Well, after doing the tuft testing video (
Video: tuft testing front wheel skirts (Geo Metro) ), I'm definitely sold on the idea of fabricating a set of front wheel skirts for the Flea.
In an ideal world, my next step would have been to head out to my ideal test road to do some A-B-A runs with a set of cardboard and duct tape skirts to get some data on the actual difference I might expect to see. But my cruise control isn't working reliably enough to commit the time to that.
So based on the tufts alone, I'm going to skip ahead to fabrication. This'll likely be the last mod project on the car before cold weather sets in.
Here's what I'm thinking...
Top hinged, like Mike did:
I think this is the best route to take. Attach a hinge to the wheel arch, build a light metal frame that swings from the hinge, and attach the skirt material to the frame.
Thing is, as with my rear skirts, I don't want to drill into metal in a rust prone spot. Fortunately, I had a quick look this evening, and there are already two screws in a good position to use as mounting points:
(No, the tire won't hit the hinge when the suspension compresses - it's offset slightly outward from the side of the tire.)
As for the skirt material, I think I'm going to consider this "version 1.0" and do black coroplast. If they work well, I'll consider building an aesthetically nicer set from fiberglass in the future...
So first step is to make the hinge brackets that will span those two screws...
EDIT: front wheel skirts tested:
Tested: front wheel skirts, A-B-A-B