What are the red circled aero pieces? Do they direct air around the wheel, or up and over? Whats the reason for this? Do the wheels create some kind of turbulence or whats going on here?

Im thinking about adding these to my next splitter design. My Original Splitter

 

my guess is to channel the air around the wheel, as though to remove any air resistance the tyres might get.

 

they are tire spats. tires creates a lot of drag and lift. it diverts air flow around them.

 

Don't have a CFD programme but bet they also act as "mild" dive planes in addition to preventing tyre turbulence.

 

I asked this question to a race car tunning pro for viper comp coups who has been involved in many hrs of wind tunnel testing on many different race cars over the past 20 yrs or so.

He said that he had run cars with and without these in the wind tunnel and found that they make a very significant diffenence in the air flow over and the effectiveness of the rear wing.

Obviously he was testing cars equiped with substantial, functional rear wings like a Voltex, J's etc...

 

Wouldn't happen to be Bob Woodhouse or Tommy Archer??

 

The cadillac le mans car run a few years ago found that adding these things added like 50 pounds of front downforce, as well as reduced drag.

 

Russ Meyer, a very nice guy with lots of great information and practical experience.

I'm sure if you know Tommy you know Russ.

 

i wonder if thats the case for S2000's or if he was just testing some other custom built race chassis...seems like the shape of the car would lead to these affecting air flow over the rear wing...may not be the case with our cars.

 

I know that the Evasive Motorsports S2000 (Blue one) has the front tire spats on it. Downforce with reduced drag is always nice.