Nothing says performance like a racing spoiler. We're not talking about the flimsy injection-molded ones on Hondas, but a real racing spoiler. Long before the import kids started bolting up kit spoilers, race car builders were fabbing the real things inside shops across the land. Stock cars and sports cars have had homebrew aero devices ever since airplanes were invented. These simple aerodynamic shapes were designed to do the opposite of a wing on an airplane: instead of taking flight, the wing pushes down on the car, increasing grip.
The nature of a car's shape creates lift the faster it goes. Aerodynamic forces increase with the square of the speed, so forces pile up rapidly on a race car. Each car's aerodynamic proclivities are different, so the amount of lift at the front and the rear needs to be countered to a different degree. That's why you see spoilers on both the front and rear of a race car, and it's also why you see spoilers with adjustable angles.
So does our '75 Laguna project car really need spoilers? Probably not. Even when we swap out our junkyard motor for the 560hp 408 small-block we've got waiting in the wings, we'll most likely not need wings to keep it on the ground. Still, you never know-we could always run Bonneville or the Silver State Classic with Project Talladega! We admit that we're shamelessly going for a NASCAR/Trans Am look. Even now, you don't see race-inspired spoilers on Pro Touring cars, so the look is refreshing.
You can't just go on the internet and search for "stock car wings for '75 Laguna." You can't buy it off the shelf-you've got to build from scratch. We were flying blind, so we improvised. Starting with historical photos for reference, we noticed two things: The front spoilers of the day were only as wide as the grille opening (per NASCAR rules), and the rear spoilers did not extend to the edge of the quarter-panel like we remembered.
We immediately settled on ?-inch-thick aluminum sheet-a piece of scrap our waterjet guy had laying around. We designed cardboard templates first, mocking them up on the Laguna to check for style (and ground clearance). Once we established the shapes and had our waterjet guy cut them, it was a matter of attaching them securely. We ended up with a static spoiler on the front, and a nice adjustable one in the rear that uses hinges and threaded Heim joints. If for some reason you're crazy enough to have a Laguna needing spoilers, you can call Advanced Waterjet and order our designs-they're already on file.
We used scrap laying around for most of the rest, with the biggest exception being the outlay for the Heim joints. The rest of the materials were ordinary hardware store stuff. Our spoilers came out looking pro, and that's probably because we built ours the way a lot of race car shops built theirs back in the day. Ironically, today's newest NASCAR racers use a wing that most closely resembles those found on the Honda tuners we dislike so much. That's our cue to get back to basics! Check it out.
Special thanks go to Heath Elmer and Keith Kanak for helping us design, scavenge, and fabricate these one-of-a-kind spoilers. We'd also like to thank Advanced Waterjet for helping turn our vision into reality.
A simple line of masking tape...
A simple line of masking tape across the rear deck was our starting point. This is where we want the rear spoiler to mount to the decklid. The contour of the trunk changes across its surface, so we needed to first establish where the spoiler would go.
We taped two pieces of cardboard...
We taped two pieces of cardboard together and cut it with a straightedge to the height we wanted. Deciding the height was difficult; NASCAR has never published its race car specs, and only supplies this to teams. We tried to find references to spoiler height on line, but to no avail. We finally decided on a height of 4.5 inches at its tallest point-the edges. The other issue: We needed to establish a rake angle, as that determines the contour at the bottom of the spoiler. We settled on 37 degrees. We devised a similar cardboard template for the front, fitting it against the core support.
The cardboard templates were...
The cardboard templates were taken to Advanced Waterjet in Anaheim, CA, where they were scanned into the computer. Here, our waterjet man, Mike, cuts a test piece out of masonite before doing the real thing. This can uncover errors in the shape or the programming without ruining good material.
Seeing our spoiler pieces...
Seeing our spoiler pieces cut out of sheet aluminum on the waterjet machining center was a rush! We now had one-of-a-kind spoilers! Getting custom waterjet parts is less expensive than you might think. These two spoilers cost us $200, included the small pieces for the struts. To get a quote on custom work, you can call Advanced at 714-278-9874.
Back at the garage, we mocked...
