Light up front, Heavy in the pants

[Kevin81]

Gravity is also an actual force that can be measured acting in the downwards direction. Force is force no matter the semantics. A chassis doesn’t differentiate a 1000 lb of downward force due to air pressure on earth from 1000 lbs worth the Kevins stacked above the car on Saturn.

I appreciate the middle school science talk down about physics and what was and wasn’t created though. You might notice I’m not the one using the word, because I already know that you’d not actually be creating it in such cases. When you reduce body lift you sure as **** can’t say you created more gravity.... and downforce is apparently not a term for down force, so you guys just let me know exactly what terms you want me to use that will get us all back to something substantive.

The actual point is that downforce, downward force, down facing dog, acceleration towards the center of the earth, or whatever I have to call it— a practical increase of suspension load and traction— was professed to carry with it an absolute and unavoidable penalty of more aerodynamic drag and it’s just not true.

Amy type of downward force placed on the car will increase engine load. Whether you call that drag or not, is up to you.

 

[High on Ethanol]

Amy type of downward force placed on the car will increase engine load. Whether you call that drag or not, is up to you.

Anything that creates resistance is essentially load. Honestly my fluid experiment was to reduce parasitic loss... Aka drag... To reduce the load... On the engine... Increasing the efficiency and power available at the wheels...in effect.

 

[stripSHO]

Amy type of downward force placed on the car will increase engine load. Whether you call that drag or not, is up to you.

I don’t know why anyone would equate the two. Drag pulls back on the car like a parachute and has absolutely no benefit whereas downforce in general can be hugely beneficial in lowering track times. Furthermore I don’t believe reality is anything close to the zero sum game you’re suggesting. An aerodynamic lift of 100 lbs might cause anywhere from 100-500 lbs of drag whereas 100 lbs of increased “weight“ only raises rolling resistance by 1 or 2 lbs. I’m way out of my element here so anyone feel free to correct me if I’m way off base here