- When it comes down to aerodynamics in the car scene,
it gets a little bit tricky.
A lot of people either get triggered
or a lot of people are perfectly okay with it.
And it's like one side or the other.
Whenever you mention the aerodynamics,
people just like get in an uproar.
And especially when it comes to putting
aero parts on your car, people seem to have their opinions
and they are not afraid to express them.
And we've seen it all over the place,
aero has become like the thing now,
throughout the last couple years,
especially with the wide bodies coming out on cars,
aero has, (coughs).
(dramatic voiceover)
Aero has come along with that.
You see it with the big splitters,
the big chassis mount wings.
You got like the five different canards
and dive plates up front.
So you've got the rear spats, you got the diffusers,
you got the side panels, you got like every little piece
of aero you can possibly imagine on vehicles nowadays.
And you can argue that yes,
a lot of people do it for mostly looks,
but on the other hand, people do it for function as well.
So, I'm Gels from Fitment Industries,
and today I'm here to explain and kind of break down
individually piece by piece, what aero exactly is for cars.
And before we get into it, don't forget to subscribe.
So, when we get into talking about aerodynamics
and aerodynamics in cars and aero parts,
we're gonna be talking about mostly two things.
We're gonna be talking about drag,
and we're gonna be talking about aerodynamic pressure,
otherwise known as downforce.
Now, probably one of the biggest misconceptions
when it comes to adding aero on the car is that,
this is gonna make my car go faster,
I'm gonna put a big wing on the car
and it's gonna make it go faster.
Now, that is technically not the case,
what you're essentially doing
is you're adding more downforce to the car
to help it grip the road better during turns
and keep it stable when you approach high speeds.
Now, these two things are gonna go hand in hand,
you can't have lift without drag.
So, the first part of aero that we're gonna get into
and really talk about, are wings and spoilers.
Now, this is probably one of the most common
and most known piece of aerodynamics
that you can add to a car
and it is also probably one of the most misunderstood pieces
of aero you can add to car.
Now, a lot of people will get spoilers confused with wings,
and they are actually two different things.
When you're talking about spoilers,
you're talking about a piece of aero
that will disrupt the airflow going over a vehicle.
Now, when you talk about wings, it is essentially a wing,
you're looking at an air foil,
but instead of being like in an airplane,
or like an under-camerared air foil,
you're essentially flipping that upside down,
so instead of creating lift,
you're creating reverse lift or downforce.
Now, like, as I mentioned before, with lift or downforce,
as we'll call it from now on,
with downforce you also get drag.
As soon as you start adding things to a car
that are sticking up from the surface of the car,
or are extruding more than normal,
you're adding drag to the car.
Now, both drag and lift or downforce are exponential,
meaning the faster that you're going with the car,
the more downforce and drag is going to be produced.
So, when it comes down to adding a wing on your car,
you're essentially wanting to get
as much downforce as possible
but with as little bit of drag as you can.
Now, this can be determined by
how you have your wing adjusted.
If you have an adjustable wing,
where you can actually adjust the angle of the air foil
and the angle that it hits the oncoming airflow
will determine how much drag
versus downforce you have on the car.
So, essentially what the wing is gonna do,
is gonna add downforce over the rear end of the vehicle,
creating a high pressure area over the back end of the car.
So, now moving from the back of the car
towards the front of the car, we have splitters.
Now, what splitters are designed to do
is in increase drag on the front end of the car.
Now, when you increase the drag on the front of the car,
you essentially build an area of high pressure,
which in turn creates downforce
before it eventually moves towards the back of the vehicle.
Now, as that air moves from the front of the car
towards the back of the car, we hit our next component,
which are gonna be canards or dive plates.
Now essentially, what these are gonna do
is further help redirect that high pressure air
that we gathered from the front of the car from the splitter
and help redirect it down the side of the car.
Now, this will also help with downforce as well
since most of the time they are angled downwards,
essentially as to why they're sometimes
known as dive plates.
So with them being angled downwards,
it'll help redirect the air not only along the sides,
but also up and a way from the underneath of the car,
which we'll get into later why that is a big deal.
So, the next part we're gonna talk about is side skirts.
Now, side skirts actually play more of probably
an important role than you probably think.
Now, what side skirts was solely designed to do
is help keep that high pressure air
that's moving from the front of the vehicle
to gather and kind of suck in underneath the vehicle
from around the sides.
Now, like I mentioned earlier with the canards
keeping that airflow directed upwards
and away from the underside of the car,
there is a reason for this, and the reason for that being
and why you hear the term downforce so much
is because of the Bernoulli effect.
Now, if you think of the Bernoulli effect
you think high pressure versus low pressure.
Now, how this plays a role in cars
is when you have an area of high pressure
and an area of low pressure.
Your area of high pressure
is going to have low velocity air,
whereas the area of low pressure
is going to have high velocity air,
and with the Bernoulli effect,
any high pressure area is gonna move
to an area of low pressure and vice versa.
