In article <3607DAFC.360C11E5@quicklink.com>, Robert McCurdy
<rmccurdy@quicklink.com> writes
>Hi,
>
>We're trying to figure out if a sportscar nose on an open-wheel car has
>an advantage over a chisel nose fitted with canards. In other words,
>while I pretty sure the sportscar nose is faster on the straights
>because of the cleaned up air around the tires, does it give up anything
>in the way of downforce in the corners?
>
>Anybody have any insights?
>
My Reynard SF78 FF2000 has a "sports car" nose. It seems very
effective, the Reynard is fast in a straight line (also sports quite a
narrow track) and the car responds well to splitter adjustment. I was
interested to note that top end revs did not suffer as a result of
adjusting the splitter to full downforce, whereas I saw quite a big
degradation in top end speed from setting the rear wing at full
downforce. My conclusion - the full width nose and splitter generate
effective levels of downforce without costing too much in extra drag.
As regards its drag compared to a narrow nose - can't say since I do not
own a car which can carry both therefore have never been able to do a
back to back test.
Feedback from those more experienced would be of interest.
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