Do ground effects do anything? I assume they are just for looks but does anyone have any ideas on this?

In this case I am talking about a 1991 RS, I can't imagine the ones on my 84 Z28 are doing much.

 

not as far as I know. it's just a body kit. gives it a different look.

 

Hard to say really. Its not one of those things you can just look at and know whats going on. Nobody other than GM has done a lot of testing as far as I know. And I have not seen anyone come up with good GM references.

I will say that my '87 IROC at 130mph+ is WAY more planted than my '01 Acura CL Type S. Which to me is pretty interesting considering the Acura is better designed in almost every way than the IROC stock for stock. Granted this feeling could be due to a number of factors, which may or may not include the ground effects.

I will also point out that that the Trans Am held the land speed record for a while for "stock body" at 280+ mph. That should tell you something, at least for the trans am.

http://www.bankspower.com/videos/sho...turbo-trans-am

 

GM spent a lot of time in the wind tunnels on the F bodies going back to the early 70's. everything they put on these cars did something.

i have a base Camaro- it came stock with no ground effects on the front and looked kinda goofy... so i made an airdam out of some lawn edging that lowered the nose of the car almost 4 inches- i noticed on the first test drive that the car felt more planted and stable at highway speeds.. i'm sure the factory stuff is better than a $5 roll of lawn edging..

 

I've heard the front bumper collapses if you're going fast enough, I know it wasn't over 200 mph, I don't think they do anything drastic unless you're at highway/freeway speeds though.

 

The front air damn was designed to keep air from going under the car which could actually cause lift. Look at the Nascar cars and you will see the same thing. The rest I only can make assumptions on but, i would think pretty much the same thing, but only GM really knows.. Since very few of these cars can actually do 200+ mph it really doesn't matter if they did.. I can't tell you at well over 65 mph they still hold form.. Because 65 is the law in N.Y. and I would never speed.. LOL

 

As said earlier, GM did do a lot of aero testing on these cars, so we do actually know the answer. They are for looks. I think someone posted the testing numbers here before and the gfx had about .02 more drag coefficient than non gfx. Since the don't offer any actual downforce (the cars would need a lot more gfx features to produce that) its just for looks. I consider 85s to be the first cars with factory body kits. I also think they look awesome and are well worth the drag penalty.