C5 corvette

[hiro256]

So any suggestions on how to improve a C5 corvette 2001 aerodynamics? I am planning on filling in the fog light holes and extending the air dam a inch. what about those vortex generators on the rear or on the front underbody
http://www.autospeed.com/cms/A_3061/article.html

[SVOboy]

How far are you willing to go?

[winkosmosis]

It's probably as aerodynamic as possible except for the popup headlights... You can replace them with fixed units

[winkosmosis]

cD is 0.29 1997 Corvette

[Blue07CivicEX]

Mirror delete, might be some underbody work but I'd guess the bottom of a vette is fairly clean to start with, headlights like wink said, skirts on the back if you really wanted to go out but I can't imagine somebody putting wheel skirts on a vette, but if you're serious about it, you'd get hot brakes on the rear if you were doing a lot of hard stopping so you'd probably only want to do the skirts if you were serious about hypermiling it.

[aerohead]

The fore-body of the car is very good.It's long though,so frontal area doesn't occur until way back on the car.That means that there is little room for separation-free tapering to reduce the cars wake area,where most of its drag is.If you were dedicated to driving in an economical fashion,then some length of boat-tail is the only thing you could do for significant drag reduction.But if your going to drive it like a Corvette,you might leave things as they are,as directional stability at high speed would outweigh fuel savings.Looking at the Oldsmobile AEROTECH long-tail,Mercedes-Benz C-111 record car,or the GM EV-1 long-tail land speed record car will give you something to think about.

[winkosmosis]

I don't thikn making a tail would be very easy, because the Corvette has a big rear deck. You'd have to transition from that deck to a downward slope, then back again to a new ducktail.

Since it already has a kammback, I say leave the rear as it is.

[theunchosen]

Yeah I would wear about this big boy brakes. They are probably as cooling efficient as possible to keep them in normal conditions and I would be wary of making them too warm.

Mirror deletes are the only things I can think of. I've stuck my head under one or two and I don't think a belly pan is going to do much of anything.

Weight reductions might be had as well as deletion of ac and alternators(using PV panels on the dash to reduce in car heat as well as recharge batteries instead of alt) but those are not aero

[Big Dave]

Better yet. Forget the aero and transplant in a 6.5 diesel. They're almost a bolt-in.

Minimum 25% improvement in MPG.

[dremd]

I've never toyed with a non Z06 C5 I'm assuming the brakes are similar?

As far as rear brakes go on a C5 I'd bet that you can get away with covering up the wheels. I'd monitor the temps on the road course (if you track the car). I can pretty much promise you it would be ok on the street (much lower total use) + at the drag strip (single use).

If you want to get serious about it get some higher temp brake pads; I liked the Hawk HP+ and EBC green for cross street/ track . . . . that choice depends on what you do with the car. Better pads may be also be available by now . . . .


My data points are

1) factory 86.5-90mkiii (stock) Supra wheels nearly completely block off airflow and we don't get much in the way of brake problems until we get serious HP.

2) Rear brakes don't have a very hard job, the fronts do most of the work. You'd be amazed how huge of a difference there is between front and rear temps.