That’s when Whomsley redesigned the floor to fit longitudinally underneath the car, providing the largest ground effect area possible. Additionally, rather than two small fans, he fit one much larger fan to the back, truly channeling Murray’s BT46B fan car. This single-fan setup was so much more effective, that the RC car could actually stick itself to a surface upside down and hold its own weight. With the new floor and a functioning skirt in place, he brought both the modded car and the stock car to a warehouse to test them both out.
On the slippery, polished floor of the warehouse, the stock car struggled for grip, both understeering and oversteering unpredictably. The fan car, though, had far more grip and was significantly easier to control. There was one downside to having a rolling vacuum, however, as once its protective screen filled with debris from the floor, the fan stopped functioning properly and the car began to understeer, again proving just how effective the fan was when functioning properly.
During a slalom test, Whomsley noticed that adjusting the fan strength made a big difference to the speed of the car. A balance needed to be found between the downforce from the fan and the drag of the skirt, for optimum speed.
Lastly, he took both cars outside, on a circular track, to test them out on the actual tarmac and both hilarity and tragedy ensued. There’s no doubt Whomsley is on the right track to creating something extremely cool, though as we witnessed in this video, it will likely take lots of tinkering to perfect it.
Got a tip? Email us at tips@thedrive.com