Project: The AeroFocus

[Cd]

I like the way you just dove in and did the most outrageous mod first !

Also, the black color looks quite good.

[NeilBlanchard]

Looks great overall! Are you planning on tuft-testing it? I wonder if the underside would be better if it was angled up a bit less? And as others have mentioned on their projects, if/when you add a belly pan, that may help/change the underside angle as well.

[HydroJim]

MetroMPG- basjoos was hit from behind which is much of the inspiration for my bright lights.

Cd-I was thinking of painting it black instead of green, but I'm not too sure yet

NeilBlanchard- I do plan on tuft testing once I find a willing participant. The web-cam on stick would be good, but I don't have a laptop and I'm not really willing to stick one of my cameras on the end of a pole.

I would most certainly help to have a smaller underside angle, but I need to be able to pull into driveways without scraping so that's why my angle is so high. I may have gone a little too high, but the extra drag is more than worth having the tail hit the ground.

[HydroJim]

I just took The AeroFocus out for its maiden voyage and nothing fell off so I'd say the tail was a success. I got up to 65mph, took some fast turns in parking lots, and went over some bumps. Nothing broke or made weird noises so I'd say I did pretty well.

The only problem observed was that my 4th brake light, which is mounted inside the window, created a glare. It didn't really bother me much, but next time I open up the hatch I may disconnect it unless I can find another place to put it or a way to block the glare.

My next test will be to take the tail up to 80 to see how it performs above it's normal speed. I would have done that tonight, but it was dark and I want to be able to see if any pieces fly off.

By the way, people's reactions are priceless. Most people stared in amazement and almost everyone stayed along side my car and looked at it. So hopefully I don't have many problems with rubberneckers. I can't wait until I take it out in the daylight and everyone can actually see it. I'll have to get film of what this looks like on the road

Hopefully I tuft test this thing soon!

[Weather Spotter]

You will get lots of looks, use mailbox numbers to make a MPG sticker for the tail so people can read why you do it, it cuts down on the question looks and generates more thumbs up responses.

[HydroJim]

I planned on making a website for the car similar to aerocivic.com. I guess I better get on that soon now that I have a boattail on the back. Anyway, I was going to put www.theaerofocus.com on the side of the car so people have a way to get more info about it. MPG numbers might be good too, but at this moment in time I'm not sure what the improvement will be.

[Weather Spotter]

I like the web page idea, I wanted to do that but my web page skills are at the reading level only.

to start off pick a gain of 10-15% and use that. you could wait for a few tanks but with how little you drive it might take a while.

[HydroJim]

just went out for a 10 mile trip around town to show my friend the car and i achieved high 30's mpg around town based on my ultragauge which over reports by about 2 mpg.

That was with my boat tail and smooth wheel coves on the rear wheels plus some hypermiling.

I can't wait to get some highway testing to see what kind of mpg I can get while cruising.

I'm still really enjoying the weird looks people are giving me

[HydroJim]

I don't know about you guys, but I think the way this thing looks with the smooth wheel covers is awesome

[Sven7]

That looks awesome. If you want to mess with people, paint a 6" diameter dot on the wheels, just off center by an inch or two. When you're rolling through town it'll look like the wheel's gonna fall off!