are aluminum, carbon fiber, wings rice?

[MyEclipse5]

i really don't think caron fiber wings are rice but hey i guess its your appinion

 

[echo]

opinion*

i think rice would be anything that doesn't help performance. there have been MANY topics on this. search for them.

 

[Spoolin99]

Do you really care what other peoples opinions are? IF you like it do it if not then dont who cares

 

[cucumber]

Yeah, you don't even wanna know my opinion.

 

[mavisky]

i'd say no not all, but under most circumstances it would be however.

any vehicle often used at track days is automatically exempt. and i know it sucks but the high ones usually work better. the problem with the rear glass line of many cars is that the air doesn't stick to it well and just rolls off above the trunklid. because of this the lower wings don't get much clean air to work with and it affects there overall usefulness. those with higher wings typically get the aerofoil higher up and out of the turbulent air directly above the trunklid where the wing can really perform to its utmost ability.

 

[9D9 MITSU RS]

If the wing is wider or taller than the car, yeah, but if they aren't too tall, or too wide, I think they look good. Wings on a clean car are bad, but like my car, I think I could pull it off with a wing, b/c it's got that flashy style. If I was building a clean car, I'd probably go cf hood and a cf wing. Just my $ .02

 

[Airpoppoff]

go with the stock clean look of either the low rise spoiler or the high rise turbo spoiler those look the cleanest and best of eclipses i think

 

[MyEclipse5]

mine is a 1g and i HATE hte stock wings on all generations i think they look #@%#@%#@%...MY $.02

 

[tjh-dsm]

A CF or aluminum wing on a FWD or AWD car is rice b/c it's non-functional. On a RWD car it's a different story b/c the real wheels actually NEED downforce.

 

[MyEclipse5]

but it looks tight

 

[greathuskie]

tjh its not only RWD cars that need it, it has to do with the car being stable at high speeds as well as traction, so they ARE functional on FWD and AWD cars

 

[MyEclipse5]

yah fo sho fo sho

 

[tjh-dsm]

Originally posted by greathuskie
tjh its not only RWD cars that need it, it has to do with the car being stable at high speeds as well as traction, so they ARE functional on FWD and AWD cars

Uhh, so you drive you car around regularly at 130 mph? That's when they start to make even a BIT of difference, and then not even much. True, race cars use them, but we don't have race cars.

 

[JJay]

:xnuts: If you want a high caliber tuner look than wings and bodykits are forbidden. If you want to cruise your car around town with your car club buddies and you need to stand out from a crowd, then you have to be outrageous because everybody has read magazines such as "Super Street", Import tuner, Performance Auto & Sound etc. If you are a cruiser without a turbo car and you want looks............. your only alternative is a carbon fiber hood, APR wings, 18 inch wheels, Altezza Clear Taillights.
Everybody does not race their DSM Cars. Some are daily drivers owned by middle class to working class young guys. Some are talented enough to mechanically super tune them to high level Bad Ass fast turbo cars, but others of us can only use these little 135hp Talons,Eclipses,Lasers to make eye candy. Why do you think bodykits,wings and clear taillights sell so well??????????? Because if you don't have the speed than at least you can have the looks these items get you.
Also it depends on where you live. Some areas only respect clean/fast cars without wings. Some places don't have a lot of really fast.fast cars and most people have wings,bodykits, bright color cars, 18inch rims, sounds and Neon. In the end you got to please yourself and pick which look you want and like best

 

[mavisky]

Originally posted by tjh-dsm


Uhh, so you drive you car around regularly at 130 mph? That's when they start to make even a BIT of difference, and then not even much. True, race cars use them, but we don't have race cars.

if only there was enough time in the day to smack everyone that said this.............

this obviously proves you've never had any experience in aerodynamics or fluid dynamics for that matter. i'd agree that most wings downforce won't overcome the natural lift of the body of most vehicle's until around that speed. but providing downforce doesn't mean that. it simply means that you are applying a force in a downward motion. even at 1 mph the wing is providing downforce. whether its enough force to make a huge difference or not is questionable, but there isn't some sort of "barrier" that the cars break through that magically activates the abilities of the aerofoil (wing). in most racing application the cars won't even reach 130mph in any area where downforce is all that critical, the idea is that the wing is there to negate the natural lift and therefore stabilize the vehicle at speed. whether it be 20 mph or 200 mph.

