Aerodynamics of a bug

[spannermanager]

Hi Graham, quick answer, in general, the more floor area, at the right rake angle and ride height, the better as regards good low drag aero dynamic performance, the big decision for a road car is how low you can run it, given that it's a lot of work to run a bug low enough for racing at the ideal 40mm, which is out of the question for a road car, my running boards tie into the pan to widen the flat floor area, but it's not practical for a road car as the jack points have to go in the bin, and the cost of making GRP stuff these days is a joke, don't ask,,,, I would just use something that looked neat with the wide wings, it's the 100mm road car ride height that offers no realistic gains from teasing out small aero detail, but modern cars do exploit lower ride height for Aero advantage, you only have to look at the world championship rally cars going ever lower,,,,,
The best way to lower any car, especially a Stone Age design like ours is smaller wheels and tyres, mine would be on 13" spun alloy wheels and lightweight hot rod tyres tomorrow if,,,,,, well, cash in short. But You have enough power anyway to relax a bit on drag factor, but my aim is to go as quick as possible as near stock as possible,,,,, there is tho a plan B if the opposition start going quicker than in the past.

[graham]

Thanks for the reply Spannermananger…

I was wondering if it was worth the effort with the running boards but probably not, I didn't think about the jacking points.

Also thanks Judgie on the heads up on balancing the corner weights.

Another area of the car that I do want to play with is the rear bumper.As I have a front bumper spoiler I want to build/modify a rear bumper from an old beetle/porsche body kit I have.One reason for this is to give the car a balanced look when viewed from the side.A standard rear bumper with my front end would look odd.The standard beetle bumper on an 03 is in my mind a kind of box shaped parachute.Just the shape seems to me to be totally wrong and the drag and turbulence it must create surely would add to rear end instability ? Or do you think that the air is mainly detached by the time it reaches the bumper ?

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