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building my own dam/splitter

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Discussion starter · #22 ·
RallyRide said:
I'd like to see some pics of it installed over the pavement to get a good idea of ground clearance.
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the thing with this is, it can be tailored to how much ground clearance you want. i measured it to be 4 inches off the ground, it came out about .5 inches lower than planned.

its all a matter of how wide i wanted to make the air dam.
 
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#23 ·
I need to figure out how to do this for the SVT bumper. Any plans for undertrayness for the rest of the car?
 
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#24 · (Edited)
Nice job chewbacca!

rheacer said:
looks good.
Might want to look at a sheet or at least some strips of rub material though .
I used some of my old formula ford. Not as cool as throwing sparks, but didn't need to reweld up frame rails every Monday after a race, either ;^)
1/4" about 6 inches long lasted a couple of seasons. Counter sunk and riveted on every 3 inches (3 per side worked great. You'd probably need 3 or 4 strips, maybe a foot or so each.

http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/group.asp?GroupID=HARDWEAR
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Hey Dave! That's some neat stuff. Where would you put that? I'm thinking one in the middle (side to side) at the nose, the a couple pieces on each side out to the bend and following the contour of the splitter (five pieces total).

Counter sunk? Are you suggesting it goes out over the lip? Not sure what you mean there. Explain more.
 
#25 ·
Looks good!!!

Are you going to offer this in cabonfiber form as well? I know of drivers that race in NASA who have use sheet metal before, but have all switch to carbonfiber because sheet mental bends too much and when it does it could create left rather then downforce. Sometimes when you're going two wide in a turn, there's going to be times where you have to hit the curb hard, plus the fact you're going to go off from time to time and they will just bend? There's nothing you can do about that.

Also, would you offer it without the air dam or at least a smaller air dam. One of the reasons is in PT and TT it cost points for the air dam, and you could get away with it with just a splitter sometimes if the car is low enough.

I have talked to two companies that sells splitters and carbonfiber kits to other cars that plan to designing and make splitters for the Focus very soon. I have talked to them about making something for our Spec Series. If you do make Carbonfiber kits, I would be very interested in them.
 
#27 ·
RickB1321 said:
^are the splitters that your mentioning going to be made for
pre-05 front ends or is it not going to matter?:dunno:
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They will be made for all years and SVT, RS, Ford Street kit and F2 Front fascia. This is without a Air Dam but with adjustable support rods.

The Air Dam is something interesting because if we do allow splitters and wings. It will be depend on the suspension into how big of a Air Dam is needed, if at all.
 
Discussion starter · #28 ·
ted, i'm a college student and this was jsut a little pet project of mine. i have very little resources so me making one in CF is pretty much out of the question.

kim, countersunk is refering to the rivets/screws holding the rub strip on so they dont' hang down and get worn off before the rub strip can do its magic.
 
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#30 ·
chewbacca said:
ted, i'm a college student and this was jsut a little pet project of mine. i have very little resources so me making one in CF is pretty much out of the question.
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No Problem. My mistake, I thought you were going to try to sell them as well.
 
#31 ·
What Chew said.
Long wise (front to back) is probably the way to go. You want a taper on the leading edge and then back to take the weight. Side to side and it would probably just be torn off. One or two in the center, one on either end as close to the edge as you can. I attached mine to the square chassis tubing at the rear edge and a couple at the front behind the nose.
Image
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Discussion starter · #32 ·
i've been thinking of selling them, but it'd be a TON of overhead for me when i go back to school since i don't have any tools down there. i'll think about it some more this week and figure out if its gonna be a worthwhile endeavor for me, if i don't, i'll probably just sell the plans for it.
 
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#33 ·
chewbacca said:
i've been thinking of selling them, but it'd be a TON of overhead for me when i go back to school since i don't have any tools down there. i'll think about it some more this week and figure out if its gonna be a worthwhile endeavor for me, if i don't, i'll probably just sell the plans for it.
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I feel ya man. College kinda sucks with regards to cars. No work place, no storage space. I have to drive 200 miles roundtrip to work on my car.










For the record, carbon fiber isn't too too hard to do. All you need is a template to work off of, carbon fiber sheets, resin, and a Vacuum bag.


But like you said, with CF its overhead, overhead, overhead. The carbon sheets are expensive.
 
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#34 ·
Looks really good. I started working on one last summer myself, it was also 4" tall as well. I was planning on making them out of fiberglass but never finished.

What kind of steel did you go with when you made it? Gauge? Also, how much does the dam/splitter weigh? Where did you buy the steel from? I have had a hard time finding local places that sell such large sheets of it.
 
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Discussion starter · #35 ·
only the dam is steel, the horizontal splitter is aluminum, .125 thick. the steel is around 14, and i prolly could have gone 16. The whole thing weighs 17 pounds without the radiator support bracing that i'll be adding on thursday. but that will be aluminum tubing and shouldn't be more than another .5 pounds.

I hope i've been able to answer everyones questions. i'm going to try to figure out the frontal area of the splitter and determine the actual downforce it creates.
 
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#36 ·
Nice work Chewy, the airdam part reminds me of something I once did, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away......

Not a great pic of the airdam itself but on this car it's almost a whole front end from under that bar grill to the grass. The bottom lip is rubber, and during autocrosses it had little bits of lime on it from the course......guess that made it just about right. F-15 sheet metal shop made it for me to my specs, for a case of something good on a hot day.......

Image
 
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