Is the TRD Wing functional?

[oodolbyoo]

Is the TRD wing functional or is it all cosmetic?

[voidhawk]

Hmm... I'm probably gonna get flamed for this, but: from my understanding of aerodynamics none of the wings on street cars are actually very functional? By the time the air flow has gone over your roof it's all turbulent anyway (no longer laminar flow), so you won't get clean air to get a predictable effect. That's why race/drag car wings are mounted much taller (I would guess), to get out of the shear layer. Otherwise, wings mostly add drag and look pretty.

(...runs for cover...)

[AkUmA]

i dont know if the trd wing for the celica is functional, but voidhawk (no flames) but i saw a motor trend on the audi tt and they had a problem over in germany with audi's flying off the road due to the rear of the car being unstable at speeds over 120mile. they added a little lip/wing thingy to the rear and the problems were pretty much solved over there. so in a way i see your point, and then i see the audi problem, but thats not us so... ehehhe but anyway, yeah the trd wind looks nice!!!

[chinard]

BWAHAHAHAH!!!!
Audi's .... with wings...
Sounds like a maxipad commercial!

[voidhawk]

Hehe - I knew this was gonna be a good thread starter. There's some good info on car aerodynamics (for race cars) at this NASA site (http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/Racecar/aerodynamics.html). The thing on the TT is interesting - maybe body extensions are more effective than wings?

[CelicellGTS]

Wings are functional on rear wheel drive cars. The point of the rear wing is to use air to create downforce on the rear tires which are used to move the car forward. However Celicas are front wheel drive cars so the wings are not functional. The Audi is rear wheel, and so are cars like the Supra, Viper, ... If you put on a functional wing on the celica you would take away grip from the front tires resulting in slow accelerating and bad handling.

[voidhawk]

Yeah - I think you got it right. I found this blurb on wings and street cars:
wings create DOWNFORCE, which add traction by applying weight to the tires, increasing available traction, but they sure don't help top speed one bit (although there is something to be said for STABILITY at high speed).
that explains the TT story
The Lamborghini Countach, with its wild front and rear wings, loses more than 10mph of top speed (I think I saw a magazine article claim 174 for no wings and 160 with them). A big whale-tail on your car is unlikely to perform any better, and the only speeds that it will increase traction at are speeds you car is either unable to attain, or speeds you probably don't want to corner very hard at (I like cornering hard, but not at 130MPH on the street).

Talking about whale-tails, check out this ugly mother... (remember what I said about mounting them high to be functional?) LOL

http://ralph.space-nexus.com/tmp/superbird.jpg

[GTS808]

The TRD wing has three settings for more or less downforce. I don't know why you want more downfocre on the rear of the celica but it is fucntional.

As for the pic of the Plymouth. That is the Superbird. The came stock with very inovative things during it's time. The big spioler and and aerodynamic front. That car is the street version of the racecar. It really came in those wild colors too. It got banned from NASCAR at the time. It was to areodynamic and the other car manufactuers said they had a illegal advantange. So instead of engineering better race cars the just took the crybaby way out.

[erok]

Yeah, Superbirds are cool :D