Back at the garage, we mocked up the front spoiler several times, marking our mounting points on the core support and drilling holes. We also carved out some clearance (center) for a brace on the core support we overlooked before. Some scrap flat stock was pressed into service to make four angled mounting tabs that attach with quality button head fasteners from the local Ace Hardware. We went to Ace Hardware a lot.
We tagged the homemade mounting...
We tagged the homemade mounting tabs with Dupli-Color satin black and assembled the tabs on the spoiler one last time. Once all the mock-up was completed, we grained the spoiler with a Scotch-Brite pad and some WD40 to give it a nice sheen.
The four mounting tabs can't...
The four mounting tabs can't handle all the aero load, so we fabbed some diagonal braces out of quarter-inch bar stock and some flat washers. It's just a matter of mocking up the spoiler with the washers attached to the spoiler and the car, cutting the bars to length, and tack welding it to the washers. Off the car, the braces were welded, smoothed, and painted.
Voil! Custom front spoiler...
Voil! Custom front spoiler with side braces. We later drove the desert between Phoenix and Los Angeles in August, and experienced zero overheating. This spoiler performs cooling duty by ducting cool air across the radiator.
Out back, we mocked up the...
Out back, we mocked up the spoiler and found the shape of our waterjet piece matched our curved trunk perfectly. Here, PHR contributor Keith Kanak checks the angle in preparation for attaching the hinges and struts.
You can get these piano hinges...
You can get these piano hinges at Ace Hardware for about a buck, and they were per-fect for the rear spoiler after we cut the corners off, bent them to curve to the trunk lid, and painted them-what else-satin black.
After we worked the hinge...
After we worked the hinge into shape, we marked the mounting position on the spoiler and trunk lid, then carefully drilled and crimped our threadsert mounting points. We used an 11/64-inch drill bit for these holes, and filled them with 8-32 threadserts. These handy pieces will allow us to screw our hinges right into the decklid.
Note how we're using masking...
Note how we're using masking tape to constantly protect our paint, as well as mark the line of the spoiler. Here you can see how we attached the reworked Ace Hardware hinge to the threadsert with 3/32-inch hex-head button fasteners. Anybody else find it funny that Ace sponsored the IROC race for years? We bet they supplied the hinges.
Under the spoiler, we marked...
Under the spoiler, we marked mounting holes for the hinges where they attach to the spoiler. The key thing is to carefully measure the distance between the spoiler and the decklid: we needed it to fit tight, but not so close that it binds on the paint when it's adjusted.
This was the difficult part:...
This was the difficult part: taking the pieces you see in the first photo, and making it into what you see in the second one. When we had our spoilers waterjetted, we also provided a design for a strut mounting bracket (the two triangles and rectangle with holes). We TIG-welded the three pieces together to form a U-shaped bracket that could retain one end of a small Heim joint. We made 10 aluminum brackets and 5 strut assemblies in all. The strut assemblies were made from 10-32 Heim joints (5 right-handed, 5 left-handed) that were screwed into 1/4-inch aluminum rod which we tapped with the appropriate dies. The tie-rod ends cost $5.50 each, and the jamb nuts were $15-all supplied by Ellis Racing in Phoenix (800-969-0450).
It pays to slow up here, and...
It pays to slow up here, and mock stuff up at the proper spoiler angle. Before drilling the threadsert holes for the strut mounts, we had to consider the spoiler angle, the amount of spoiler adjustment range, the cosmetic angle of the struts, and the length of the strut rods themselves. Then we drilled!
Good-quality hardware isn't...
Good-quality hardware isn't expensive, and we chose the best stainless Allen-head fasteners we could find. After crimping in our threadserts, we bolted on our homemade mounting brackets with no problem.
We finished off our strut...
We finished off our strut braces with nylon-locking nuts and more stainless hardware for the heim joints and mounting brackets.
Not too shabby for a homegrown...
Not too shabby for a homegrown spoiler. We set the angle at 37 degrees by twisting the strut tubes and locking down the nuts. Our Laguna has Neil Bonnett's name on the roof (he drove a Laguna throughout the mid-'70s), and according to people who knew Neil, he would often lay the spoiler flat during qualifying-and sometimes during racing-to get faster lap times. That would often result in extremely loose handling, and lots of pucker factor for all involved!