Veloster N Wings

I’ve been looking into aftermarket wings for Velosters and thought I’d do a quick review. None of them are super interesting to me, so I’ll do a follow-up article when I make my custom wing.

I’ll start with the OEM wing. It doesn’t have an airfoil shape, the trailing edge is rounded, and there’s no camber to speak of. I doubt it creates much suction underneath, and so it’s not fair to call this a wing. If it’s not a wing, it’s also not a spoiler, as air certainly goes underneath it. If you filled in the gap it would be more effective at creating downforce, but it would also have more drag, which would be a lousy tradeoff on a street car.

But I’m not saying the OEM wing is useless. Most hatchacks create rear lift due to the curvature of the roof, and the Veloster N has about 10 degrees of downward slope in the rear, which is fairly extreme. By flattening out the air at the rear with the “wing”, Hyundai reduced rear lift.

In addition, adding some drag and rear surface area (end plates) moves the center of pressure rearwards. This creates a greater static margin (the distance between the center of gravity and the center of pressure), which makes the car more stable at high speed.

There is more styling than substance here, but at least the Veloster doesn’t have a shit ton of fake vents (ahem, Civic Type R).

On a wing and a prayer

Some aftermarket companies have used the OEM wing as a starting point, which makes sense if you’re trying to sell a product. It would be a lot more expensive to sell a wing complete with a new roof extension, third brake light and window washer nozzle. But while starting with the OEM wing as a base is easier, it results in major compromises. Take a gander and see what I mean.

First, this TIE Fighter wing. It’s shaped similarly to the OEM one, but looks like it has more topside camber. Nevermind that it’s the bottom that needs camber. It’s hard to tell if this is a proper airfoil shape, and the end plates are hella stupid. (Usage: The adjective hella is properly used only to modify the word stupid, and then only in relation to people who use hella in a sentence. Example: Dude that wing is hella tight! – No, you’re hella stupid.)

One thing they did do correctly was make it taller. Wings create downforce via suction, and you need space below the wing for the low pressure region to form. And on that note….

The ADRO V2 wing is a better TIE Fighter. Looking at the underside, it appears to have an airfoil shape, it has a bit of a kick to the topside, and the trailing edges are sharper. They’ve added some height to the middle of the wing, but for some reason not on the sides, which certainly won’t help. Overall, I bet it performs marginally better, but for $1400? Meh and fuck no, all at once.

Next up is the EPSILON+ spoiler extension. At $220, this is the cheapest aftermarket way to make something useful out of the OEM wing (or whatever you call it). There will be some drag increase, but the tradeoff in downforce is worthwhile (for track use). This is also the only OEM option that doesn’t look hella stupid.

Clean sheet designs

All of those options started with the OEM wing and had multiple concessions as a result. With a clean sheet of paper, and the roof extension from the base model, what kind of wing could you mount?

The first wing I found was on a first-generation Veloster. The wing mounts are quite nice, attaching to the hatchback door so that you can still get at things inside the trunk. The main problem is that the wing is mounted too close to the roof, and so there’s no room for the low-pressure zone below the wing to form. As such, this is mostly a spoiler in function.

The other problem here is that this is a 3D wing, but it doesn’t match the profile of the roofline. The whole point of a 3D wing is to make it so that air going down the middle of the car is at the same angle of attack as the outsides of the car (free stream, zero degrees). This 3D wing doesn’t match the roofline very well; the center section isn’t large enough.

I will say that the wing mounts look decent, and I plan to build something similar.

On the subject of wing mounts, what the fuck is up with chassis mounts on a hatchback? Maybe I’m missing something here, but is there any way to get into the trunk of a hatchback with chassis mounts?

Next is a proper wing with proper mounts, and it ought to be, because it’s off a TCR Veloster. Two things jump out at me right away: 1) It’s set back quite a ways, 2) how did they get the wing to not sway back and forth with those mounts?

First let’s talk setback distance. Increasing setback distance results in more space underneath the wing, and so there’s plenty of room for the low pressure zone to form. On the other hand, the further back you mount the wing, the more leverage it has, which reduces front downforce. Maybe that’s the point of it, to move the F/R balance further rearward?

The mounts themselves only attach at two points, and therefore must have some sturdy backing plates inside, because I can’t see how those are going to keep the wing from swaying back and forth on quick transitions. It’s a TCR car, so I’m sure they have that shit down solid, but I don’t think I’m going to make mine like that.

Next I should be reviewing a 9 Lives Racing wing, but they don’t have one for the Veloster. I’ll have to correct that on my own time. (Meanwhile, I often say 9 Lives Racing “wing”. This is like a litmus test for annoying; anyone who corrects me with “wáng” is a fanboi poseur.)

Next is a wing by CF Style. Mok Racing will be importing these from Korea, and they look like the best option to me. The wing appears to be a proper airfoil shape, and the only nit I have to pick is the lack of a Gurney flap.

Now a Gurney flap isn’t always necessary, the effect is pretty much the same as increasing wing angle. But if you’re cranked all the way up to 10 and you need just a little more, then a Gurney flap is how you get to 11. So some provision for that would be nice to see, as it doesn’t look like a simple piece of angle aluminum will fit that contoured trailing edge very easily.

The wing is mostly a 2D shape, which is fine considering the wing doesn’t stick out into free stream air, or at least not far enough to require twisting the ends down. I don’t have the dimensions or pricing on the wing, but will fill that in when those arrive.

If you look at the wing mounts, they appear to be as short as you can make such a thing, and so probably very stiff and light. The setback distance isn’t as far as the TCR, but that may be preferable for most of us, who don’t want to shift aero balance too far to the rear. All said, this wing package is a 98 out of 100, and if I was looking to buy one rather than make one, I’d buy this one.

But of course I’ll make one.