Thread: Megan Journal
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Old 05-30-2012, 09:12 PM   #22 (permalink)
ZMan8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M.Bonanni View Post
OP - Make your own functional parts, buy only what's necessary and buy it for the right reasons, then put it all together in a parking lot. I like your style.



Pics of said nice and functional parts for the 370Z? I will assume you are talking about front splitters and wings since that's what your issues seem to be with on this car. I have yet to see a non-homemade functional splitter available for this car. Not even close. And this wing is the only truly functional one I have seen. Some people have bolted on a universal APR wing and those are probably decent too, but not compared to this Kognition wing.



OP, hope you don't mind me tackling this question a bit.

This wing element was CFD tested and track tested and developed on my 370Z. We went through two versions during testing to come up with this final version. This is the same wing element (different mounts obviously) that is used on many of the top USA time attack cars like GST Motorsports Impreza, Professional Awesome Evo, etc. So although this wing wasn't wind tunnel tested on a 370Z (none of them are), this is probably as close as it gets to a wing made for the 370Z since it was tested and developed on one.

The CFD testing is basically a computer generated wind tunnel simulation. The wing profile is based off of a 2008 Williams F1 car wing modified to work better on a street car. CFD data shows that at just 6 degrees angle of attack at 100mph the wing makes 237.5 lbs of downforce and just 19.9 lbs of drag which is estimated to be the equivalent of being down just 5.3 horsepower. So you can see that this wing has a very good ratio of drag to downforce. The CFD testing simulates what the wing produces in clean air, so it probably doesn't do those exact numbers on the 370Z but we designed the wing to sit right at the roofline of the 370Z so the wing is pretty close to being in clean air. Furthermore this wing has a 68" span so a good part of each end of the wing is actually in clean air.

The first version we tested was this same wing profile, same size, same everything except it was made to be as light as possible using as little material as possible. The first lap at speed, at around 125mph the ends of the wing that were in clean air broke off because of the downforce. Literally folded down to where the end plates hit my tail lights. Version two added lightweight lateral support beams through the length of the wing that fixed the problem. You can now stand on the wing without it even flexing.

So thats why he chose the Kognition wing. Unfortunately, since so many people on here are all about form and don't care about function, he didn't sell a single one so he got rid of the molds to make the mounts for the 370Z specifically. You can still buy the wing element itself, but anyone that wants one is going to have to get their own mounts made. I am bummed that I sold it in the first place seeing as I ended up keeping my Z, but glad to see that it has gone onto a car that wants it for the right reasons!
good info here. rep coming your way, thanks!
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