Delta wing indycar concept

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Nice interview on it: http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/indycar-inside-the-delta-wing-project/

...and the official site http://deltawingracing.com/

:idea:Wow, a very fascinating concept in my opinion. At first glance they look a bit odd, but after reading the reasoning behind the design it sort of makes sense albeit in a radical, new way that is. It would take some re-thinking of what we consider an indycar and I say it's a bold step in the right direction.

Nice sim demonstration to show how it might look. Like fighter jets dueling on a race track!!:crazy:


 
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It looks like it won't be able to go around the circuits very well(which make up almost half the schedule).
 
It looks like they tried too hard to make a car that looked like a jet plane rather than come up with a unique design idea.
I don't even get how the tail wing is going to work...won't it just act like a sail half the time? How is this more effective than a standard rear wing?
What about suspension travel? The wheels look too enclosed, can't imagine it will ride kerbs very well.

I also start to wonder about that wheel configuration..won't it lead to masses of understeer? It looks like an odd shape to steer and I wouldn't like to be in one when it loses the back-end.
 
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Ardius, read the interiew in the speed article, it explains why it is designed the way it is. At first I thought the same way, but the design is actually a product of what the concept is supposed to acheive.

Not sure what suspension travel is like on the current indycar, but it indeed looks like there is perhaps not enough.
 
No offense, but the interview just reads like a checklist of "this is awesome because...", I'd like to hear/see some more in-depth explanation of how this car will be good.
I don't know a lot about aerodynamics, but I have a fair understanding from what I've seen over the years and researched. It just doesn't look like it should work, though sometimes such designs are good.
 
{Vehicle weight distribution is necessarily more rearward than traditionally seen with 72.5% of the mass on the larger rear tires

80% of the aerodynamic downforce acts on the rear of the car

Inline traction under acceleration through the rear tires is greatly enhanced by rearward weight and aerodynamic distributions

Unique amongst today’s racing cars 60% of braking force is generated behind the center of gravity giving a dynamically stable response

Locking propensity of the inside front wheel on corner entry is greatly reduced

Transmission features 6 speed oval and 5 speed plus reverse road track configurations with sequential paddle shift actuation

Differential features full torque vectoring active technology with driver control of gain for balance adjustment. “Active stagger” removes the expensive necessity for staggered rear tire diameters for ovals>



I found that the above explained a bit more about how it works. The "why" for the whole design is talked about in the interview.
 
After reading the article I'm convinced this guy is full of crap. I don't see a 300HP car reaching 230mph even with a turbo.
 
Yes, that tells me that they are going to be developing a lot of grip at the rear, but not really explaining how they are going to be overcoming the inherent under-steer. If you setup a "standard" single seater to have more downforce at the rear and less at the front, you will be setting it up for more understeer.

All that statement tells me is that they will have good rear grip, good rear torque, good braking, less chance for front locking and they will use a differential system to help rear balance.
But what about stability in corners with that tail? The problems with such a long-narrow shape at the front?
 
Well anything's better than the ancient chassis they use currently but there's two things I really don't like.

One is the heavy reliance on ground effect to generate downforce won't this be dangerous over high kerbing? Also a 4 cylinder engine with only 300hp it's going to sound utter rubbish the RS5's I see coming out of Audi everyday will sound more impressive than that puny 4 cylinder.
 
I have to admit when I first saw this car I laughed

Then I changed my mind.

I like this car!

This is what Indycars and the Indianapolis motorspeedway needs. In the day Indy use to be at the at the forefront of technological innovation. In recent years it has lost that but with this car and its focus on effeciency it'll get it back. Le Mans has diesels, but nothing like this!

I absolutley love how unique the design is. The front tires are at present ugly, but I'm sure some modifications can be made to make them look better, perhaps make them a bit further apart.

Theres no wings because that's what causes turbulence and on 200mph ovals theres alot of turbulence that hinders a drivers ability to pass. The rear wing adds stability but does not add drag or turbulence.

