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Bumper canards are small add on wings attached to the front spoiler of a car for the purposes of modifying the aerodynamic characteristics of the car in a modest way. Aerodynamics (shaping of objects that affect the flow of air, liquid or gas) is a branch of fluid dynamics concerned with the study of forces and gas flows. ...
The most common use of bumper canards is to increase front downforce on cars where the balance of traction is considered to be unfavourably biased towards the rear wheels. The bumper canards, once installed, provide additional downforce at the front of the vehicle, adjusting the balance of traction and thus improving the handling characteristics of the car. The term downforce describes the downward pressure created by the aerodynamic characteristics of a racing car that allow it to travel faster through a corner by holding the car to the track or road surface. ...
Applications and technical information
Bumper canards in motor racing Basic aerodynamic principles dictate that the downforce created by air pressure on a surface increases exponentially with speed, thus, as with many aerodynamic modifications the bumper canards are primarily suited to the high speed conditions of motor racing. More specifically, bumper canards are most likely to be installed on racing vehicles which are based on conventional road cars such as Stock Cars, Touring Cars and GT Cars where the car’s essentially stock bodies (designed for road-use) have not already been designed to provide optimum aerodynamic characteristics for track use. Auto racing (also known as automobile racing, autosport or motorsport) is a sport involving racing automobiles. ...
This article is about the sport of stock car racing. ...
Touring car racing is a general term for a number of distinct automobile racing competitions in heavily-modified street cars. ...
A grand tourer (Italian: Gran Turismo), sometimes initialised GT, is a high-performance automobile designed for long distance driving. ...
Bumper canards in street use In common with many other modifications made to competitive track vehicles, bumper canard have in recent years begun to be seen on conventional road-going vehicles (most commonly on modified Japanese sports coupes and road-going counterparts of Stock Cars and Touring Cars).
Perhaps one of the most significant driving forces behind adoption of bumper canards as a common modification to road-going vehicles is their widespread uptake in Japanese and US street racing the like of which inspired the successful Hollywood trilogy: The Fast and the Furious (see ‘More reading’), though whether in many instances the film was inspired by real cars (and culture) or vice versa is hard to discern. To meet Wikipedias quality standards and to make a clear distinction between fact and fiction, this article may require cleanup. ...
Purely cosmetic or performance enhancement? Whether bumper canards installed on road-going vehicles are a genuine performance enhancement or simply a cosmetic modification is sometimes contested.
Unarguable is the fact that they ‘’are’’ in common use on track vehicles who’s operators would not install any modification not considered to improve the performance of their vehicle. Recreational car modifiers could successfully argue that they garner the same benefits, albeit perhaps to a lesser extent as their track counterparts, distinguishing this modification from purely cosmetic modifications (referred to as ‘Ricing’ in popular car culture). A riced Dodge Neon, including clear taillights, an overly large spoiler, missing paint on the rear bumper, and showing neglect to keep the stock body clean. ...
Materials and manufacture Due to strength and weight considerations, bumper canards designed for race use were originally fabricated from carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP). The high strength to weight ratio and desirable appearance ensures that bumper canards currently sold for road-going cars are often also made from this material. Carbon fiber reinforced plastic or (CFRP or CRP), is a strong, light and very expensive composite material or fiber reinforced plastic. ...
Bumper canards are generally made either as a flat sheet ‘triangles’ with additional edging strips (for mounting and directing airflow) like APR’s set or as a bespoke moulded component utilising the strength of the material and sophisticated match tooling to integrate the necessary upturns and curvature into a single piece of carbon fibre, like those manufactured by Carbon Mods.
Installation Bumper canards are relatively simple to install and are often available with slightly different curvature to match the shape of the front spoiler of the vehicle to which they will be fitted. They are most commonly installed in sets of four, a larger and a smaller canard on each side of the bumper with the larger canard at the bottom.
Commercially available bumper canards include a ‘mounting kit’ which amounts to a set of high quality bolts which fasten through holes drilled in the front bumper to accommodate the canards. Rawl bolts are a clever mounting method used by one manufacturer which means that installers to not need to access the inside of the front bumper to add or remove the canards whilst also benefiting from the anti-vibration effect of the rubber bolt.
Canards should be installed with the large face at the front and aligned such that they do not protrude outside the existing outer line of the car body (so as to avoid creating a safety hazard). This ensures that the main area of wing surface is as far forward on the vehicle as possible (where it will exert more force on the front of the vehicle).
More reading Car handling and vehicle handling is a description of the way wheeled vehicles perform transverse to their direction of motion, particularly during cornering and swerving. ...
Aerodynamics (shaping of objects that affect the flow of air, liquid or gas) is a branch of fluid dynamics concerned with the study of forces and gas flows. ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Car tuning. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in The Fast and the Furious. ...
2 Fast 2 Furious is a 2003 film. ...
External links - Carbon ModsUK Based company who manufacture a bespoke moulded carbon fibre bumper canard set.
- APR Performance US based company who manufacture a widely available carbon fibre bumper canard set.
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