check out the formula sae ocmpetition sometime. you'll see some of the biggest wing/vehicle size ratio out there and most thsoe cars can't even clear 60mph, at least not on the small tracks they setup for them. so you're telling me that those wings are useless because they aren't going 130mph (i think that's the magical number you used)??? i dunno about the rest of the guys, but i'm gonna believe the guys belonging to an engineering society before i believe some random guy on dsmtuners who has a nice car (and you do by the way).

as for the "race car statement". it's interesting you mention this because i can name a particular case where wings were added purely for their aerodynamic benefits on a street vehicle. when the audi tt first arrived in its 225 hp version they had a large number of incidents of the car's losing control on the autobahn's in germany. the problem is that the round shape of the audi's causes drastic amounts of lift. these guys would get traveling at high speeds only to have the car seemingly lift the rear off the ground or at least unload itself so much that the vehicle's balance was substantially hindered. a few people even died from this. at that point audi even issued a recall and all audi's from that point on got a little spoiler on the back to help negate the lift caused by its "form over function" shape.

now honestly most wings that are sold out there are setup so as to provide little if any down force at all. the idea is that these companies don't want to be liable for adjusting the overall balance of the car. some companies however (and i can't remember the name of the one i'm thinking of) go so far as to actually advertise the coefficient of drag on each of their wings. although most people sticking wings on their vehicles would have as much an idea as to what to do with this info as a monkey does with it's own #@%#@%#@%#@% (typically it just throws it) the idea is that the higher the cd the more downforce and thusly the more drag. this issue between drag and downforce is why most serious racing series utilize undertrays with reliefs designed to create low pressure areas under the vehicle to "suck" it to the ground. this is how the newest ferarri's (360 modena and the new enzo) can have such good handling w/o the aid of cawdy wings. but i highly doubt the next big craze will be carbonfiber undertrays for civic's and focus's.

sorry i'ts 3 am and i'm not directing this totally at you, just all the times i've seen un-educated people post comments about aerodynamics that they have no idea about this kinda stuff.

 

[D33A]

I feel your anger man. I second everything you said. You know your cars dude. I really wanted to put an aluminum wing and a Blitz body kit onto my eclipse but after Fast & Furious came out, everyone did it just for that "race car" look. GT spoilers help. Just look at those small dirt car that are raced. They have a huge wing over the entire car. 130mph? Yeah....whatever. I would have gone with the more functional ones like the 1g. Whale tails are the most functional of all cause they create less drag and aids in downforce too. With the Blitz kit, it's the only kit that appears to be aerodynamic (hey, Blitz made it) and seems to have more function than all the others. I don't think most of the guys that buy them knows why the front bumper looks that why with the sides curved up like that. It's basicaly molded-in fins, (I think they are call konards, ) on the GT cars to help downforce in the front. God I %#@* hate Fast & Furious! Maybe Fast and Furious 2 comes out and they all start to move away from the aluminum wings and use something else then I can get my wing. If they make universal kanards, i'll just slap them on the front bumpers instead of getting the Blitz kit. It looks ugly but for function, it's a good trade-off.

 

[CLB]

if your referring to sprint cars... its because they weigh so little and even with those huge "spoilers that cover the whole car" they flip and lose control very easily because of they're weight

 

[eclipse95racer]

all i have to say is "go with what you like or what you think would look good. dont go by what other people think of your car. the only one that has to like your car is you. but if your going to put your car in shows, then having some rice is a must. every show i have been to it is always a car with a bodykit and aluminum spoiler that wins 'best of show'. so just go with what you like." thats all.

 

[MyEclipse5]

dude they look awesome how can you not want em


and i saw one on ebay that adds at least 30hp minimum

 

[D33A]

I'm not too sure what those cars are called but they race on dirt going around in a oval track like Nascar does and they drift a lot. It looked kinda neat how they take corners like that.

Show cars are only about looks. Your car can be a Honda Civic with the stock D16 engine, wide body kit, aluminum wings, etc. and still win. I know a guy that had a really clean prelude with a mugen kit, j-spec engine fully built with mugen internals, bride seats, nos and lost to a civic with just a simple b16 swap and lots of body work and conversions. Shows are just for looks. If your car looks the most bada$$, then you'll win. It's not about performance anymore at shows.

