Opinion on the RSS Formula 79?

Billy Pilgrim · Aug 5, 2017

I'm thinking about getting the RSS Formula 79.

Is it good? How's the physics and the handling?

Gevatter · May 6, 2018

The car employs ground effect which in real life gives it a tremendous amount of grip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_(cars)

Qazdar Karim · May 6, 2018

Gevatter said:
The car employs ground effect which in real life gives it a tremendous amount of grip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_(cars)

Only after a certain speed and ride heights.

Joel Eckman · Jun 3, 2018

signman said:
It was old even when I drove it some 15 years ago.

I love this mod also. and That thing looks evil.

PottoGadd · Jan 9, 2020

Sort of necroing this thread, sorry about that.

I'm a massive fan of 1970's F1 and this thing handles exactly like I expect the ground-effect cars to handle. It grips like crazy until suddenly it doesn't anymore and you spin out, and it feels like an earlier 1970's F1 car at lower speeds because the lack of downforce which makes it feel unstable once you get used to the massive grip at high-speed. Amazing mod and well worth the money.

Massive grip compared to the 72D and 312T with only their simple wings but way more drag with the same 500-ish horsepower hence the low top speed compared to the earlier cars. It more than makes up for it thanks to the cornering. I'm also pretty sure the 79 has even wider rear tyres than both the 72D and 312T but don't quote me on that.

I think the ground-effect cars (1982, when they supposedly peaked in downforce) had the highest THEORETICAL downforce number in F1 until the early 1990's or something. Of course it's difficult to compare laptimes when massive turbo power entered so soon after skirts were banned on the cars.

What I'd really like to see is a Brabham BT46B mod. The BT46B supposedly could go around hairpin turns at close to the same speed it could go around corners at top speed. The fan was connected to the engine RPM or something so if you revved the car high it sucked the car to the track. So you could have high downforce at low speed excluding any generated from the wings and all that.

Gordon Murray talks about the Brabham here.