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What's better, Higher or Lower Aero Effic.?

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Vri404

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Post Thu Dec 24, 2015 5:10 pm

What's better, Higher or Lower Aero Effic.?

I want to know, as my current WIP Hypercar has an Aero Effic. of 1.5m^2, and I want to know if that is good or bad.
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strop

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Post Thu Dec 24, 2015 7:27 pm

Re: What's better, Higher or Lower Aero Effic.?

This depends. That's quite a lot for a road-going car. It basically means that going forwards, you're pushing a flat square 1.5m wide as far as air resistance is concerned. I'd say most cars, even sports cars, probably keep below 1m^2, so I'm going to assume you either have an aggressive aero setup, a lot of cooling, or both.

What you're interested in is how much power you're trying to cool, and how much downforce you're generating compared to your drag (or for simplicity's sake here effective aero). With figures like that, you could be pushing 1400hp and have downforce of like 200kg at 200km/h. Or 300kg, but after a certain point the aero efficiency (downforce:drag) of your fixtures would markedly reduce.
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koolkei

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Post Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:51 am

Re: What's better, Higher or Lower Aero Effic.?

a point-and-shoot explaination.

without any aero fixtures -> lower is better
with aero fixtures -> lower= less drag+less downforce, higher more drag+more downforce.

so you want the car itself to have the lowest aero effective area as possible. this applies to ANY car.
and then if you need stability, or, are making a fast car around the track, then you apply downforce. but downforce has a negative side effect, yes, it makes drag.

on downforce, that's a whole different topic.

editted: switched effective area with aero efficiency
Last edited by koolkei on Thu Jan 07, 2016 2:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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strop

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Post Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:59 am

Re: What's better, Higher or Lower Aero Effic.?

Er, koolkei, you're getting it the wrong way around. You want low effective area. Having a low aerodynamic efficiency just means your car is creating a lot of unnecessary drag :P
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koolkei

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Post Thu Jan 07, 2016 2:22 am

Re: What's better, Higher or Lower Aero Effic.?

derp. thx for the heads up

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