jay745
What Would Glenn Danzig Do
- Location
- Slightly Outside Chicago
- Car(s)
- Mk6 racecar, Tacoma
ah yes, mine is a mk6 so slightly less complicated
7
A Track Rat's Build Thread
- Thread starter victorofhavoc
- Start date
victorofhavoc
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Kansas City
Here are a couple videos my friend took of me getting used to the new car. What you don't see here is the modified TTRS that my GTI had trouble keeping up with that the Z flew by. It was a very cold, cold day for slicks, and it took my R7 nearly 5 laps to properly warm up! When I ran a 45 min test and tune session, the tires just kept giving more and more grip as the session moved on.
victorofhavoc
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Kansas City
With the new car I realized very quickly that some form of front splitter is badly needed. I think the GTI being so nose heavy also needs some form of splitter to move the aero balance forward.
Initially I intended to buy a splitter, but custom made stuff gets expensive fast and even basic plywood runs over 400$. I decided to first try finding my own marine plywood and cutting that to shape.
I found a local source of marine ply, but it's not high quality and bent on me while sitting on its side for one evening. I bought a bunch of nice hardware from professional awesome and planned to mount the plywood splitter with it. I still plan to use the plywood for a replica and core model, but I plan to use it to eyeball the hardware into spec.
I'll trace the bumper onto the plywood and measure out 4" from every vertical dam section, which means I will likely have to do the dam first.
The plywood will then mount to the car to test fit and get cut down to rough splitter shape.
Then the bumper goes on, then dam, and final jigsaw cut to ensure a clean and smooth finish to the facing edge. I'll also make note of any hardware holes, recess any necessary and retest fit. I'll also make note of the bumper lower side which will likely need a fence and dam extension, and plan accordingly.
Now comes the fun part... I can get polyisocyanurate foam from home depot for 12$ in a 1/2x4x8 sheet. Carbon composites sells fabrics, epoxies, and bagging kits which I'll buy to do 1.5gal epoxy, 5 yards of bagging kit material, and enough carbon fabric for 2 layers, plus an additional carbon Kevlar layer (in red/black because why not throw some color in in life). I'll also get a resin tank and venturi vacuum generator from Amazon.
The foam will be cut to the splitter shape, the edges routed, the backing removed, any holes or cutouts recessed and cut, and then the whole thing will get a thin layer of resin to smooth and seal pockets in the foam.
I'll do the multiple layers of fabric with epoxy between each, bag the sandwich, and then let it cure for 24 hrs. Once cured, I'll sand it, clean it up, and give it a solid coat of a water based outdoor poly with my spray gun.
I'm at the measuring out the bumper step now
.
Initially I intended to buy a splitter, but custom made stuff gets expensive fast and even basic plywood runs over 400$. I decided to first try finding my own marine plywood and cutting that to shape.
I found a local source of marine ply, but it's not high quality and bent on me while sitting on its side for one evening. I bought a bunch of nice hardware from professional awesome and planned to mount the plywood splitter with it. I still plan to use the plywood for a replica and core model, but I plan to use it to eyeball the hardware into spec.
I'll trace the bumper onto the plywood and measure out 4" from every vertical dam section, which means I will likely have to do the dam first.
The plywood will then mount to the car to test fit and get cut down to rough splitter shape.
Then the bumper goes on, then dam, and final jigsaw cut to ensure a clean and smooth finish to the facing edge. I'll also make note of any hardware holes, recess any necessary and retest fit. I'll also make note of the bumper lower side which will likely need a fence and dam extension, and plan accordingly.
Now comes the fun part... I can get polyisocyanurate foam from home depot for 12$ in a 1/2x4x8 sheet. Carbon composites sells fabrics, epoxies, and bagging kits which I'll buy to do 1.5gal epoxy, 5 yards of bagging kit material, and enough carbon fabric for 2 layers, plus an additional carbon Kevlar layer (in red/black because why not throw some color in in life). I'll also get a resin tank and venturi vacuum generator from Amazon.
The foam will be cut to the splitter shape, the edges routed, the backing removed, any holes or cutouts recessed and cut, and then the whole thing will get a thin layer of resin to smooth and seal pockets in the foam.
I'll do the multiple layers of fabric with epoxy between each, bag the sandwich, and then let it cure for 24 hrs. Once cured, I'll sand it, clean it up, and give it a solid coat of a water based outdoor poly with my spray gun.
