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Old 01-27-2018, 03:12 PM   #7 (permalink)
Vman455
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Back on track, here's another Jalopnik interview with the director of engineering for Ram.

https://jalopnik.com/a-close-look-at...ech-1822465887

Quote:
Of all the Ram’s changes, Wichman’s favorite improvement is aerodynamics, which is 9 percent better than the outgoing model in terms of drag coefficient—now reaching 0.357.

That improvement, Wichman told me, came through two primary means. The first has to do with changes made in the rear of the truck, namely the "dovetailed" roof, and changes to the bed, whose sides are 1.5-inches higher, and whose tailgate has a little spoiler on top.

The second major enabler for the lower drag coefficient is the active air dam, which deploys at 35 mph to divert oncoming air down and away from the suspension and other underbody components.

The air dam, which you can see below, retracts at 15 mph, and is clutched, meaning it will break free instead of breaking if a driver hits something.



An interesting tidbit that Wichman mentioned was that the engineering team at Fiat Chrysler actually looked at deployable air dams that reached lower towards the ground, but at a certain point, the dam actually became less effective.

It’s worth mentioning that the only vehicles that get the deployable air dam are those with coil spring suspensions. Air suspension trucks make do without the feature, as they’re able to lower the truck’s ride height 0.6-inches to reduce drag at higher vehicle speeds.
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