To wing or not to wing
 

For those of you who started out without a rear spoiler/wing and then added a wing. Did you notice a significant difference? Was it worth it?

I’ve only been on track in a Miata. It had a small wing. It felt like it was on rails…truly fun and easy to drive. I was rear ended and lost the wing. The car didn’t feel as stable on track anymore. Not sure if it was in my head, or if I was pushing a little harder.

I plan on tracking my 86 for the first time in a month. Wondering if a wing will be useful. I do not plan to add any power mods. Focused on suspension, brakes, and tires only—aside from seats, harness, and roll bar.

Get the biggest wing you can find before you try the car out for your first time on track. That's what any truly experienced track guy would do.

Smh.

Thanks for the advice, I strapped a Spruce Goose to both ends of my car :bonk:

I don’t pretend to know what I’m talking about. I’ve only done about 15 track days. I’m barely scratching the surface on the type of mods needed to address certain issues on track.

I said the car felt a little loose, but it could’ve been a number of factors…the tires were nearing their end of life. The track was super hot. I may have been pushing a little more than I had in the past.

I know a wing and a splitter will add downforce on faster more powerful cars, but does it help slower cars like ours? I didn’t say I was going to get a wing. I asked if it made a difference.

But I’ll take your advice. You sound like you know everything and is kind enough to share his knowledge to help and inform others. Thanks!

Do one weekend without a wing and see how the car behaves, proceed from there. You will lose a little bit of top speed on straights due to drag but will more than make up for it in turns.

Is that a 'Hakone' in "racing" speak?

Wing makes a difference, especially on tracks that have a lot of medium to high speed corners. I’d really just drive the car as is till you decide you want it. I put one on my car too early for me and partially regret having it altogether. The car is certainly faster with it, but there are issues with adding a wing I didn’t think about dealing with that I am still sorting out now. Car was also more run to drive with less grip IMO.

Aero mods are a touchy subject for these cars, they don't really have the power to push past the drag penalty incurred by meaningful amounts of downforce so most people would suggest that you do what you can to increase and tune mechanical grip before you start playing around with aero. I'd certainly spend my money on suspension and tire upgrades before I did anything with aero.

All that said, if you're going to put aero on these cars, I'd just acknowledge it's more about looks than about performance because these cars DO look very good with a bit of aero on them.

IMHO: The most effective aero mods would be under the car. Underbody panels, front splitter, and a rear diffuser.

To wing or not to wing
 

I wish I had AIM data before and after adding my wing and splitter. I went to RaceChrono in between and my start/finish point is not the same either so I can’t compare data apples to apples. I think I have one damp session with a wing logged with AIM.

You can’t look at the drag penalty purely from a MPH/power perspective. You have to look at the time that it takes to cover the distance. Drag also squares with speed so the rate of acceleration from 60 up to 80 or even 100mph isn’t significantly big. I notice it’s really around 105-110ish that the car struggles to push through it, my car being NA. So even being down 5mph on the front straight that is 3/4 mile at the track I frequent the most, the actual time delta with splitter/wing going down the straight isn’t as big as you would think, especially considering I am coming onto the straight 3-5mph faster to begin with.

Leave the wing for last. Also if you plan to go full Aero get suspension that can handle it with your desired tire.

IMO Do Full under panels, diffuser for better stability. Move onto Front Aero and then look at wings.

I'm not trying to say it won't help but I'm just trying to hedge expectations, not all aero is created equal and aero benefits are course dependent. I'm just advocating that the money is better spent improving mechanical grip first if you haven't done the basic stuff there already. And be prepared that if you're particularly unfortunate, aero may not help at all at your local track, like it doesn't at mine.

I'd agree with most people here, leave aero for after you have good car control and are able to extract more performance out of the car. But a lot of people are underestimating how much downforce affects car's behavior on track (and lap times). The whole "car doesnt have enough power" is a lot of nonsense most of the time. You'd need huge dual or tripple element wings (and proper front to balance) to get there, and even then, only on really long circuits with long long straights would you actually go slower that way, everywhere else, aero is king.

But dont do it, not yet. Also, dont put a wing and call it done, all you are doing is creating a world of understeer, aero needs to be balanced to be fast.

I really messed up this with my car. Even though I am running a smaller wing and splitter setup I didn't anticipate how much higher the loads would be and my current suspension setup is not up to the task. So even though the car ended up around 2 sec a lap quicker at most tracks, it's a handful in some situations and really hasn't had all it's performance unlocked.