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Real wing anyone? Just had a great idea and ordered the Miata 48" APR element:)

RAAMaudio

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#1
I have looked at so many ideas on how to have a real wing that I could take on and off the car easily as prefer to be relatively stealthy on the street and nothing really worked out.

I had looked at this wing before but the 29" mount spacing did not fit into my idea of what I wanted to do.



I considered a straight element but found nothing I wanted to use and I know this wing works very very well and might benefit from the rounded shape of the car. If it does not work as expected I could still switch to a straight element later if I find one suitable.

Then I though just today, why not mount the wing from the ends instead of the middle so I called APR and they were exceptionally helpful and sold me just the element instead of the whole kit, saved quite a bit of money on it as well:)

This is a real wing, just a narrower version, their wings have been used on countless race cars for many years now.

I will design uprights that come out between the hatch and tail lights so I can take them off and looks stock when not in use, that will be the hardest part and working out proper mounts to the hatch.

Then I will draw out and cut out aluminum uprights unless I can get CF sheet ones made for a decent price, the uprights will be the end plates and have angle adjusters build in as well.

The plan mount the element above and as far back as it makes sense and still fit in the trailer if I need to leave it on but I might just say screw it and mount it further back and I am keeping the stock spoiler but will fill in the top of it to clean up the air flow.

I will certainly have to extend the TR splitter with this on the back of the car!

I have a ton of stuff to do right now so it might not get done for a bit but if it goes well just might happen in the next 2-3 weeks and if any interest I could have the parts made for others to do this as well:)

Rick
 


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RAAMaudio

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Thread Starter #2
Other wings looked at:

-S2000, the rally Fiesta wing, not the car, it is a rally wing and designed for much lower speeds than I will be taking my car to on road race tracks.
I even bought a mint none ST rear spoiler when I was considering this wing, now it will be sold.

-Nothing else as all I found were either not a wing, not enough of a wing, style over substance, etc...
 


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RAAMaudio

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Thread Starter #4
Absolutely functional, why it says "real wing" in the title:)

It should be a good match for the amount of downforce I want to achieve and have little drag. It is also going to be adjustable in angle with the mounts I build so I could tip it forward a quite a bit if I autocrossed the car, mid angle for a shorter race track, flatten it out a bit on a faster track.

They have the CFD data on their site, scroll down to find it on this link:)

http://aprperformance.com/racing-product/gtc-200-adjustable-wings/

I will have to call them to see if they have the data for this shorter version or a close estimate.
 


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#5
Hope it works out well! I had an apr wing on the back of my mk3 Gti vr6 that I put a Vortech SC on. It was actually made for a hatch and had mounts that curved around and under the front lip of the top of the hatch and had some little Allen set screws to tighten it up. From what I remember it was very sturdy....., but that wouldn't be the ideal setup for you. I haven't looked on their website in a long Time or seen one. I'll link to one if I find it just so you and I can have a look.
 


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RAAMaudio

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Thread Starter #7
Thanks guys, much appreciated inputs and help:)

This one got me thinking, it is too small an element to give the downforce I need though it appears to be an actual wing. I also talked about it being to low when it first was shown but they now have it higher up which would help though I still need a lot more wing than this or I might of bought one. They way the mounted it is interesting and I could end up having to surface mount it but prefer to have hidden mounts and will if enough mounting surface on the inside edges of the hatch.

I should of credited this with my design plans as inspiration to consider what I can do with a much larger element:)



I was seriously looking at mounting it like the S2000 rally wing and when looking at it again when a light turned on in my mind, got it, will do end mounts! So I called APR to ensure the element can be mounted like that, they were all for it. I asked if I could buy just the element, yes, and they gave me a great price.

The wing is incredibly ridged, this will be the 4th APR wing I have used, so not likely to need a center support but thanks for the input on it, always an option and a great use of the wiper hole as I took out the wiper but did not like the look so put it back in and had planned to take it back out again and just plug the hole.
 


Pete

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#8
I have the raised version of the rally innovations wing. Using it on track it helps stable those high speed braking areas and there is little to no squirm in the car at all. I also installed a gurney flap as can be seen in the second photo which had a greater gain in rear stability then adding just the wing.



