Front Splitter

I started working on a front splitter for my AXR last week.
It is going to be built for SCCA Solo rules for E-Modified, and will have to be removable to fit the car in the trailer.
Here's my first rev foam board mock-up





this design is a little too low (the race wheels drop the front about 2"). So I shortened it up for my next prototype to basically sit about 1" below the frame.

I just got the aluminum back from my friend that cut the parts out on a waterjet. Now, just need to bend the parts and assemble it.
Hopefully, I'll have it ready for the autocross this weekend.

Hmm...pictures aren't showing up for me - just 2 little minus signs where the pictures should be.

Might be a permission issue with Google photo.
I'll try Photobucket-
How about this one:

This is the foam mock-up

Here are the Aluminum parts fresh from the waterjet.


Then formed (pre-assembly)

Aluminum Assembly on the car


Front mount bolts the sheetmetal to the frame under the hood.


Rear mount bolts attaches the square tubing part to the frame near the control arm mounts.

Only issue I need to fix is the angle of the upper part is a few degrees off from matching the headlight mount area.


Didn't seem to be a problem, but it is close to the control arm. If I just made the upper part a little wider it would rest on the upper a-arm mount.

Here is the final assembly on the car, ready to race.


And off the car. I added 2 layers of 1/16" ABS plastic sheet to the bottom to give it a little more structure and durability if it was scraping the ground a lot (which it didn't). I needed to drill the 2 holes for access to the through bolts to mount it easier. If you guys have any ideas for special mounting fasteners that would work better than through bolts, please share. I'd like it to be a little easier to remove and install for a couple reasons. 1) it is about 2" too long to fit in my trailer. and 2) the hood only opens about 30 degrees with it on. But overall seems to fit pretty well and should work. I'll need to do some back to back testing to see how much difference it makes. I drove it today at the autocross and it didn't have any issues scrapping the ground or anything.

Good stuff; I can see the pictures now. Did you see some improvement after it was installed?

Hard to tell without doing real back to back testing, but I think it's doing something. The balance of the car was a little different than previous event as it has a little more corner exit oversteer. I played with the shocks a little, but still struggled to find the rear end grip that I was hoping for. Always hard to sort out when you only have a handful of runs.
I'll have to do some more testing, but it should work well when paired with the rear spoiler like Scott has on the orange car.
I also have some diffuser upgrades that I'm planning to make, so that will be my next step.
I've been holding off on doing the big spoiler because I was hoping for a rule change that would allow wings, but doesn't look like that will happen this year.

Great article......How about attaching it to the body/hood and remove frt hinges and install two clip pins and lift off hood? It would allow better access to everything from firewall to radiator. The biggest problem for me if not removed would be trying to load it and getting clearance from not hitting the ramp with front of splitter.

Just wanted to follow up on the splitter design. After going to the Lincoln Spring SCCA events, I was told the little splitter wasn't fully legal. the problem was how I was interpreting the rules that the splitter could be up to 6" longer and wider that the body work when viewed from above. So where I have it arcing out nicely from the front surface to the endplates, needs basically have a triangular notch cut into the front corners and my endplates need to be shortened an inch or so. the explanation I got was that the 6" measurement is only allowed in the forward direction of the body work when viewed from above. So it can still be as wide as the headlights, but the front contour needs to follow the shape of the nose/side edge more closely and only extends forward of the nose/headlight shape.
It'll take me a few weeks to do the update as I'm moving to a new house this week and have a couple events coming up. I ran the tour event without the splitter, and the car felt a little more balanced- before it was getting a little oversteer at higher speeds which I think is the extra downforce on the front caused by the splitter. So it is doing something, but until I have a rear spoiler to pair it with, I'll probably just keep it off the car.