Any high velocity area is gonna try
to move to an area of low velocity.
So, now if you think of an airplane,
how an airplane flies is when you have the wing,
you have that air foil, you have the longer distance
that it takes for the air to get over the top side
of the air foil than it does for the underside.
Now, essentially this is how we wanna look at a car
except upside down.
You don't want the car to lift off the ground
you want the car to stay planted.
So what we need to have is a higher velocity low pressure
air stream underneath the car and a high pressure
low velocity stream above the car.
This is gonna do the reverse, downforce on top of the car
keeping it planted towards the ground.
So, essentially what these side skirts and canards
and everything are doing is keeping that high pressure air
from getting under the car where the high velocity
low pressure air is sitting and keep it balanced,
which brings us to our next part.
Now, if you look at a lot of high performance vehicles,
specifically like supercars, or F1 cars,
or any kind of racing designed vehicle,
if you look at the underside you'll notice that
it is as flat as possible.
And they do this together with the design of the vehicle
or with the addition of plates on the bottom.
Now if I were to go and look under my FRS,
you'll see that it has a tunnel for the transmission
where the exhaust kind of runs through.
It has a lot of different you know,
with the frame being designed, it's got a lot of,
you know, edges that can catch air,
it's got a lot of pockets that can catch air,
and this causes turbulence under the car,
which in turn creates drag, which creates high pressure,
which again throws off that pressure imbalance.
So, what these underplates are designed to do
is streamline the bottom the car,
cover the transmission tunnels,
cover suspension components as much as it can,
or direct air away from them
so they can gather and create air pockets
and create an area where air can flow at high velocity
and create low pressure.
And then moving on to the final piece of aero
that we're gonna talk about today would be your diffuser.
Now, again, I feel like this is one of those parts
that a lot of people don't necessarily think
makes a huge difference, but in turn, it actually does.
And it ties in a lot with your splitter,
you're under panels, and then eventually,
ends up at the diffuser.
So, the diffuser plays a key role
in creating that low pressure under the vehicle.
So, now we're essentially getting into what is called
the Venturi effect.
So this is essentially when you have an air flow
that is running at high velocity and low pressure
just like underneath the vehicle.
We have air going at high velocity, low pressure
and this is one that air stream gets diverted
into a high pressure, low velocity airflow.
Now, essentially what this is gonna do,
is when you come from a high velocity low pressure
to a low velocity high pressure,
you are essentially creating a vacuum
for underneath the car.
Now this is gonna help again with downforce
just like everything else,
but not in the fact that you're creating drag,
it's by the way that it disperses air flow
from underneath the car, creating a vacuum,
sucking the car to the ground
and giving you that extra grip,
and extra downforce essentially.
Whether you want it, are doing it mainly for aesthetic
or are doing it for function, you want to balance your aero.
Not only does it look good, but it is very important
when you are using it for function.
You don't wanna have all of your aero up front
because what you're gonna end up doing
if it's not balanced in the back is you're gonna cause
a lot of oversteer on your car.
And that goes the same for the vice versa.
And if you have a lot of downforce
in the back end of your car,
you're gonna cause a lot of understeer up front
because you're not having that same amount of force
or same amount of downforce exerted throughout the car,
so you're not gonna have that same amount of grip
or same amount of traction up front.
Where is if you have a massive spoiler
but no other aero up front.
So this tax return season when you're looking at buying
some big things for your car you're buying your part
that you've been saving up for a while
whether that be your splitter,
whether that be your side skirts,
whether that be the big chassis mount wing
that you've been looking for, for a while,
keep in mind that if you're gonna do one thing,
plan on doing other parts as well.
And I personally say this all the time
in our From The Gallery episodes,
if someone has a massive wing in the back
but nothing around the sides,
it kinda just, it looks goofy and you can tell that
from when you guys look at cars
or from when everyone else looks at cars,
that it just looks unbalanced
and naturally is because it actually is, like physically.
So, I just...
(coughs)
So, just a few things to keep in mind
when you're looking at adding aero to your car.
I just wanna see you guys do a good job with it.
I don't want you to get made fun of at your next car show
or your next car meet or your next track day
when your massive wing is causing you to fly off the corner
because you had no steering control.
Just gonna.
(laughs)
- Hello. - Hello.
- [Woman] The president wants to talk to you sir.
- Hello.
- [Woman] (laughs) Okay, I'm done.
- That phone call was bananas.
So, hopefully that cleared a few things up for you guys
if you have any more questions,
if you'd like to see another video,
maybe explaining in depth each part individually,
let us know down in the comments below.
But until then I'm Gels from Fitment Industries.
Don't forget to subscribe and also we are doing a giveaway
with TSW wheels for the month of February.
Easiest way to enter, go to the description
we'll link it down below,
for you to go to fitmentindustries.com,
find out all the rules, all the details.
Head on over there, see how you guys can win
a set of TSW wheels.
But until then, I'm Gels from Fitment Industries
and we'll see you later.
Peace.