i have a few questions about rear wings. what are the advandages of having one ? when is it nessary to have one ? what is the difference in styles like the ones with it spill plates ? thanks Rich

MR P thanks for the reply . so far i have no top end traction or control or wandering problems. it is a 69 dart the trunk might be longer than yours. so is the gain from a rear wing mostly from beter traction and control ?

I think stability will be the biggest benefit on my chariot , but I have less power and more trunk than your car , Mike.
It is a '65 dart , but the deck lid drops off more than the later Darts.
It will definitely help traction , but my thoughts were keeping it from wandering while down track.

A wing will slow you down or so I have been told,have not tried my dragster with it off yet. If you have no handling or traction problems there is no need for one.

For some reason everyone has been having more problems this year with their cars wanting to wander,I had to put more angle in my wing because of that.I think it has a lot to do with the temp. being so much higher this year,I have seen the track temp. in the 140 degree range a good bit this year. The problem with a lot of door-cars doing that is the rear of the car sits a little higher than the front. A front air dam to keep as much air as possible from going under the car might be a better choice than a rear wing.

Kind of funny. May or may not be realted. My buddy has a 68 Chevelle that runs in the heads up classses. Car goes 7.60's on drag radials with a big ole custom made wing on the back. We were in one of the finals & had starting issue (battery dead. Had to run back to trailer to get cables & jump started off of my golf cart. Took numerous attempts to try to start. Official's said time was up. Opponent took his time & idled up to the burnout box but did not do burnout.
We finally got it fired & drove right up to the burnout box. Car had a lift off decklid with all of the strut supports rods holding it up. We did not have time to put it back together. Officials let us make the run with no deck lid.
The car went 3 MPH faster than it ever has gone before. We won the race too. Won $1500, we gave $300 to the opponent for giving us the extra time. I am still up in the air if the truly work or not???? As mentioned body styles makes a difference too.

i was wondering if it could slow the car down. thanks again for the info everyone.

If the car over-steers (nervous), even if you don't lose traction, a wing may help but only if this happens at speed. If it always happens, look at weight dist., tire pressure, etc. first.
If the car has neutral or slight under-steer at speed, the wing will slow you down and you gain nothing.
A wing converts drag to down-force, more angle = more of both. Too much angle: the wing stalls and stops helping (but steals huge power). Too little angle: may even create lift, because the angle is NOT to horizontal but to the natural path of air coming off the roof. This is generally slightly down, so even a wing horizontal to the ground gives some drag.
The best angle will vary with trap speed, you need more angle to get an effect in the 1/8 mile.
If the car feels stable, crank the wing up 2° and see if your speed is up.
If it still wanders or needs to be corrected, point the nose down 2°.
Not to be obvious, but: if you do a 180°, the wing becomes a lift force and unloads the rear tires.
Spill plates are for limited wing spans where more width is illegal or impractical.

Trivia: Mercedes had a large pop-up wing with very high angle attached to the rear deck of a 1955 (?) 300SLR roadster, activated by the brake pedal. Step down, the wing grabs lots of air and slows the car down. Similar to the dive brake on aircraft.

I see my wing as :

1. 2.35 lbs over any fiberglass/steel decklid.
2. Down force @ 150+ mph helps at the big end, really helped at the track with a cross wind @ 20mph gusting. (Stayed in the groove)
3. Looks great and I know it works for the car.

And to think all this time i thought they were for looks only

I thought the flat ones like the one on the above Barracuda were good pic nic tables, or shop benches
...LOL

On my car the back end always seemed loose at 135 mph
but one day I had a 20mph quartering head wind and
when I hit 135 the back lifted right off the ground...
I ended up in the other lane just missing the other car
so I put it in the trailer... come Monday I went to
talk to the wind tunnel guys and they showed me some
smoke footage of my body style... the air came off the
roof line and dropped off the back end about 6"-8"
behind the car... all of the area behind the roof
line was a negative pressure and would try to lift
the back end... after seeing that I went to the wing...
I tried the spoiler style first with a adjustable
upper so I could make it taller... that worked ok but
the flatter longer wing worked better with less drag

I'll be more careful not to post next time.

so with no control or traction problems . it will go straight down the grove no steering or loose feeling chirping the tires each shift (4 speed) best so far 8.509 @157.69 i think i will leave the wing off for now . again everyone thanks

how do you tell the difference betwen a spoiler and wing ?

At the NMCA finals in Memphis a few years ago, I messed up on a qualifying run and ruined the favorable index I had already established. (they lower your best et by .1 and that is your index)

Since the car wasn't fast enough to run the new index, we stripped it. Pulled the bumpers, tail light assemblies, carpet, door panels, wheelie bars, AND the rear wing. At almost 150 mph the Duster behaved exactly the same with or without the wing.

My wing is not that large, and Dusters have a pretty big decklid area so maybe that is why it didn't care about the change. I'm sure the body style has a huge effect on downtrack stability, maybe a bigger effect than the wing itself.