In the Air Tonight

While many in the sport might expect to lose their job after such a devastating loss to the race team, Brilliant was lucky. In an effort to keep the prime team members together the LG Motorsports offered to put them on a sabbatical until they could regroup and come back with a new race car. Feeling adventurous, Brilliant then in his late twenties decided to visit his sister who was living in Japan. While there he decided to check out Japan top touring car series, the Super GT series that consisted of GT300 and GT500 classes. The series has such a high profile that former F1 drivers Jensen Button, Ralf Schumacher, and Pedro de la Rosa, all used it as a steppingstone on their way to the F1 circuit. What really excited Brilliant was the aero on the Japanese cars. “It seemed to me that Super GT really had the most advanced aero of all the GT classes running World-wide and that turned my crank for sure.”

It was there that Brilliant met Yoshi Suzuka who would go on to become his partner in AMB Aero that Andrew saw Super GT was miles head, FIA GT seemed like child’s play. Suzuka was the aerodynamic genius behind the Nissan prototype cars that were so successful all over the World during the 90s. Over the last 40 years his designs have been part of numerous victories and championships in various sports car, GT, and formula series. In addition to his success in motorsport, Yoshi headed up the advanced aerodynamics program for the Nissan R35 GTR production car. Meeting Suzuka was the Eureka moment for Brilliant who saw aerodynamics and his love of CFD as a new career choice and Suzuka was the perfect person to partner with, they then embarked on a joint project to change how Nissan carried out their aero testing.

Having been involved with Time Attack when he lived in California with a Mitsubishi Eclipse Andrew could see that it was a particular motorsport genre that would benefit from some dedicated aerodynamic involvement and AMB Aero was born. ”It was like motorsport with the blinders off, trying anything you could dream of and see if it works!” he continued to live in Japan (and got married) as it was in fact the cradle of Time Attack genre and there is a huge interest there in advancing the frontiers of the sport and everyone is wanted to be number one especially if they could set a new record at the famed Tsukuba track. Personally, Andrew hoped it might be an easier way for him to get involved in F1 through Honda. As it turned out, just as he got the experience and the contacts, Honda decided it was time for one of their occasional withdrawals from the top of the sport. The F1 reemerged a couple of years later when McLaren International offered him a spot on the team. Unfortunately, they would not provide any assistance in getting a work visa, and after much pain when he relocated to Japan, Andrew did not want to go through it again and decided to forego the offer.

One thing that Brilliant made one of AMB Aero’s core values is that you don’t need to have a Formula 1 level budget to benefit from aerodynamic design and components. Brilliant explained, “We wanted to give grass roots level racers enough information to build aero that would work for them. Previously they built carbon aero components that did not work, and it was a huge waste of money. Our entry level package uses our ‘Best Practices’ model where we use our huge knowledge bank of 15,000+ CFD tests to suggest what route the team should take to develop and build components what will give them a proven aero package. With the cost of building the carbon components being the most expensive part of the process, having a proper idea to work from makes sense and saves money in the long run.”

When asked what is the best bang for the buck on a race car, updating the power, the suspension or develop an aerodynamic package. Andrew noted, “You have to understand all three. Just look at the World Time Attack Challenge back in 2009/10 and compare it to times run in 2018. The lap times dropped almost 10 seconds during that time and the only major advancements were in the aero department. When you compare the engine costs required to drop a couple of seconds a lap, they are huge compared to the cost for aero components to do the same. Aero is very cost effective in the big scheme of things and when you integrate in suspension and engine upgrades the benefits can be huge.”

That brings us to an interesting project that is underway as we head into 2022. AMB Aero received a request to get involved with an Alfa Romeo 4C project that the customer wanted to be cutting edge

and send shock waves through the North American Time Attack community. We can’t say too much about it but those interested need to keep their eyes on Mike Kojima’s MotoIQ website where there will be a series of articles about the design process and build of the Alfa.

If we go back to the comment about not needing a Formula 1 style budget for aerodynamics that is true and it is not just Brilliant and Suzuka that say that. There are many people out there who are willing to give their input on aero. Now do they all know what they are talking about. That is the big question! Look at the car they have worked on and see how successful they are. Just because they win may not be purely because of the aero package.

Andrew noted a few paragraphs back that understanding ALL aspects of the car was hugely important when designing aero. That is also true

Nathan Morcam’s EVO 9

An Open class car in the World Time Attack Challenge Nathan’s EVO 9 has a substantial amount of aero fitted.

• Front splitter with end plates

• Hood/bonnet with central EVO vent and lovres located each side of it.

• Wide front fender/wings/guards with cutout A panel and rocker panel venting. On the top surface louvres and large canards

• Dual element rear wing

• Trunk/Boot wing

• Cutout rear bumper with no diffuser

Andrew’s Comments

This is an interesting car because the previous owner didnt even let us do a full Pro Racer design (not even Plus) so we designed something that would fit in between Racer and Pro Racer. We only got to CFD design the splitter and the rest we used our ‘Best Practices’ data as described in our Racer package. You can see for the 2018 photo above there is no diffuser fitted. Yet the car won the Open Class at the WTAC once and placed in the top 3 the other times, all with what essentially is an AMB 2012 era tech splitter.

when looking at what is making a winning car successful. It may make more way more power than the opposition and that makes the difference, or it may just be handling better. Talk to the driver and ask him about how it worked before after the aero changes. When a change in aero is made, does the car respond and is it in a positive way?