I'm at the measuring out the bumper step now
.victorofhavoc
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Kansas City
For anyone interested, here is a photo comparison between the gti gloc pad in the R16 Compound and a carbotech xp12 pad for the 370z 4 piston 355mm setup. The Z pads are the same size pad that a stoptech st40 caliper would wear. The gti pads are really massive and there's a reason they need a ton of cooling coming in!
victorofhavoc
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Kansas City
Carbon fiber and red carbon kevlar came in!
This looks oddly familiar to what I did with aluminum..... and is still sitting in my shed lolWith the new car I realized very quickly that some form of front splitter is badly needed. I think the GTI being so nose heavy also needs some form of splitter to move the aero balance forward.
Initially I intended to buy a splitter, but custom made stuff gets expensive fast and even basic plywood runs over 400$. I decided to first try finding my own marine plywood and cutting that to shape.
I found a local source of marine ply, but it's not high quality and bent on me while sitting on its side for one evening. I bought a bunch of nice hardware from professional awesome and planned to mount the plywood splitter with it. I still plan to use the plywood for a replica and core model, but I plan to use it to eyeball the hardware into spec.
I'll trace the bumper onto the plywood and measure out 4" from every vertical dam section, which means I will likely have to do the dam first.
The plywood will then mount to the car to test fit and get cut down to rough splitter shape.
Then the bumper goes on, then dam, and final jigsaw cut to ensure a clean and smooth finish to the facing edge. I'll also make note of any hardware holes, recess any necessary and retest fit. I'll also make note of the bumper lower side which will likely need a fence and dam extension, and plan accordingly.
Now comes the fun part... I can get polyisocyanurate foam from home depot for 12$ in a 1/2x4x8 sheet. Carbon composites sells fabrics, epoxies, and bagging kits which I'll buy to do 1.5gal epoxy, 5 yards of bagging kit material, and enough carbon fabric for 2 layers, plus an additional carbon Kevlar layer (in red/black because why not throw some color in in life). I'll also get a resin tank and venturi vacuum generator from Amazon.
The foam will be cut to the splitter shape, the edges routed, the backing removed, any holes or cutouts recessed and cut, and then the whole thing will get a thin layer of resin to smooth and seal pockets in the foam.
I'll do the multiple layers of fabric with epoxy between each, bag the sandwich, and then let it cure for 24 hrs. Once cured, I'll sand it, clean it up, and give it a solid coat of a water based outdoor poly with my spray gun.
I'm at the measuring out the bumper step now
View attachment 193847View attachment 193848View attachment 193849View attachment 193850
victorofhavoc
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Kansas City
Ha! I always have so many projects in flight. Sometimes some take forever, but with this one I'm trying to get done by a certain time frame. We'll see how I do!
victorofhavoc
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Kansas City
I got some hardware to mount up my professional awesome quick releases. It will be two u bolts per quick release with two angle brackets so that the u bolts clamp to the crash beam, the L brackets are bolted to the u bolts, and the quick releases then adjust up and down the L bracket as well as allowing the adjustment up and down the u bolt.
If anyone else plans to jump down a similar rabbit hole, I highly recommend looking at professional awesome's diy front aero page, https://professionalawesome.com/diy-downforce/ . I did a tremendous amount of reading about a lot of other aero concepts after using their page as a starting point. There's really a lot to go down, but one of the key aspects which I didn't realize until I read about it, is that the Battle Aero wing that came with my car had endplates facing the wrong way. The meat of the plate should always be at the front of the wing. Also, the wing shape isn't ideal, but it's not bad. It's prone to a bit more drag than a typical wing used in motorsport with data behind it, and there's a lot of improvement to be had from going to a dual element air foil, so at some point I guess I might even try my hand at a carbon wing... Pictured below is the CORRECT orientation of the endplates. This should help reduce a tremendous amount of drag and improve downforce at the outsides of the wing. This is especially needed given the width of the Z's front and rear fenders which greatly disturb the air flow underneath the ends of the air foil.
I measured out the radiator and the front grill intake as well. As it turns out the front grill intake (the functional parts not the plastic) are sized exactly 1/3rd of the surface area of the cooling stack! That's exactly how it should be! Who would have guessed nissan engineers knew what they were doing!? Now I just need to cut out the obstructive plastic and create a curved intake panel that will reach to the edges of the radiator to seal all that air in and force it through the cooling stack. With some louvres this should help keep all temps greatly in check and reduce underhood pressure at speed, which will lead to more downforce! I also plan to use the oem vertical DRL as an intake for the brake ducts. I checked and a shopvac general purpose suction end fits the size, so I may try to glue one on and see how it goes! Likely the intake will have to be downsized eventually, but that's not so hard to do...