They say 235mph at Indy, but I'm sure the car cant make those speeds through the corners. It'll be great to see them accelerate to 235 at Indy then have to slow to 180 or something for the corners.

I do have questions about the safety of the car though. It looks vulnerable to a driver's side impact.
 
Aren't delta wing aircraft only that shape because they have to remain inside the conical shockwave when they are above mach 1?

And with the front wheels so close together wouldn't it be like racing these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AduH6zvXuI4

That tailfin at the back is completely useless, might be able to help understeer if it was at the front and has or is itself a control surface attatched to the steering.
 
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Ardius, those are good questions. I'm no aerodynamicist or engineer, but I would guess that it works since while the rear is generating most of the mechanical and aero grip, most of the mass of the car is there also. The rear track is wide and the tires larger to deal with the increased load. The front plays more the role of simply "guiding" it along.

The guy has certainly developed succesful indycar chassis, so I could assume he knows what he's talking about. Perhaps someone here on gtplanet who's more versed in physics could help explain:)
 
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I'd think a design like that would lift the rear tire when going around a corner at a limit (or beyond). Tricycles don't corner well.

I could definitely see it being a nasty car when roll comes into the equation.
 
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After reading the article I'm convinced this guy is full of crap. I don't see a 300HP car reaching 230mph even with a turbo.

That does seem a bit overly optimistic for only 300hp. ~215mph would seem more realistic to me. The car is very light, has an extremely small frontal area and coefficient of drag for a race car, so it's likely capable of reaching pretty impressive velocity numbers even though the power to weight ratio isn't that great.

Even a motorcycle which probably has a about the same level of overall drag as this thing and weighs about half as much (w/rider), needs a frightening amount of power to reach 230mph.

Yes, that tells me that they are going to be developing a lot of grip at the rear, but not really explaining how they are going to be overcoming the inherent under-steer. If you setup a "standard" single seater to have more downforce at the rear and less at the front, you will be setting it up for more understeer.

This design won't produce much total downforce anyway, which is rather obvious by the extremely low .24 Cd, so the overall DF bias (20/80) isn't nearly as dramatic as if it were on a F1 car which produces several times the DF of the vehicles own weight.

Also with 72% of the weight biased torward the rear, the majority of the downforce needs to be placed where the weight is, to counter-act the affects of inertia. If the downforce were closer to 50/50, the car would oversteer terribly especially with that extreme of a weight bias.

The part that scares me is how hard such a design would be to control in a oversteer situation. The relatively low overall DF means the cars won't exactly be glued to the track, and once the rear does lose traction and the car is in a state of yaw (with affects DF a good bit) the thing would be next to impossible to try and correct, especially with all that weight biased toward the rear :lol:
 
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That thing looks hideous and im wondering how that thing turns at all. With no weight on the front wheels how are they going to have any grip through a turn? I agree with ardius this looks like it will have a lot of under steer. Another thing I'm questioning is, how much lock to lock range would those front tires even turn? Taking a hairpin in that thing would seem to be an almost impossible thing to do from looking at it.
 
That thing looks hideous and im wondering how that thing turns at all. With no weight on the front wheels how are they going to have any grip through a turn? I agree with ardius this looks like it will have a lot of under steer. Another thing I'm questioning is, how much lock to lock range would those front tires even turn? Taking a hairpin in that thing would seem to be an almost impossible thing to do from looking at it.

It's all about setting up the suspension properly in order to use the weight distribution/transfer efficiently. But then the question is, what kind of suspension does the car have?

I forgot to mention that with the extremely narrow front track, more weight is transferred to the front tires while cornering to help counteract the the rear weight bias as well. Having a rear track that is much wider than the front, helps to multiply the weight transfer/torque that is placed on the front tires while cornering. Basically you can think of the wide rear track as being the breaker bar (on a socket wrench), which multiplies torque to the front (the socket itself)...if that makes any sense :dunce: :lol:
 
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After reading the article I'm convinced this guy is full of crap. I don't see a 300HP car reaching 230mph even with a turbo.

