Front splitter

[tmoretta]

Have spent a few hours stabilizing the rear section of the FFR front splitter on my 818S. The entire rear portion of the splitter was unsupported and my worry was that it would vibrate at speed and perhaps break. Anyone have experience with the integrity of the forward part of the splitter? I know that race cars normally have struts supporting the forward edge of front splitters. Should I make mounts/struts for the front of the splitter or is that overkill? The car is mostly street use, occasional track day use.

[FFRSpec72]

Depends on how much you have the splitter pushed forward, unless you have more than 4" pushed out I would say you are fine w/o struts, there are several of us running without struts but we do have center support for the splitter. You can see my support brackets in my build thread

[07FIREBLADE]

Yours is the race splitter so it should be a bit easier to support while the Street is just a chopped down version of yours. With the new nose and the mounting brackets for that it's pretty well supported. That's just from today's tv episode but I can check mine later this week when I install my gen 1 splitter

[Frank818]

No need for a middle bracket if using the race splitter + new nose?

[gpaterson]

My front race splitter hit the track at 180km/h and definitely needs a centre support. It works really quite well which means if it is unsupported then distorts considerably.

The pic shows my temporary solution that worked ok at the time.

55253

[Frank818]

It did? How can a piece about 2" long in front of your bumper judging by the pic can bend about 4" to the ground? Was it dragging the bumper along? What is distorting full width or just the center?

[gpaterson]

Hi Frank

Sorry about the delay in replying.

The splitter bowed downwards in the middle to such an extent that it shaved off the leading edge lip in the centre - about 30cm to 40cms was affected. The bumper did not move although I suspect was pulled inwards as the centre of the splitter began to bow more. As the leading edge lip slowly wore away (during the first session) it bowed more easily and became a bigger problem. On that series of track days I used a cable tie to provide support which is all it needed. It now has a permanent centre mounting to avoid this issue.

My car has a front ride height of 3" (similar to an 818R) and 4" in the rear. I needed to do this to conquear the endemic Subaru bump-steer problem but now it has significant downforce. My splitter is therefore an inch closer to the road than a standard 818S (if there is such a thing!) but the same as an 818R.

Cheers
George

[Frank818]

George, following your previous post in June I built myself a center support attached to the frame (hidden). It's gonna kick ***, tnx for your report on this issue. By hand I was able to bow the splitter in the middle so I immediately spent a few hours building it a support. Now it's really tight.