What is so magical about the Deltawing?

Lets suppose, hypothetically, some nutjob was contemplating building a Deltawing-like racer out of a production-based car, targeting using it in some sort of endurance racing series. What is (if anything) fundamentally magical about the Deltawing that would keep said nutjob from realizing the fundamental benefits of the carbonfiber techno-wonder that is the DW but replacing everything with stuff found in a junkyard or a farm supply store? Whatif, by taking a whole front-wheel-drive powertrain to the back of the car (eliminating the back seat), then cutting a third out of the middle of the car forward of where the powertrain was now relocated to and welding the sides back together, (making the car a single center-seater) and the front track width at about 18 inches. 75% of the weight on the back wheels. And target a realistic wet weight with tidy chromoly cage at 1500lbs. Brake bias all in the back. Windshield is custom polycarb bit. Steering is probably something that looks like it belongs on either an ATV or a gocart.

"That won't handle worth a damn" I hear someone saying. Oh yeah? why not? The Deltawing seems to handle pretty good. "Yeah, but the Deltawing guys are really friggin smart and know what they're doing," I hears again. All the more reason to copy their homework I say.

Best I can tell, there's nothing on the Deltawing that couldn't be mimicked by a creative redneck with a CAD station, sawzall, and a MIG welder. What say you, GRMers?

part of what's "magical" about the Deltawing is the series it was designed to race in and the requirements to do so - mainly with regards to safety. From what I remember, the original car used an existing LP# car carbon fiber tub as the base so they wouldn't have to go through the expensive and time consuming crash-testing procedure.

Otherwise, I agree the basic idea is pretty simple: make the car as light as possible using the least amount of frontal area towards the wind.

I believe that was part of the concept of the Deltawing, to show that a smaller lighter engine and car could run with the big boys.

But other than the narrow front track it's Colin Chapman's idea all over again. Weight is your enemy.

You couldn't get down to their weights, but you could be weight conscious and then follow their formula for the rest.

Go ahead and make it, and let's see how works.

I race a sub-1000# car that's got a lot of grip, moderate aero, and a motorcycle engine for power. It started out as a complete race car, and I've rebuilt it and made many parts including the body.

Just designing/fabricating/machining/welding what I've done is a huge amount of work - doing Deltawing V.2: Low budget edition is going to be a heroic project.

It looks like the batmobile

You got it, it can work if you do it right, but you have to know their secrets. The tricks that have come out so far are big rear brake bias, massive rear anti-roll stiffness and damping, and obviously massive rear weight bias.

it's all about weight and low drag but with stability. It's a fairly fine edge they are they balancing on, but it seems to work reasonably well

The pointy nose is what gives it a great aerodynamic and weight advantage, but it's also what causes the biggest challenge. That car has a massive rear weight bias (like 75% rear if I remember correctly). Because of that, outsiders thought it wouldn't brake or turn-in. It did require some custom engineered tires for the front.

Beyond that, I don't know enough about it to say if it would be possible to replicate.

1. Tires one of the articles I read talked at length about how much effort went onto the front tires, and how different they ended up being from what joe redneck could get.

2. Aero, lots of what makes it work is detailed aero design the average guy can't do

I think it would be easier to start from scratch than to try to modify a production car into a DIY DeltaWing.

There's a lot of really interesting stuff going on with the DeltaWing. Check out some of the Racecar Engineering articles as well as others that have been published. Everything happens at the back.

In reply to sporqster:

Just make sure to have a really really really good rollbar

TG Mag may have beaten you to it: http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/deltawing-le-mans-replica-2012-05-17

Full points for madness on the TG 'Wing, but demerit points for going with a typical weight distribution. I suspect it will have all the problems everyone expected the DeltaWing to have because of it.

It's still slower than the class below it, so I'd say there's no magic.

racerfink wrote: It's still slower than the class below it, so I'd say there's no magic.

but it's different... and that's all that really matters...

In reply to Ian F:

I read that they used a left over tub from the Aston Martin Lemans effort.

szeis4cookie wrote: TG Mag may have beaten you to it: http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/deltawing-le-mans-replica-2012-05-17

Oooh!! That's cool. I love DIY fabrication

TG said: And this, dear internet, is it - the Top Gear Delta Wing. An unholy amalgam of Westfield roller-skate, sheet steel, fibreglass and many, many scrap cars. Thus far, the recipe includes Ford Mondeo (steel wheels), Hillman Imp (steering rack), Peugeot 207 (headlights), Fiat 126 (rear deck), Morris 1000 bonnet (other bit of rear deck), general Ford (space saver front wheels with holes machined in to look like the rears), and Ford Escort (rear axle). Then there are the fibreglass body panels. Andy says, "I know this guy up in the New Forest that's got moulds for literally anything you can think of. I went through them all and found the shapes I needed - I've turned up some pretty weird stuff..."

That build is everything that I love:
- crazy. ("I want something I can't have")
- determined ("I'll make my own")
- something a GRMer can do in their garage ("Meh" welds. Even I could pull that off. Most of you could do better.)

[EDIT: ....and TG, stop making us jump through hoops to hotlink pictures. It isn't going to stop us, and will just end up annoying you and me. Besides, talking about things in your magazine that are awesome will only increase your traffic.]

Doing this from memory, so the numbers might be a bit off, but the Deltawing is about 1200 lbs with a 4 cylinder engine rated around 300 hp and is as fast as cars with 800hp and twice the weight (or more) and loaded with tons of downforce. The Deltawing is just a showcase for what can be done when you rethink the rulebook instead of just doing what everyone else does. Also thinking that the Deltawing was very gentle on tires and could have done LeMans on many less stops if they were allowed to keep the original size fuel cell. Currently, Panoz has taken over the Deltawing project and is developing a "plastic" engine block with plans to move away from the Aston Martin carbon fiber tub and do a purpose built unit. The car is an amazing feat of outside the box engineering.

It hasn't been proven yet that the delta wing is any better than a hypothetical racecar with equal weight and power but a more conventional layout. The magic is that it was designed to be a one-make-series car to solve a problem facing both IndyCar and F1. Namely, high downforce, high drag cars can't pass, because when cars get into dirty air they slow way down. F1 solved the problem with DRS. The delta wing would solve it by being high downforce, low drag. It's an interesting idea in that sense. Building one for the hell of it seems questionable.

In reply to ncjay: The Audi and Peugot diesels were less than 600hp with approx. twice the weight, and were a good bit faster at LeMans. At Sebring, the Panoz effort was barely faster than the spec LMC class (some ten secs. a lap slower than the Audis).

steronz wrote: It hasn't been proven yet that the delta wing is any better than a hypothetical racecar with equal weight and power but a more conventional layout. The magic is that it was designed to be a one-make-series car to solve a problem facing both IndyCar and F1. Namely, high downforce, high drag cars can't pass, because when cars get into dirty air they slow way down. F1 solved the problem with DRS. The delta wing would solve it by being high downforce, low drag. It's an interesting idea in that sense. Building one for the hell of it seems questionable.

is there really any better reason to ever build anything?

novaderrik wrote:

steronz wrote: The delta wing would solve it by being high downforce, low drag. It's an interesting idea in that sense. Building one for the hell of it seems questionable.

is there really any better reason to ever build anything?

QFT!!!

Keith Tanner wrote: There's a lot of really interesting stuff going on with the DeltaWing. Check out some of the Racecar Engineering articles as well as others that have been published. Everything happens at the back.

Haven't read them, but am willing to bet it has some ability to brake the rears independently for turning. No way do the fronts have enough travel or grip to turn the car by themselves.