Drag from wings is huge.

In the 1960s 500 hp sportscars at Lemans were doing 220mph because they had no wings or drag.

In the simulation video, which I'm sure is based on realistic physics and aero, the car accelerated out of that slow 65mph bend at Mid-Ohio and hit 160 well before the kink. At the speed it was still accelerating 180 or 190 at the end wasn't out of the question.

If I'm not mistaken that's just as good if not better then the current Indycar.

I think this design is the one of the coolest ever because its so bizarre and looks like nothing else. When people are looking through the channels and they see these things racing I think they will stop and take notice

The 4 cylinder engine is a great choice as that's what alot of family cars have in them. And the idea it only makes 300 horsepower will make the fans think they can have the exact engine in what ever manufacturer's road car. A 4 cylinder should attract Porsche and others which will help the Indycars.

However this car is just one option for the Indycar series in 2012 but I think it will be hard to beat.

The front tires do need to be a bit further apart though for many reasons

timeattackgt07[/quote
Even a motorcycle which probably has a about the same level as drag as this thing and weighs about half as much (w/rider), needs a frightening amount of power to reach 230mph.

A motorcycle isn't as slippery as it may seem. A motoGP bike may have a better power to weight ratio, but I doubt a motoGP bike is anywhere close to this car in terms of Cd. This Delta car is built like a rocket

Weight means nothing at high speeds, its all about aero at high speeds

That's why your rocket cars at bonneville use weight to hold the car down at high speeds because downforce and drag is way too costly at high speeds

EDIT: Honda used a smiliar rear wing at its top speed test at Bonneville. In fact the car looks like the deltwa wing but without the front tires close together

c130j_honda.jpg
 
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A motorcycle isn't as slippery as it may seem. A motoGP bike may have a better power to weight ratio, but I doubt a motoGP bike is anywhere close to this car in terms of Cd. This Delta car is built like a rocket

Weight means nothing at high speeds, its all about aero at high speeds

That's why your rocket cars at bonneville use weight to hold the car down at high speeds because downforce and drag is way too costly at high speeds

Cd is only one part of the equation when calculating drag. To calculate overall drag you must find the frontal area and then mutliply that by the coefficient of drag. The Cd only tells you how efficient the general shape is (i.e. a tear drop shape has a Cd of .05 regardless of its size), not the amount of drag it produces. The Cd of a high performance motorcycle is probably twice that of this Delta wing indy car concept, but the frontal area is probably a couple of square feet smaller, making the overall drag levels somewhat similar.

And yea you're right, weight means very little at speeds above 200mph. Still an additional 600lbs added to a vehicle (car or bike...just for argument sakes) which starts at only 600lbs w/driver and only has 300hp, is still significant amount, and worth maybe another 10-15mph at ~200mph
 
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Well the Delt wing has so far accomplished what it wanted to do. Create buzz, energy, and excitement around the Indianapolis Motorspeedway and indycars.

Imagine racing with no aerodynamic drag from the lead car to hinder the trailing car. 12 miles per gallon.

NapoleonMikey
That thing looks hideous and im wondering how that thing turns at all. With no weight on the front wheels how are they going to have any grip through a turn? I agree with ardius this looks like it will have a lot of under steer. Another thing I'm questioning is, how much lock to lock range would those front tires even turn? Taking a hairpin in that thing would seem to be an almost impossible thing to do from looking at it.

Does it really look that bad?

I've seen Swift and Lola's proposed designs for the 2012 Indycar and they're the same o same o openwheel design with 'futuristic' twists to the wings and side pods.

