Brabham Fan car... anyone tried to replicate?

[SystemParanoia]

I'm just wondering, has anyone ever tried to perform the neccicary modifications to their trackday car to see if they could drop their lap times in the process.

If anyone knows of any links to build threads....

Thx

[Alex97]

You'd have to be running something seriously low to even contemplate it.

[SystemParanoia]

Alex97 said:

You'd have to be running something seriously low to even contemplate it.

Touring car low? Or lower than that?

Anyone know the maths/physics involved?

[Murdoc]

This Corvette: http://www.cheaparral.com/

[SystemParanoia]

Hhhaaaa!! Awesome! Thanks for the link!

[monthefish]

Cool.

It's a shame the footage didn't show more footage of the car performing, particluarly it achieving the 1.4g cornering...

[Ozzie Osmond]

SystemParanoia said:

Touring car low? Or lower than that?

For practical purposes, touching the ground.

Not the same as but nonetheless similar to the early lotus "ground-effect" cars which had long side skirts sliding along the ground.

Essentially the Lotus solution and Brabham solution were the same thing - creating a low pressure area under the car. Lotus did it with an upside down aircraft wing and Brabham did it with a fan.

[marcosgt]

Ozzie Osmond said:

SystemParanoia said:

Touring car low? Or lower than that?

For practical purposes, touching the ground.

Not the same as but nonetheless similar to the early lotus "ground-effect" cars which had long side skirts sliding along the ground.

Essentially the Lotus solution and Brabham solution were the same thing - creating a low pressure area under the car. Lotus did it with an upside down aircraft wing and Brabham did it with a fan.

And, of course, the Brabham simply copied the Chapparal Can Am car, which did a fan (driven by a snow mobile engine if I remember correctly) years before the F1 car.

You need to have some way to seal the car to the ground too, otherwise the suction is undermined by air leaking in along the sides (Ground effect F1 cars had 'skirts' as did the Chapparal).

M.

Edited by marcosgt on Monday 5th April 12:14

[Ozzie Osmond]

marcosgt said:

Chapparal Can Am car, which had a fan driven by a snow mobile engine if I remember correctly

Yes, albeit some might consider the second engine to be "cheating"!

[kambites]

Ozzie Osmond said:

Yes, albeit some might consider the second engine to be "cheating"!

I think the whole point of Can Am was that nothing was cheating. You could do almost whatever you liked.

[angryorangefocus]

is this a Chapparal Can Am car how the hell does that work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxBiIDvbYUc&fea...

ot but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnl_KVf9fbw&fea... how nice does this sound

[SystemParanoia]

monthefish said:

Cool.

It's a shame the footage didn't show more footage of the car performing, particluarly it achieving the 1.4g cornering...

Aparantly the fw08c williams f1 car can pull only 1.38 lateral g's

[hairykrishna]

angryorangefocus said:

is this a Chapparal Can Am car how the hell does that work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxBiIDvbYUc&fea...

ot but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnl_KVf9fbw&fea... how nice does this sound

I love that car. ~50hp snowmobile engine for the fans, ~700hp V8 for the wheels.

[SystemParanoia]

[ctallchris]

This looks like a very cool idea but one that would make any car you experimented with prone to sudden and extreme loss of grip for example you are headimng round a corner at full wack pulling 1.4g the edge of your skirt clips the kerb leaving a gap under under the side of the car suddenly the car loses all downforce.

you could compartmentalise the underside of the car and fit valves in order to limit the loss of suction but you would still not have a reliable quantity of grip.