Originally Posted by howracer' date='Jan 12 2005, 07:34 AM

Ernie

i recently posted the following on the other forum but thought it did address your thread to a degree... if you are primarily a drag racer too large a nose will cost you both et and mph... IMO, there's nothing wrong w a fmic but my suggestion, backed up by the following post, would be to attempt to minimize the front nose as to openings and frontal are...



Aerodynamics is a legitimate and very significant factor as to fd performance. And here again we see the high relative value in the fd design.



Mazda spent huge amounts of resources sculpting the fd’s aerodynamics in recognition of aerodynamic’s importance as to determining vehicle performance. Mazda pushed to the edges the envelope by, for instance, shrinking the cockpit to the point of almost being claustrophobic… all to lower the frontal area and drag coefficient.



Mazda placed significant emphasis on the nose of the fd, making it as small as possible with as little cooling openings as possible.



All because of the great cost of aerodrag. Everything in the top speed formula is constant for a given vehicle ( drag coefficient, frontal area and the divisor) except for MPH.



MPH is cubed!



That means that it takes EIGHT times as much power to go 200 mph as it does 100 mph.



It takes 3.3 times as much power to run 150 mph vs 100 mph.



Above 85 mph aero is king.



It is the excess power above what is needed to drive the fd at, say, 100 mph, that is available for acceleration.



So even if you are not a Bonneville participant, if you drag race for example, aerodynamics is important as the slicker your car the more power is available to accelerate.



Which brings me to ask….



Do you want to look fast or go fast?



The “tuner” front ends for the fd are for looking fast, they have all the aerodynamics of a Hummer. Slap one of those on your car and you can just kiss all of mazda’s aero investment goodby.



If mazda’s well designed R1 aero package swaps away some aero slickness for a bit of downforce w just a splitter and a smallish rear wing in a low pressure area what do you think the huge tuner front end does to the car. The R1 package increases aero drag by 6.9% requiring 6.9% more hp to accelerate even w the non R1.



My bet is that the front ends pictured in post #29 add 15% more drag due to increased frontal area and god-awful drag coefficient.



So here’s my take:



Aero factors are more important than most realize. The stock front end is a thing of beauty engineering-wise…. compact with just enough power robbing ducts to provide cooling. I run it w the R1 splitter and no wing at 25 inches ( low is fast aerowise) of ride height front and rear measured at the wheelwells.



I routinely track my car at Brainerd Int’l which has a 6000 foot straight leading to a banked wide radiused turn which I run 165 mph thru and my car is very well composed. I could run through it a bit faster but I track on Toyo Proxes street tires so elect to leave something on the table.



BTW, 7Langit, I like your mods… front splitter, relocated battery ( I run 52% rear-weight), the Pettit/ASP large IC (super efficient and better aero and weight distribution than fmic), getting rid of the bose weight….



Also above, there were numerous posts about low…. Low is fast both for straight-line speed and cornering as the only 2 factors primarily effecting fd lateral weight transfer is center of gravity and track width.



howard coleman

Originally Posted by z8cw' date='Jan 17 2005, 09:21 PM

Howard,

very interesting reading and I am sure you right. Still I think the FD front was made for the 250hp and not 450hp and the accompaning cooling and air requirements.

Originally Posted by SPOautos' date='Jan 19 2005, 06:34 PM

I'd also say OEM is the best for Aero. As for cooling, in reality the oem is going to be fine because there is not ONE fmic that the core can flow more than the opening of the bumper. The problem is that fmic's are mounted right up agaist the opening where it cuts off the core's edges and it cant be ducted to cover the entire ic core.



What you should do is run the stock nose with a V mount thats ducted so that the entire core gets flow.



Stephen

Originally Posted by GreyGT-C' date='Jan 19 2005, 07:22 PM

Ernie,



I use a HKS FMIC in a custom Vmount setup with the GTC nose. My cooiling temps are PHENOMINAL running on roadcourses in 100*+ heat.



Just something to think about.......