Front Splitter and Bumper combo

victorofhavoc

So I have totally neglected this thread, and I feel it's time for an update. I am super close to being done with the splitter! I decided to add diffusers, which further complicated my design!

So initially I ran into an issue with tracing the bumper accurately, especially considering there's some body damage in the bumper/fender area on the driver side, so it's sunken in by about an inch. There's also a bit of a chicken and egg scenario with mounting up plywood and choosing where to put initial mounts. This took me a lot of tinkering, but eventually I decided to use rivnuts and mount on the aluminum chassis support that goes to the crash beam. From here I used my Professional Awesome Racing quick releases to mount up the plywood, and trace out the bumper. I used a flexible pvc wall to make a vertical surface from the bumper down. After a ton of measuring I lined everything back up and traced out onto wax paper to make a half of the splitter, including the end to the axle. Once I had that, I traced onto the pvc wall to make a firm template, and then extended it 6 inches from every point to create the final sizing.








I then decided to go one step further and began designing diffusers to fit the splitter. I spoke with Professional Awesome and determined to go with a fairly large diffuser setup due to the size of the rear wing. I also decided that adding a gurney flap to the rear wing would be great for helping balance out the extra front end downforce that will exist. I began with the idea of the curved diffuser based on Pro Awe's design but scaled to 82.5% size to fit under the shorter bumper of the Z with the full intention of dumping all air into the wheel well. Unfortunately after a ton of time attempting to design this complex shape I almost gave up entirely. I decided to use CAD to try and design it then have it 3d printed. Unfortunately this proved too much for my cad skills so I decided to shape a more square diffuser that's 85% scale, but would still dump all air into the wheel well. The grey design below is the curved failure because I couldn't figure out how to get the multi-dimensional dynamic curvature to be concave on the upper surface with my limited CAD skillset. Instead I designed a secondary model that's in red below.









The final printed images turned out okay, but they had quite a bit of warping to them. I should be able to still make them work by gluing some steel to them, which was necessary anyway to prevent the epoxy/carbon mixture from sticking to the surface. Also, I had to split each into 2 parts so that it could be printed in the limited size of most 3D printers.




The final splitter shape has been cut, and the side winglets I made are looking pretty good! They still have to be cut to shape and eventually glued to the splitter itself, but that won't be long now! Mainly I just have to finish the diffuser molds and cut the foam to fit the diffusers exactly.

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Had a 2010 WRX- boy was it quick in a straight line, got a 2014 Z- man is she grippy in the corners-- then left the Z and later got a GTI, now back in an 09 racecar Z!