FR-S Spoiler, functionality?

[Darkrune]

Originally Posted by Overdrive

No, it does not, and we're talking about pre-2017 cars, really. Look at the pictures I posted when I made this thread. The only car that gets the spoiler on the Scion is the Scion (and the 2017+ U.S. Toyota 86). The 86/GT-86 that the rest of the world has had since 2012 has the same spoiler as the BRZ.

This is a symantic nomenclature debate at this point. In the US right now, there is the 86 and the BRZ.

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[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Overdrive

Well, as I've been saying til I'm basically Pfizer blue in the face from the start, I'm just trying to see if by chance the FR-S spoiler happens to provide the same benefit the BRZ one does when combined with the OEM underbody panels. If it does, awesome, because I'll happily take the aerodynamic improvement. But from what I've been able to gather there's been no study done of the bespoke spoiler like there has been of the much more common one on the BRZ/86 (2013-2016), and most likely this one is more of the "looks good, mebbe works" flavor. So I'll just have to enjoy the underbody panels gains and whatever little extra I might get from this spoiler, which so far has basically been called "not much" by people I've asked who do aerodynamics for a living. I do prefer its look over the BRZ one, and am not willing to swap to the BRZ one to reap its benefit.

Just to ensure I'm being clear, I'm not trying to make my way to Tsukuba to try my hand at time attack. I approached this more from a possible .02 drag coefficient improvement and getting a little more out of my fuel for all the daily driving I'm doing and road tripping I plan to do, with the added benefit of having some more stability when tracking the car, and it's all factory stuff that belongs there instead of me tacking on a ton of aero bits to every body panel and making my car look like a Need for Speed AI opponent car. I'm not expecting the little piece of plastic on the end of my trunk lid to smash my rear tires to the ground at 100mph, because that's a wing's role, not a spoiler's, and I don't want a wing. I wanted to see if, by some chance, Toyota + Fuji Heavy put the same effort behind this less common spoiler as they did with the one with the strakes on it in terms of it decreasing drag by a whole .01, and if someone had proof of that.

So far, despite my up front request, I've been getting a lot of eyeballing and opinion, and only a few finger points to anything informational.

That is because there is nothing informational. Like most "aero" on street cars it is more for looks.

[OND]

FRS section starts at ~44min mark.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quDLzxmJl5I"]Automotive Aerodynamics Episode 1: Flow Visualizations of MR2, RX7, Supra, FRS - YouTube[/ame]


It's not hard to see that the spoiler would reduce rear lift just by looking at the flow vis video. In my cfd simulations with a much more simplified model, I got around 29kg of downforce at 90mph, so it's pretty small, but it's there.

I don't see how the spoiler would reduce drag for our cars though. I think @nextcar is right in that the Cd reduction claim is probably coming from under body panels.

[Overdrive]

Btw, for anyone interested, that video and channel that Kerrija linked above is actually really good. The guy doing it has gone a bit dormant (y'know, becoming an adult and getting a job and all that), but what he did put out there is really good work and worth watching.

Edit: And I see that right above me here OND linked to that same video. Again, it's really good and educational, but it is not the spoiler I'm looking for.

I'd be interested in seeing some of your CFD work, just because I'm a nerd and love stuff like that.

[Yousend]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

That is because there is nothing informational. Like most "aero" on street cars it is more for looks.

Please, my big wing is to lower my MPG so I can taunt global warming sheeps. It is 100% functional in that purpose.

[Overdrive]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

That is because there is nothing informational. Like most "aero" on street cars it is more for looks.

As I'm finding out, lol. You'd think more people would want some proof and numbers than just go by something looking like it'll work really well. I'd contend that as you go higher up the food chain of street cars the aero is indeed functional, particularly when active aero is involved, but of course that's why those vehicles cost 5 and 10 times more than ours. I mean, they didn't really skimp on our cars for what we paid, I'd say they actually did pretty well and didn't pass the cost on to us. I doubt Subaru is going to make a claim as significant as a .01-.02 Cd change for something built just for looks, though.

[Overdrive]

Originally Posted by OND

I don't see how the spoiler would reduce drag for our cars though. I think @nextcar is right in that the Cd reduction claim is probably coming from under body panels.

I think it does simply because it gives the air over the car that much more real estate to run over before dropping down to meet the flow from under the car and upsetting the rear end. If the car experiences less rear lift without a substantial piece of body added like a park bench wing, that's bound to improve drag. Maybe not to the tune of .01, but that's the claim, right? Such a thing is even more apparent when you tack a small spoiler to the back of a hatchback and make the topside air travel just a bit more before it can sweep down and try to lift the rear. Without a spoiler the air on top of a hatch just gets sucked straight down and makes a mess.

I do find it curious that they don't provide an improvement number for a car with panels but no spoiler, only a car with spoiler but no panels. I agree with you that the panels cleaning up the air under the car is the most helpful, but combining that with pushing the wake and the turbulent bubble of air farther away from the end of the car via a spoiler has to be possible.

[Overdrive]

Originally Posted by Darkrune

This is a symantic nomenclature debate at this point. In the US right now, there is the 86 and the BRZ.

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No, it really isn't, because you were trying to say the 86 has the same spoiler as the FR-S as a blanket statement, and that's not true anywhere but in the U.S., unless I missed something recently. The car that can be found the rest of the world over, which has already been the Toyota 86 or GT-86 or FT-86 everywhere else but here, used and still uses the same spoiler design as the one found on the BRZ. Look at the car model in that video. It's a pre-facelift Toyota 86, and it has the BRZ spoiler. It's not semantics, it's specificity. An 86 in the U.S. will have the FR-S style spoiler, but for someone in Japan, the 86 has had and will continue to have the same spoiler found on a BRZ.