 


meFiSTo

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#10
I will certainly have to extend the TR splitter with this on the back of the car!
Well, considering you have a full end to end tray under your car, I'm not sure you'll need to extend it all that much. That tray is probably doing a lot of work on your nose. It might have been nice for there to be a little vertical room for a dam above the leading edge of the lip, but given the way the FMIC etc. is set up, I don't think that's feasible.

Your are just going all out.

And, oh yeah, that is going to be a VERY functional wing. I had a straight APR wing on my old car and it really helped stabilize the thing in sweepers (in conjunction with a fairly stout dam/splitter/short tray package) and under braking/turning at the end of long straights (especially downhill).

Have fun, man!
 


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RAAMaudio

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Thread Starter #11
Very interesting as I never saw a picture showing the element clearly and it looked like it had a fairly low downforce effect.

Raising it and adding the flap makes it far more viable now, I would love to have the cord length and depth, cross sectional view, etc....

It would help if it was still a bit higher yet to get more airflow under it.

AND DAMN, I like the looks of the profile better that what I just bought though it is likely 30-40% as effective a best it might of been all I need with a few more tweaks.

And ditch the little flippers sticking out, not sure what those are supposed to do.

Contacting the company for the hard data I need to look into this a bit more, thanks for posting it, really:)
 


Pete

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#12
The flippers on the bottom of the mount are for style I think haha. Unless you are referring to my mudflaps then those are for when I take the car on dirt.
 


shouldbeasy

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#13
Ha!! He's talking about the wing flippers for sure Pete.

I love copying you so I may have to look in to the Rally Innovations wing too - then again, it seems like RAAMaudio is all over it! Perhaps waiting is the smarter bet... I want function over form!!
 


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RAAMaudio

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Thread Starter #14
I need to stop modding and drive it more but I am a life long addict and have not had a chance to work on the car much since last July!

I just had a nice talk with RI about the wing, they are sending me pics and any info they have on the element, I will look into how much effect it has that I can figure out. Though I realize this is not a full race wing and they do not market their parts that way which I appreciate the honesty it may be something with a few tweaks, some done here already, to make it quite viable for some of the members here, which it seems to be already, might be even better:)

The APR is the real deal though the profile of what I ordered is not optimized to the body shape of our car, a higher mounted flat wing might of been better now that I think about it a bit more but they do not have a short element one so maybe a longer one if the mount points are close enough to work with.
 


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#15
If you stop in Vegas on your way up north let me know Rick. Cars and Coffee is every Saturday morning and I'd love to get a look at your car if you have it with you.
 


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RAAMaudio

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Thread Starter #16
Likely to head over on the 10 and miss Vegas unless there is a track event at Spring Mountain I decide to go to.

I want to run at Chuckwalla then the the tracks in CA working our back back to Sacramento for more time with the grandkids then to Carson but we might take a different route depending on what tracks I can get to on the way.

I will post up some info on our travel plans as it works out, always glad to meet up when I can, prefer at the track though, lots of room to hang out in the trailer as well, cold brews at the end of the day....
 


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#17
Sounds good, keep me in the loop if you do swing through. Meeting up at spring mountain Motorsports would be ideal I agree!
 


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RAAMaudio

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Thread Starter #18
Will post it up when I figure out the schedule but have to wind up a bunch of project here on my daughters house and on the car, then I can plan the next phase of our winter get away:)
 


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RAAMaudio

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Thread Starter #19
Just got the wing from APR, beautifully built, flawless, more agressive that the pictures make it look and really cool that the center raised section matches the roof profile quite nicely thus should help it be more effective.

It only weights 4.6lbs!

They shipped it without the bottom mounting holes normally used for the trunk of a Miata which makes ever more effective yet again as the uprights will be the end plates so the whole wing is being used, mounts upset enough air flow to reduce the most wings effect, this will not do so:)

Sorry no pics, will work on that when I start the install which I not know when I can get to it as have far to many other mods to finish first but I feel like dropping them all and making this happen, very excited to see the results.

Have a great weekend!
Rick
 




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