see why...its THEIR car.

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twitchy

yes S13yo15, ten-four, absolutely if it looks like it belongs on your car and I have seen some that DO look good. (Thats hard for me to say, believe me!)


Anyways
even though, as pruto said, they make some amount of downforce, they cant do any more benefit than bad. I mean, whoopie-crap it might make like 20 pounds of downforce but probably more drag than that. If you want the extra 20 pounds and no drag get some purple glow lights and an applejuice can muffler!

Dousan_PG

for the doubters. a little test in japan of various wings. downforce is quite impressive according to this test.
this is from Drift Tengoku IIRC
enjoy.





get properties of link, copy paste address and add orig.jpg to end to get full size

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the head

As to the larger amount of drag i have seen big spoilers/wings removed at the track and if they are big enough than gains of almost .1 sec are realized I want to make a huge spoiler out of plywood and bolt it on to the roof of a bread truck and tell all it is mAd TyTe yO
because i am a trend setter

in the end it is thier car and if they like it than your opinion don't matter anyway so why try

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s13yo15

yes everione has their own opinion. but after i put on the bomex i felt a definite difference on the freeway. Not much but just enough to be noticeable. i dunno bout drag and lift coefficients and dynamics. One of my friends is an aerospace major so i culd ask if i realli wanted to know but who cares, if the spoiler looks good to u then it shuldnt matter.

adey

Well put, pruto, and dousan, thanks for the images!

It's hard to say. I've never been a fan of wings proper, but can see the benefit from them. If I were building a true track car, i would say with much certainty that it would have a wing. If, however, I were just building a daily driver/toss-around car, it would likely not have a wing, just because I don't like the look. I'd much rather go for the under-panel diffuser thingymabobby than a big wing, although these (probably) cost much more than wings. That, and a subtle trunk lid spoiler (not wing) would be nice. :drooooooool:

I used to point and laugh at every civic and accord that I saw with these huge double decker wings, but now I only point and laugh at the camrys with them. If you're still hating on this stuff, you have to learn to accept it; it's just something some people like to do... a difference in taste that you have to live with. I hear it's a free country, after all! let them be!

pruto

Thank you, my point exactly.

as for drag on huge ass wings, you'd be surprised. Drag has almost everything to do with the design of the wing, size matters, but less than you think, shape and airfoil does. I've seen pictures of huge aircraft wings that have coefficent of drag equal to a metal wire.

Theoretically, you can have a huge ass well designed wing that has the same profile drag coefficient as your antenna. Air flow is tricky like that, you can't obtain drag and lift (in the case of cars, downforce) by just LOOKING at the object. If it was that simple you wouldn't need aerospace engineers or wind tunnels.

again, YES most people with gigantic wings won't see its correct usage and probably will do more bad than good. Big wing means large surface area. HOWEVER, that does NOT mean that having a big wing on a car means its not functional and its rice cause it doesn't have a performance value. Cars DO need downforce.

If i see one more stupid or uniformed reply to this post i'm going to have to dust off my AE books and whip out some equations. I don't have time to waste on that, i have finals to study for. So if i'm forced to lay the intellectual smack down, it'll get ugly

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Dousan_PG

damn pruto, you rock
u going to meet tonight?

if not i'll see you at DD5
i should have my SSS in by then...i hope!
werd!

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silviaparts.com

I just tried that and it doesn't work. can u give me the urls? I really want to see it. THX

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