Active aero!

Very cool Keith!

Here is a 911 active wing project from a few years ago.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/460636-my-active-wing-project.html

Ooh, there's lots of interesting reading from some of those guys. Thanks. DIY wings are cool.

that Pelican link definitely sent me down the rabbit hole.

Getting a couple profile pieces cut on the water jet and then I'll be putting my hot wire foam cutter to work.

don't know if anyone else mentioned it yet, but Chumpcar and LeMons actively encourage people to do stuff like this... it's even been tried a few times, with varying degrees of success..

I have heard of a LeChump car with active aero involving a bowling ball and an ironing board, which causes me great amusement.

Anybody know where I can find a DXF drawing of a NACA 53-520M?

Found an awesome site: http://airfoiltools.com/

The UTA setup is pretty impressive, I've had the pleasure of meeting some of the guys behind it. One could argue it's a little heavy and complicated for a FSAE car (and their results at one event could support that), but the concept and execution is very well done. I'd imagine it would scale up very nicely.

In reply to DaveEstey:

Dave, reading the NACA callouts, I suspect that airfoil is a bit thicker than you might expect (20% of the chord). If this is for automotive use rather than aircraft use, you will be able to get an airfoil with better downforce. The thick section you have spec'd will give decent results over a wide range of angle of attack, but you sacrifice overall downforce in the process.

Using the site you listed, try doing a search for airfoils based on the max CL and limiting the thickness to a range of 10% to 15%. That still gives a section thick enough to allow significant structure. You will be loooking for something with a lot of camber. Have a look at some of the Selig profiles like s1223. This is an airfoil designed for low Reynolds number and high lift. Use the airfoil plotter to get plots and dimensional outputs scaled to whatever size you arer trying to fit.

Steve