The Hardest Part Of Setting Up A Daytona Wind Tunnel Comparo Is Finding A Stock Charger

"NickMaronese" (NickMaronese) 02/08/2016 at 12:00 • Filed to: None

15

15

It started simply enough: an invitation via email from a PR person at a nearby college, subject line “Can you assist me?”

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology’s (UOIT) ACE Speed Labs was turning their attention from renting out their wind tunnel to OEMs; to renting it out to motorsports teams and enthusiasts, and wanted to know if we could help get the word out.

In exchange, we could use the tunnel for a story. “Hmm,” I thought to myself. “What would I stick in a wind tunnel if I could?”

It didn’t take long for little daydream-y clouds to form in my head: imagine a comparison between a stock ‘69 Dodge Charger and an “aero warrior”-class Charger Daytona? Heh, maybe even throw in a new Charger. But that’ll never happen.

Then I paused. Maybe I could make it happen. I know people with Charger Daytonas. And a new Charger would be no problem, thanks to a former colleague with keys to the press fleet at FCA Canada.

The first email went to my Daytona contact: Would you know anyone who might have a wing car they’d like to stick in a wind tunnel? His response: Yeah. Me. I’ve got three.

I ran my idea past my UOIT contact; he liked the sound of it. So I checked with my then-editor Mitch about lining up a new Charger. He had a Hellcat booked a few weeks prior to the date we were looking at, but a little juggling on the part of our FCA friend (and a nice letter from Mitch to the journo whose Hellcat booking we’d be swiping) and it was done.

The last step: finding a stock ‘69 Dodge Charger. Piece of cake, right? Wrong. While a lead or two got back to me from “casting calls” I posted on Mopar forums and friends I reached out to, nothing panned out.

So I threw all my eggs into one basket: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Canada’s largest all-Chrysler meet. There’d be plenty of stock Chargers among the thousands of Dodges on the grass there, I was certain.

Two. There were all of two, maybe three, stock-appearing ’69 Chargers, and none were buying what I was selling. I had resigned myself to defeat when, just before leaving, I swung by a black ’69 parked a few cars down from my Valiant Scamp.

“I’m looking for a stock Charger to put in a wind tunnel, as part of a video comparison with a Daytona,” I explained, waiting for another ‘no.’ “Yeah, sure,” came the reply. He was selling the car, and agreed if we could plug its sale, he’d help us out.

That was it. We had our dream team. We were going to make this happen.

You can see the fruits of our labour !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Man, that was a fun day. But that’s a whole other story for another time.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

iSureWilll > NickMaronese 02/08/2016 at 12:09

1

Great story. Reading the linked one now.

daender > NickMaronese 02/08/2016 at 12:14

2

Dude, that’s amazing! Give Steve Lehto a buzz since he loves his winged Mopars and will highly defend it’s design !

iSureWilll > daender 02/08/2016 at 12:28

2

He may have wrote a book about it.

http://www.amazon.com/Dodge-Daytona-…

NickMaronese > daender 02/08/2016 at 12:45

3

Want more behind-the-writing-scenes anecdotes?

I’d never reached out to or talked to Steve before this shoot, but was of course aware of his fondness for wing cars. So as I was setting things up, I emailed him to see if he could offer any insights, thing to look for, et cetera.

To my surprise, within five minutes, he emailed me back: “Can you call me right now?” :P

Long story short, Steve was a great help and he may be using some of our footage in an upcoming project.

NickMaronese > iSureWilll 02/08/2016 at 12:45

2

I may have pre-ordered that book :P

gawdzillla > NickMaronese 02/08/2016 at 12:56

1

should have done the jalpo favorites :

NA - ND miatas

Gone > NickMaronese 02/08/2016 at 13:08

1

That’s awesome.

Would have been really interesting if you had done a Superbird as well. The Superbird and Daytona have some differences beyond the obvious body differences. The nosecones are different and have different air opening locations (same spoiler underneath and headlight buckets technically), but the biggest differences are that the wing uprights are completely different and the Superbird wing is 55.5" wide vs 57.5" for the Daytona. Curious to what difference those changes actually made between the cars.

NickMaronese > Gone 02/08/2016 at 13:20

1

Having a ’Bird in there would’ve been fun, too, yeah, and feasible, since Daytona guy also owns a survivor ’Bird. Next time, now that we’ve done a trial run and learned how best to do this :P

Patrick Nichols > NickMaronese 02/08/2016 at 13:48

1

This is great kinja. I know I’ve gotten annoyed with writers for other sites using Oppo to promote their work, but this kind of thing is great and really made me want to read the full article.

RallyWrench > NickMaronese 02/08/2016 at 15:09

1

I almost never click through to linked pages, but this is too cool. Nice work!

DrJohannVegas > NickMaronese 02/08/2016 at 15:11

1

As always, Steve comes across sounding like a Grade-A good dude.

DrJohannVegas > NickMaronese 02/08/2016 at 15:22

1

So, quick break from work to watch the video, and I noticed a couple of things in pausing the clip.

At 120MPH/200kph, the stock Charger had front lift of ~225lbs, rear downforce of 130lb, and drag of 350lbs.

At (almost) the same speed, the Daytona had net front lift of ~180lbs. But, the rest of the numbers weren’t visible. 50lbs is a good reduction in lift, but not “massive”. Not sure how big the reduction in drag or the increase in rear downforce was, but did it significantly change the aero balance of the car?

I see that the real-time clock is only 15 minutes apart, so maybe it’s an editing thing? (ie. Charger screen shot during the Daytona segment?)

Also, with that kind of aero balance, I’m sure the non-Daytona Chargers were a bit of a handful on the Superspeedways. That’s a lot of rear bias!

Edit: Shoulda read the article. Maybe the numbers I saw were really the Daytona’s numbers? Either way, thanks for actually posting the data in the article. Much appreciated by nerds like me.

NickMaronese > DrJohannVegas 02/08/2016 at 15:57

0

Yeah, I didn’t look closely at the numbers the guys threw into the video, since I didn’t think other people would either—guess I was wrong! The cars and their numbers almost certainly got mismatched in the editing process.

The data in the written piece should clear up most questions, I think, but lemme know if you have any more!

Stephen the Canuck > NickMaronese 02/09/2016 at 01:05

1

I work at UOIT, and graduated from there. That wind tunnel is awesome. I haven’t gotten to see it used yet though.

Your comparison would have been pretty cool to see.

pip bip - choose Corrour > NickMaronese 02/09/2016 at 05:44

1

awesome!