Boring not to mention expensive

Indycar needs something radical if it ever wants to regain the prominence it once had in the early 90s

I dont think a hairpin will be a problem even with the wheels so close as both wheels will turn the same way. But I would want them to make them a little bit farther apart by about a foot for a myriad of reasons
 
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I think this design is the one of the coolest ever because its so bizarre and looks like nothing else. When people are looking through the channels and they see these things racing I think they will stop and take notice

Than they will laugh and change the channel. I can already see most people seeing this car and thinking it's some sort of novelty thing and not taking it seriously.

I also don't think you can judge much from that simulation since we don't know what simulation it is. I think it was more to give people an idea of how it would look on track.

Just for those that haven't seen it, here is the Swift "Batmobile" car.(I think the front looks like a batman logo)
Swift%2B2012%2BCars.jpg
 
Again, have they looked in to the effects of this car rolling? I suspect this thing'll wanna bicycle if it gets anywhere near sideways...or even near it's traction limit.

Forget about understeer/oversteer a minute...you've moved the front wheels so close they're practically one wheel. If you attempt to go around a corner, wouldn't this cause a tendency to want to lift the inside rear wheel, particularly when braking? and if it gets sideways...instead of simply sliding into the wall, this thing'll hook and start barrel-rolling (NO PEPPY JOKES) possibly heading quite a ways up into the catch fence.

As well, I'm not impressed by their "Sim." Looks like they just modded Rfactor, and, frankly, you can make anything handle however well you want in a videogame.
 
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Again, have they looked in to the effects of this car rolling? I suspect this thing'll wanna bicycle if it gets anywhere near sideways...or even near it's traction limit.

Forget about understeer/oversteer a minute...you've moved the front wheels so close they're practically one wheel. If you attempt to go around a corner, wouldn't this cause a tendency to want to lift the inside rear wheel, particularly when braking? and if it gets sideways...instead of simply sliding into the wall, this thing'll hook and start barrel-rolling (NO PEPPY JOKES) possibly heading quite a ways up into the catch fence.
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I personally can't see this design having an issues with lifting the rear inside tire while cornering. With the narrow front track (which minimizes body roll), long wheelbase, rear weight/DF bias, I don't believe it would be an issue.

As far as the car ever rolling over- I don't think this would ever be an issue either, with the center of gravity as low as it is. The CoG would have to be several feet high (WELL above the centerline of the f/r axles) with extreme amounts of mechanical/tire grip for there to be an issue with rolling over while in a state of yaw.

I would guess for different types of tracks.

I suppose so. The one on the left looks like a road course variant, while the two on the right look like they are designed for the super speedways, although I don't understand why there is need for different sidepods for those variants as well.

Regardless, the road course version has COMPLETELY different body work from the super speedway versions, which seems pretty extreme and unnecessary.
 
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After thinking about it some I think those are two different concepts, not two cars to be used in the same season.

Dallara has 3 concepts, but they're nothing special. One even looks like a slighly modified version of the current Indycar. Yawn.

After reading comments and other forums it seems alot of people are too afraid of change.

They'd rather have any lame design over the deltawing as long as it resembles what current single seaters look like.

They forget the fact that this car will cost half of what the current car costs, and because of that there may be 50 cars fighting for 33 spots at Indy May 2012. This is the only design with no wings so that means no turbulence and easier passing and closer racing.

Its win win all you have to do is get use to how it looks.

I cant believe so many people hate this car. I think this car racing at Indy would be the coolest looking thing ever.

At first alot of people will no doubt laugh and scoff, but as the designers said they won't be able to take their eyes off it.
 
After reading the article I'm convinced this guy is full of crap. I don't see a 300HP car reaching 230mph even with a turbo.

230mph is no sweat with the right aerodynamics.
 
Honda used a smiliar rear wing at its top speed test at Bonneville. In fact the car looks like the deltwa wing but without the front tires close together

c130j_honda.jpg

That was a specially designed BAR car made to see how fast F1 cars can go. It was only given enough downforce to keep it on the ground.
 
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