What type of added downforce comes with the 355 challenge rear wing? When does it actually contribute to grip? Only above 100mph? Robb
I feel it on my road car at 50mph when taking ramps and the faster, the more downforce. It becomes hard to tell the difference after having it for so long. The best part though is the look of the car. It elongates the profile and looks like a different car.
Yes the weight of the wing would add some downforce to the rear, wink ;-) Sorry British humour, couldn't resist.
Honestly, Very little to nothing! How can I speak such blasphemy about something from Ferrari on a 355? I'm a clubracer and I have been down the road of adding aero to mechanical grip cars. Well the facts are that if there were really any downforce the rear wing would have to be offset by a front splitter. There was no challenge front splitter ever made. Second, the original 355C was a setup of a car for mechanical grip and had a calculated chassis frequency. When the wing was added no parts were changed to take advantage of any new found aerodynamics. When the wing went on there was no change to the chassis to account for all the added downforce hence my belief that there was very little to no contribution. You were stuck with just rake, alignment and tire pressure changes. Third, we have simple generic ricer APR wings that can generate 300lbs of downforce at 120mph (computational fluid dynamics). If you look at how the 355 challenge wing is mounted per the 355C booklet on the decklid 300 lbs of downforce would deform the decklid. Any real wing needs to be chassis mounted/supported in some way. Fourth, the 355C wing is not in the best location to utilize the potential downforce it could create. IMO the 355C wing is a show wing with little benefit which could easily be overcome by another racer with better driver development.
Link to brief discussion on what mph does a wing or undertray begin to generate downforce below. The F355 is certainly not an aero car, so agree rear wing by itself will add little, but maybe that is enough. Only back to back testing will yield answer. On my race car, we play with increments of 1 degree change in rear wing angles and look for difference in lap times; going just with feel is not conclusive. Downforce speed in Aerodynamics Forum
Makes sense to me. I remember reading that when I had my 911 that adding a whale tail without a front spoiler was just plain dangerous. Thanks for the insight. Robb
To add to this, there is a crap load of hot turbulent air flowing upwards out of the engine bay (how do you think these things are really cooled?) mixing with the somewhat laminar air flowing over the top of the car. Guess what happens when a wing pointing nominally flat sees turbulent upward flowing air? (hint: look up stall.)
Lots great points made and I agree it need front downforce added What was the "official" point of Ferrari making them? I have one sitting in my garage on a deck lid with all the internal bracing, never put it on it's a paper weight right now It looks to me just to give the rear a little grip to keep the wheels from breaking loose at lower speed tracks when being very aggressive to the likes of a sprint car
