Marcos downforce

[Garp]

I like to enhance the amount of downforce on a Marcos Mantis. The regulations only tell the rear wing must reach between the widest part of the car. The rest is free. So i like to fabricate a LMP style rear wing assembly (with the endplates as struts). But then i have to raise the front end downforce to. But i can only think of dive planes, would this be sufficient then?

[Speck]

Maybe a front diffuser will help? Not sure about the legality though, as I'm not too familiar with the (I assume to be) British GT regs.

[avsfan733]

some sort of front diffuser would probably be the only reasonable way to do it, however the design is going to be quite a bear. You must remeber that the ones on lemans cars are made as an original piece of equipment. You may be able to accomplish some of this by simply lowering the front of the car closer the race track but how much will be gained is very questionable

[Garp]

Problem is the air exhaust from the front diffuser. On both sides of the engine it's blocked. On one side with the pedal box and on the other side with the oil tank. Will a diffuser work without a side exit?

[Speck]

Anything that can form a low pressure area behind and above the diffuser should be able to do the trick. So, louvres at the top of the wheel well leading up the hood should be fine.

[Garp]

The Mantis is running in Belcar. Almost everything is legal.
So i like to create a p-35 like underbody with a front diffuser.
The ride height is sufficient for this. Because the ride height is set by the low exhaust collectors. This gives me about 20 cm clear from the ground. I'am only a little worried the extra weight it brings it with, will compensate the downforce advantage.

So maybe some more ideas?

[CFD-9]

If you create a properly designed underbody with both front and rear diffusers, the reduction in drage from having a smooth underbody and the increase in downforce will more than compensate for any weight gain.

You would be surprised how much downforce can be gained from having a well designed and optimised front splitter. If it is too long (sticks out too far) then you can lose downforce, if it is too short, however, you will also not have as much downforce as you can.

You can also look at optimising the air flow to and from the radiators to reduce drag and maybe reduce the lift at the front. As Speck says, as long as you can get there air out of the back of the front diffuser you will be fine. If you don't manage it though you could generate lift.

Can you re-route the exhaust under the car and blow it over the rear diffuser, so freeing up space for front diffuser outlets and increase the downforce on the rear diffuser - or, can you move the exhaust to blow the front diffuser and creat an outlet behind it???

At the end of the day, the simplest thing to do is to lower the front of the car, or build an airdam, that reduces the ground clearance at the front. Build a smoot underbody and run the car with some rake - it will generate some downforce and reduce drag a lot.

Hope this wasn't too long and boring!

[Garp]

The routing of the air thrue the radiator is at the downforce producing way. I'm only a little worried when the underbody is enclosed together with the weel well. The engine will overheat, It needs some cooling. Maybe i'l let the air from the weel well partially escape through the engine bay and exhaust via louvres in the the hood.