So here's the major problem at the moment!! I bought a venturi vac to generate my vacuum suction for the resin catch which then sucks from the bag. I hooked everything up and I was missing several fittings. After a trip to home depot racing, I got all the fittings I needed and test the vac. It immediately pulled 27"hg but the cost was high... It needed a minimum 55 psi @ 3.5 cfm to maintain that vac and while my compressor can run 5cfm at 90psi, it only runs 3.5 cfm @ 165 psi and coincidentally that's where it got stuck on recharge and would run perpetually! It obviously would never get back to its 200psi full charge. There are other venturi that perform better and generate 1atm or 29"hg at only 0.5 cfm, but those cost as much as a knockoff vac pump on Amazon, so I went ahead and bought the vac pump. It should arrive this week for more testing!
If anyone else plans to jump down a similar rabbit hole, I highly recommend looking at professional awesome's diy front aero page, https://professionalawesome.com/diy-downforce/ . I did a tremendous amount of reading about a lot of other aero concepts after using their page as a starting point. There's really a lot to go down, but one of the key aspects which I didn't realize until I read about it, is that the Battle Aero wing that came with my car had endplates facing the wrong way
. The meat of the plate should always be at the front of the wing. Also, the wing shape isn't ideal, but it's not bad. It's prone to a bit more drag than a typical wing used in motorsport with data behind it, and there's a lot of improvement to be had from going to a dual element air foil, so at some point I guess I might even try my hand at a carbon wing... Pictured below is the CORRECT orientation of the endplates. This should help reduce a tremendous amount of drag and improve downforce at the outsides of the wing. This is especially needed given the width of the Z's front and rear fenders which greatly disturb the air flow underneath the ends of the air foil.
I measured out the radiator and the front grill intake as well. As it turns out the front grill intake (the functional parts not the plastic) are sized exactly 1/3rd of the surface area of the cooling stack! That's exactly how it should be! Who would have guessed nissan engineers knew what they were doing!? Now I just need to cut out the obstructive plastic and create a curved intake panel that will reach to the edges of the radiator to seal all that air in and force it through the cooling stack. With some louvres this should help keep all temps greatly in check and reduce underhood pressure at speed, which will lead to more downforce! I also plan to use the oem vertical DRL as an intake for the brake ducts. I checked and a shopvac general purpose suction end fits the size, so I may try to glue one on and see how it goes! Likely the intake will have to be downsized eventually, but that's not so hard to do...
So here's the major problem at the moment!! I bought a venturi vac to generate my vacuum suction for the resin catch which then sucks from the bag. I hooked everything up and I was missing several fittings. After a trip to home depot racing, I got all the fittings I needed and test the vac. It immediately pulled 27"hg but the cost was high... It needed a minimum 55 psi @ 3.5 cfm to maintain that vac and while my compressor can run 5cfm at 90psi, it only runs 3.5 cfm @ 165 psi and coincidentally that's where it got stuck on recharge and would run perpetually! It obviously would never get back to its 200psi full charge. There are other venturi that perform better and generate 1atm or 29"hg at only 0.5 cfm, but those cost as much as a knockoff vac pump on Amazon, so I went ahead and bought the vac pump. It should arrive this week for more testing!
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victorofhavoc
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Kansas City
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.
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.
jay745
What Would Glenn Danzig Do
- Location
- Slightly Outside Chicago
- Car(s)
- Mk6 racecar, Tacoma
Now this is awesome
victorofhavoc
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Kansas City
Thanks! I still plan to do the air dam and wheel spat/dam area in carbon, and epoxy it to the splitter for easy on off as one big piece
! That way the loading and u loading on the trailer isn't a disaster every time.Funny....I have a full splitter in aluminum in my garage......they realized it was too heavy to mount to the bumper. Seeing your build.....this is WAY more than my expertise can handle. Now I have a piece of aluminum good for nothing.......
victorofhavoc
Autocross Champion
- Location
- Kansas City
What kind of aluminum? Like alumalite type stuff?
You definitely always want things chassis mounted when dealing with aero. I obviously went a bit further than most people would, but if you'd like to make your setup work, I'm happy to provide advice. You likely just need some mounting hardware and some patience to line it all up and install.
I’ll PM you!