Wing it

[War Eagle River]

Asking for a friend...Do 1/32 cars that come with rear wings help the car aerodynamically? Or are they just for aesthetics? Case in point, the struts broke off the car on the right, so reattached at lower height. Will it change the downforce?

[chappyman66]

No aero effect for the cars we race at home.

It really takes a commercial raceway and a Gr15 or cobalt motor to have some significant aero downforce.
Some folks claimed that the old Parma Intrepid body (wedge and oversized rear scoop tail) made a difference on Gr12 cars.

[War Eagle River]

“No aero effect for the cars we race at home”
How do you know this? Have you put cars in a smoke wind tunnel?

[waaytoomuchintothis]

No, but when I was younger and could see better, I occasionally stomped identical cars to mine after my wing broke off...

[War Eagle River]

[chappyman66]

It's pretty typical for the Slot.It Chaparral 2E to run faster without the wing than with. For the most part, it's the change in the CG being lower without the wings.

Pretty basic physics.....it's about the size of the aerofoil and the speed of the air passing over it. The cars don't go fast enough in the corners to generate any downforce. Chassis tuning and tires make the difference...wing height doesn't matter on home slot cars. Even on commercial wing cars, they mostly work because they are way out of proportion to the actual car, which isn't a car at all - just a motor, guide, and frame.

[War Eagle River]

Chappyman, I don’t know man...Without concrete evidence, who knows

[Fletch3]

Years ago we were building a track and for walls we were using styrofoam, the white stuff that when broke apart would turn into those annoying little white balls that a simple breeze would send them everywhere. So one of the guys we raced with was just dead set that he could draft another car. Others laughed at him. I said ok I have an idea. We turn the fans off and sprinkled those little balls along the edge of the racing surface, maybe just a half inch away from the tire edges on the main straight . The straight was 14ft in length. The little balls never moved. He never brought it up again. And we tried several types of cars, even slot-it’s.

[War Eagle River]

The higher the wing, the more downforce it creates, just sayin

[mikeinclover]

The only effect a rear wing has on scale cars is looks weight and a higher CG. Some cars it makes a difference not having it in place. It has nothing to do with downforce though. This type of car can not go fast enough to notice and positive effect. It is science and Physics.
Mike

[War Eagle River]

What if someone was to put a slot car on a sensitive scale that measured to the thousandths. Sent air over the car at scale speed, say 250 mph, would the scale still read just the static weight of the car, or would it weigh heavier? If it reads heavier, then that would be downforce, and the cause would have to be coming from somewhere...the wing. Bet it wouldn’t take much airflow mph to produce a downforce reading, seeing how 250mph, would most likely blow the car through the wall!

[HomeRacingWorld]

If you don't mind...I'm gonna pop some popcorn. BRB.

[slothead]

Harry - you're going to need more popcorn for this, my apologies.

A slot car wing is not going to have enough surface area or speed to generate any meaningful down force if it's realistically sized. Also, functional wings have a precise shape. Wright Bros discovered a wing has to have a particular shape to generate lift (or conversely down force). An airfoil's shape creates a mismatch in the speed of the air going over and under it, which creates more air pressure on one side than the other. A plane's wing creates lower pressure on top and higher pressure below, resulting in lift. (Same principle as a curve ball - it's spin creates more air pressure on one side which makes it arc.)

The amount of lift or down force is proportional to the surface area of the wing, it's shape, orientation, and speed of the air passing over it. At slow speeds there is no lift and a plane stalls and descends to earth with often catastrophic results. Anyone who flew model airplanes has learned this the hard way. If anyone here flew model rockets you know fins do nothing to stabilize the rocket till it gets up to speed.

Height of the wing is only a factor because it gets it out of the turbulent air flowing over the car and into clean air. But, at slow speeds air is not dense enough to make any meaningful difference.

How to test? Mount the wing in the configuration where you suspect it creates down force and time trial the car. Then invert it's orientation so that now it should create the same amount of lift and time trial again. Any effect would be doubled when the down force condition is compared to the lift condition, so if there is an effect it should be apparent. I suspect in a fair comparison there would be no advantage or disadvantage across conditions.

If anyone is warped enough to go down nerd alley with me to check this out we could build a scale wind tunnel to do it. Put the car on a digital scale in the wind tunnel and see if its relative weight changes with air passing over it at realistic speeds.

Harry - you can lighten up on the popcorn now. Mumbo-jumbo terminated.

[chappyman66]

:text-yeahthat:
Like I said....basic physics......

[Modlerbob]

Back in the day when racing 1/24 scale lexan door stops on a blue king track a 2=1/2" high rear spoiler keep most of the cars on a straight as an arrow traverse of the steeply banked first corner. Without that spoiler they would barely get through the banking. Bot those cars were much faster than most anything we race today. There may be some additional downforce from the wings we have on current cars but as someone said my cars go through the corners as fast or faster without the wing. BTW that wing on the Chappy 2E has to be angled with the forward edge a bit down. It ain't the height, but rather that angle.