bpimm
Brian Pimm
I think there is no matter how big lip is added in front - it will do about 0 downforce. It actually would work more like air brakes.
it's more about total area of front view and what separate sections do. quite good example is old mini with max speed 146 km/h and same mini with sportspack wide fenderflares - max speed 140 kmh, if I remember wright (Had experienced that .
- could help two small lips on sides, not in front of radiator, because that air is going next under the car and making opposite effect
-bigger improvement would be added air scoops, to redirect air from bottom to top of the front through radiator.
Those air scoops would be more characteristicall to midengined car. I understand that 1 of 100 could cut holes in his car to modify it - but that is that special lower valance for X19 - hidden in the frunk...
I'm not aerodynamic specialist.
Down force is drag and therefore the top speed will be lower. If the front lip is a splitter then it builds an area of high pressure air above it causing downforce. Just look at some of the time attack cars, just think of it as a shelf to sit all that heavy air on. LOL this will cause huge amounts of drag. not great for a 75HP Fiat but when HP is unlimited... The same design concept will cause down force on the fiat think of it as taking air that would normally go under the car and rerouting it over the car causing lower pressure under the car and higher pressure above the car. now the effects would be way less than the car pictured but it may be enough to get rid of the light nose effect of the X. Years ago when I first started driving I had a Ford Pinto..... I had to modify it, just like every other car I have ever owned, I built the engine and was playing out in the desert, I found that at about 105mph the nose started lifting and getting unstable so I built an airdam on the front. next time out in the desert it was about 115mph that the back end started getting light, then came the Porsche style whale tail and then the 132mph top end was totally stable.
If you look at the X in profile the front lip is about 2" higher than the floor of the car so it's letting more air under the front than can easily flow under the body plus all the radiator air dumps under the car as well causing a high pressure area under the nose. Now I'm not an aerodynamics engineer either so everything I just wrote may be BS but it seems to me that is what's happening.