I want to make a portable smoke generator
 

I like how well smoke trails work for visualizing air flow in wind tunnels. Why not do the same thing on a moving car?

(note: the above is not a rhetorical question--if there's some reason it won't work I'd sure like to hear it)

How do smoke generators generate smoke, exactly? Are they available off the shelf...and if so, where are the shelves? Like most ecomodders I'd be happy to make my own (if I knew how) to save a few bucks, but if they're available from Crazy Eddie's Aerodynamic Emporium, factory seconds for $39.95, I'll just buy one.

The idea is, fix the wand to the car, drive with a chase car alongside, turn on the smoke generator, have a passenger in the chase car take pix and vids, mount the wand somewhere else and repeat as needed. Technical advice/assistance will be greatly appreciated.

I think you'd need a guy to run the wand too- move it around like you often seem em do in wind tunnels.

Get a fog machine and a hose running to the front grill of the car poking out a bit... then run it off a 12v dc to ac converter plugged in your cig lighter!

Wow that would be an epic sight to see hahahaha

I love the idea, but got a snap vision of the fire truck racing up behind you to save you from incineration ;).

You may actually br able to get smoke in a bottle, or just light up a big cigar and blow it through a hose (just kidding) ;).

Maybe tap off the exhaust and use the heat to generate smoke.

regards
Mech

I was thinking about this a while ago, not so much a portable smoke machine for aero while driving, but rather find a windy day and a flat place to park, try to face the wind's general direction to the best of your ability, and then mount your tuft on the end of a wand and try to look for patterns while moving the tuft around from outside the car.

But then I got tired of thinking about that and went back to my usual thinking about burritos, and about the anatomic features of women and so forth

All you need to do is follow a Chrysler product and you got yer smoke machine.

Spraying mist might be a better idea.

A little oil in the intake will produce a lot of smoke at the tailpipe.
Put the smoke producing car in front of the subject car and watch and learn.

it's a little messy but sailplanes sometimes use oil on the wings wich than produces streaks and patters, this will tell them things like flow sepparation etc and the best place to put turbulators. it might not apply to cars because of the different airflow over a car but it's worth a try