What I was just saying is many people out there buy something only because of the way it looks. The do it to make there car look fast. Some wings do help mantain control and some were designed just for looks. I have nothing against that. And then there are those that don't know that wings are functional and think it's useless and ricey. They talk sh!t on those that have it. I don't like that. I admit, a lot of ricers have it but not all of them are ricers. Any car can benefit from a wing. How could a wing the helps keep your a$$ from coming too loose in turns be considered ricey when taillights that have no performance funtion and are a cheap imitation to those off another car (Lexus IS300) are considered cool. They don't do anything different from the stock one except it looks different. This forum has showers, draggers, and autocrossers so we all have different views of what we like to do to our cars. Don't diss on others just because they do things differently from you. Oh yeah, for those of you who still thinks wings are useless unless you drive 130mph and those that think we are all morons for liking gt spoilers, please take the time to enlight yourself with knowledge directly from professionals. Email Porsche and ask them, "Why do you have your spoilers come up at 55mph and not 130mph? Did you do that to make the car look fast when it's on the freeway?"
I agree it all comes down to you. Its your car so do as you please. I'm just afarid of putting the wing and kit on my car because it might get egged or stoned by those anit-ricers thinking I'm trying to copy the F&F eclipse.

 

[silvereclipse]

A lot of the cars you see driving around town with wings do it for the looks and most of them have no knowledge of downforce ect. I personally do not like the look of wings but they are very necessary on track cars FWD AWD or RWD. Show or go is your decision.

 

[tjh-dsm]

Originally posted by mavisky



as for the "race car statement". it's interesting you mention this because i can name a particular case where wings were added purely for their aerodynamic benefits on a street vehicle. when the audi tt first arrived in its 225 hp version they had a large number of incidents of the car's losing control on the autobahn's in germany. the problem is that the round shape of the audi's causes drastic amounts of lift. these guys would get traveling at high speeds only to have the car seemingly lift the rear off the ground or at least unload itself so much that the vehicle's balance was substantially hindered. a few people even died from this. at that point audi even issued a recall and all audi's from that point on got a little spoiler on the back to help negate the lift caused by its "form over function" shape.
.

I know exactly what you're talking about here b/c my friend had a TT and they had to add that, among other things, because of the Autobahn incidents. But those were problems that were occurring at 150+ mph, certainly speeds not seen HERE, by any intelligent people at least. What you are saying is correct, but in a daily-driven, USA, non-autobahn, real life driving, a wing isn't gonna give you any performance benefit. That was my point. for 99% of us DSM'ers, a wing will have no benefit other than looks.

 

[mavisky]

Originally posted by tjh-dsm


I know exactly what you're talking about here b/c my friend had a TT and they had to add that, among other things, because of the Autobahn incidents. But those were problems that were occurring at 150+ mph, certainly speeds not seen HERE, by any intelligent people at least. What you are saying is correct, but in a daily-driven, USA, non-autobahn, real life driving, a wing isn't gonna give you any performance benefit. That was my point. for 99% of us DSM'ers, a wing will have no benefit other than looks.

are you retarded or just really bad at reading.......

look noone ever said that a wing would allow the car to magically drive upside down or crazy $hit like that. but the bottom line statement that a wing is useless is bull$hit. unless the wing is at an angle of attack that is providing lift it will always be providing downforce. sure at more speed the issue is more noticeable, but the point is that the wing is providing downforce in 99% of all applications, including all those on bone stock civics. sure it may not matter much since they're not pushing the car to the limit in a manner in which the wing would help them, such as turning, but the fact is still present that it is and always will be providing downforce.

 

[tjh-dsm]

I love how mature you sound on your replies, I'll keep it adult though...

We're splitting hairs here. Your saying it will provide downforce, which I don't argue, but will the amount of dowforce provided be NOTICEBLY useful on a FWD or AWD car at speeds we drive at? Don't think so. I'm not stupid, I'm aware that wings provide downforce, but for DSM's, the downforce provided isn't going to give you a noticebly better handling in daily driven situations, and not too likely in 'race' situations.

 

[D33A]

the downforce provided isn't going to give you a noticebly better handling in daily driven situations, and not too likely in 'race' situations.

I guess you don't take corners and freeway on-ramps or off-ramps like many of the owners here...