What does Andrew see as the hierarchy as far as developing a race car. “As far as time attack goes, I see aero being the number one influence on a car’s performance, followed by power to weight ratio. Next up is the tire size and compound followed by the driver. You may not agree with that but that is what we have learned during our time working with race teams all over the World. A common misconception is that aero does not matter until you hit a magic mph number. If that were the case, why would unlimited autocross

cars have the crazy aero that they have. We see racers that have one of our Racer packages drop 3-5 seconds off a lap time that would be in the 1:30 zone. That is pretty impressive considering most racers would be happy to take off 3-5 tenths.”

A Racer design package takes around a

week to complete and the customer receives 5 support hours in addition to all the design guidance previously noted in the last paragraph. Previous successful projects using the Racer package are the FXMD Acura NSX, the Evolution Custom Industries

In last month’s issue of MotorWerks Magazine we talked to Sylvain Toupin who told us about the aero development on his Nissan 300ZX. He mentioned he did lots of Internet surfing, reading, and reviewing all sorts of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamic) images. When questioned about that approach Andrew said, “Well, it sure is better than having no data at all. Our CFD images that he found would relate to a specific car that has been scanned into our supercomputer, so the results are based on that particular car and are not generic as such. Generic aero suffers greatly even with our advice package that’s from the mouths of the people having done 15,000 CFD tests in time attack, we still make two or three times more downforce in the aero design for the Alfa4c. That means certain aspects of the aero package may not have worked on Sylvain’s car at all, but on the other hand if the car was more similar, it could still make a huge difference compared to nothing at all. Sylvain noted he could feel the changes in the car with the additional aero components but there is probably more to be gained. It was good that he put some work into the design before all that hard work he did fabricating the carbon parts.”

He went on, “As noted our entry level Racer package uses a ‘Best Practices’ model where the car is not scanned and the resultant time to convert the data to a point where CFD can be generated is time consuming and labor intensive is not required. So how do we come up with the Racer design? I visit the customers shop to inspect the car and discuss the customer’s needs. I talk to the team to get a feeling on how they understand aero, and we discuss their thoughts on how they are going to turn the design into reality. Who is going to fabricate the

parts and how strong they must be as well as how to mount them is included in that discussion? We also discuss the changes that might be required to the cooling system to work with the new aero and possibly a more powerful engine.”

Having collected all that data Andrew heads back to Japan and the AMB team sets to and finalizes the design. Andrew lays out what is required, and Kumar Satish turns that into the CAD drawing that are required for the customer.

Now the advantage we have after scanning a car is that we have invested heavily in technology and have a supercomputer called Nimrod that can handle F1 style calculations (and at times does). That means we can run multiple scenarios through the computer in the time others take to run one option.”

“It is because of that huge data bank where we have run all sorts of options that our entry level package works. We know what works on all the cars we have scanned. If the car we are working on has not been scanned, we look at one that is similar and that allows us to make informed decisions as to what is required aero-wise. Is it the ultimate solution? Probably not but way better than working from a clean sheet of paper.”

Andrew got his start in motorsport when he was studying engineering in California, his choice surprisingly was land speed events on the salt flats and dry lake beds and that is where his love of CFD began. “I loved seeing how the air travelled over the car,” he said. “The dust patterns on the cars showed exactly how the air moved, video and photos showed the salt billowing behind the car and that gave me the ability to view air movement from the nose of the car right through to thirty feet behind it.

Although not originally trained as an aerodynamicist Andrew’s analytical engineering brain allowed him to understand that you must look at the whole picture when looking at an aero design. “The air does not just flow over the car,” Brilliant stated, “It flows through the car, it has to be able to maintain cooling on a race engine and transmission. Imagine building an aero package that is second to none but only being able to run three laps before the engine overheats. That is no use to anyone and could get expensive. There are many things that have to be considered as a whole and only then can a truly successful race car be built.”

Looking back, Brilliant attributes much of his success to his enquiring mind but more than that the fact that he was very hands on himself. Back in the days of the Mitsubishi Eclipse there was a lot of trial and error. He did not have the massive data bank he has now. The CFD he used in the Eclipse days was severely limited by the computer power he had available.

Andrew’s Eclipse was not a quick build, it took him and his friends thirteen years from start to finish as they tweaked and developed the car. Talk about a labor of love! It went through many iterations along the way, some worked, others didn’t. It was a bit of a mad professor time for Brilliant as he sought ideas to make the car faster and more competitive.

And competitive it was, it took 2009 & 2010 Super Lap Battle Limited FF wins as well as setting M-FWD/Limited FF records at Buttonwillow Raceway, S-FWD Spring Mountain Motorsports Park, S-FWD Willow Springs International Raceway. The car now resides back in the US bought by a passionate owner and hoping to race again in Super Lap Battle, this time with 4wd.

So how does one go about choosing somebody to design an aero package for you?

First of all, look at your sanctioning bodies class rules. Make notes of what is and isn’t allowed. Your designer will need this information to maximize the design within the rules. What capabilities do you have to get the components built in carbon fiber? There is no point having a super trick aero design if you cannot get it built. Do you envisage staying in the current class or stepping up to a more aero dependent class in the future? This would allow for the designer to come up with components where add-ons would work rather than totally throwing away a front splitter for instance.

The huge thing is communication, relay what you are expecting from the package and then both parties know where they stand.

In the next issue we will be ‘Gone With The