[Twizzstyle]

Seems uncommon to see Exige wings on Elises, so I thought some folks may be interested to see mine. I bought an OEM Exige wing from someone on here and had been debating doing some bondo work on it to match the Elise bootlid. I have this idea that maybe someday eventually down the road I'll piece together everything for an Exige rear-clam swap, so I really didn't want to alter the wing if I didn't have to.

Instead I came up with these little blocks that go between the wing and the bootlid. The blocks are shaped such as to put the wing at (I think) the correct angle. I didn't have any measurements from an Exige, I just eyeballed it from photos, and basically ended up with the longest part of the bottom of the wing mounts parallel with the slanted surface of the bootlid. Looks about right to me.

I have a CNC router at home, so I machined the blocks out of 3/4" black polyethylene. From a few feet away you can hardly tell they are there. The leading edge is still square, I need to round that over to match the shape of the wing strut. Unfortunately this still requires drilling into the bootlid, so I ended up buying a spare bootlid from someone and painting it to match my car. This also lets me swap boot lids anytime I want to change things up from wing to no-wing. Sometimes I love the wing, sometimes I love the clean look of the Elise without the wing.

Also before anyone says it - I know there are more functional wings out there, but I'll be the first to admit this is purely for looks Most of the driving my car sees is autocross, and I don't do it competitively. I don't need the downforce.

I've got some Exige scoops coming soon, then I just need to figure out a front lip - unfortunately I don't like most of the Elise lips out there

What do you all think? I could potentially make more of these things if there was a large enough need for them.

 

[enderw88]

Looks interesting. Did you reenforce the deck at all? Mine is pretty flimsy.

 

[Twizzstyle]

No reinforcing, it's just bolted to the bootlid with some allen bolts, lock washers, and fender washers. The bootlid flexes a bit if you move the wing by hand, but when driving it doesn't move around much at all. I was halfway expecting it to flutter around like mad. I've only had it up to 70mph, but it was perfectly stable there.

 

[LI-Lotus]

I am definitely very interested to follow your thread and Know more. I am completely with you, it is the best looking wing on this car. I want to do exactly the same thing, but a few other people have done it, and seemed to complain about the flutter and shaking a bit at high speed

in your spare time, think about putting together a second set of blocks for me to install one

 

[LI-Lotus]

you and I would get along. We have similar taste. I have a krypton green elise, I want a matte black Exige wing, I just got my wheels done in black, & I want black side scoops

 

[oldmansan]

The Exige wing is flimsy enough when properly mounted to an Exige hatch. I don't think I'd trust the Elise rear deck to sustain the wing at speed.

San

 

[ehowton]

I like the look of it.

 

[LI-Lotus]

I will have to take a look at my lid tomorrow and explore some options for Stiffening it and better securing it. I really would like to do this. But I often take the car into triple digits over a extremely windy ocean bound causeway bridge. I could be doing 130 miles per hour with a 30 plus miles per hour side wind

 

[Twizzstyle]

I'll reserve my comments about how unsafe that sounds, wing or not... Save it for the track.

You could always brace it from underneath, but that would make the boot unusably.

As-is, the bootlid is really only mechanically supported at the latch. There are some rubber pads on the lip of the clam opening to cushion it, but those don't provide much in the way of support. I may experiment with adding more rubber padding/edging around that lip, and maybe stiffer rubber. In theory that should reduce any side-to-side play by quite a bit. Still not sure I'd trust that at track speeds, but for normal street driving and autocross it should be fine. I'll update this with my findings after I try a few things.

 

[enderw88]

but for normal street driving and autocross it should be fine..

So, it is purely cosmetic, I like the look. But I think long term you are going to have a lot of spider webbing back there.

 

[forkmeupscotty]

I must say that is the best execution of grafting Exige wing to the Elise. :up:
Looks on the other hand, is in the Eye of beholder...
Functionality wise, we'll never know unless studies are performed...

 

[sleepe]

It's not function I would imagine. If you've ever seen a leaf twirl around
by the rear window at speed then you'll see why its not functional. The air is too turbulent for a wing mount so low and close to the rear window.

It doesn't look bad though.

 

[Mr.C]

I noticed one car during last weekends gathering at the Hockenheim Ring with the exact same set up. The guy also had plastic blocks machined to adapt the contour of the wing mount to the deck lid.

 

[Patiotray]

The previous owner of my car did this. I had every intention of removing it but it grew on me and now I would like to keep it. It is reinforced (which I recommend doing) but does not have adapter blocks, which looks kinda bad to my eye. I will probably have a body shop fill the gaps to make it right. Here's a not very good pic.

Twizzstyle, I might be interested in your blocks if you can get them to appear almost seamless. What you have looks good and better than mine is now.

 

[88 E5PR1T]

LOVE LOVE the idea, and great job on the adapter plates. It does look good (sitting still that is, ha).

But, let's say the wing was useful for downforce (I read the twirling leaf theory above so not sure that it actually is creating any), what's it pushing down on... the flimsy engine cover... reinforced or not, it's sending downforce through the latch and rubber bits. Any useable downforce would need to be channeled down to the chassis, or the clam at a minimum right? The GUT spoiler does a decent job of that I think.

Now, I've done a whopping 80mph in my car so I'm not the one to be complaining about a wing's lack of downforce... just adding conversation. As long as she's stable on the road as people have said and doesn't break the lid, I think it looks great.

 

[Twizzstyle]

But, let's say the wing was useful for downforce (I read the twirling leaf theory above so not sure that it actually is creating any), what's it pushing down on... the flimsy engine cover... reinforced or not, it's sending downforce through the latch and rubber bits. Any useable downforce would need to be channeled down to the chassis, or the clam at a minimum right?

The spoiler could be mounted in a tub of pudding, any aerodynamic force imparted on the wing is still transferred to the car somehow. The force doesn't somehow disappear just because it's on rubber, it's just taking a more convoluted path to get to the chassis.

I would certainly never claim to be an expert on aerodynamics, but I am an aeronautical engineer, I test airplanes, I halfway know what I'm talking about. The fastback body on the Exige would do a much better job maintaining attached flown down to the wing. On the Elise you might get a whisper of good airflow at the wing, at best. You've probably got good attached flow coming around the side of the body, but this wing is too narrow to take advantage of that. But like I've said, I'll never claim a performance gain with this, it's cosmetic.

Although I am curious now how bad it really is. Maybe this weekend I'll take the car out with a gopro pointed at the wing. I can get some shots showing how much movement there is at various speeds, and maybe I'll put some flow tufts on the wing to see how turbulent the air is.

Only decent way to measure any change in downforce (heck it could be adding lift for all I know) would be to put a load cell on each spring/strut and gather some data. I don't care enough to go that deep into it.

 

[Wareagle]

I have considered doing the same with my Elise but primarily want it for improved aero on track days. Now I know how good it looks I would be proud to leave it on all of the time. I intend to make a flip down support underneath for track days that will fold out of the way when I need the trunk.

 

[sturgeongeneral]

I would suggest cutting either 1/2" or 3/4" material to attatch on the bottom side of the boot lid to add stability. Use longer bolts to sandwich. I think this would help stabilize things and keep the boot from cracking.