Scion xA aero mods

[Xringer]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Hiya,

I just clicked the "buy" button on two each of these:

REAR VIEW CAMERA NIGHT VISION WATERPROOF NEW FOR CARS

6 inch standalone headrest car lcd tft monitor screen

The cost is ~$156 shipped; pretty reasonable really!

The small mirror may get moved to the driver's side (to meet the the letter of the law)...so far I have liked how things have worked with it on the passenger side.

Those are some neat displays! I don't recall seeing any that size for such a good price. The cameras aren't too bad either.
Makes me want to add a BackUp cam & display to my CRV..

[Deezler]

Neil,

Right on. You are clearly reducing your total footprint with most of the mods you've done to your car. Is there anyone out there getting better than 46 mpg in a scion!? Fantastic dedication.

Per your question on how many gallons of fuel you've saved in terms of the plant and animal mass required to make that fuel: It prompted me to visit the wiki page on fossil fuels: Fossil fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Truly alarming to see the estimate of 23.5 metric tons of organic material to make ONE liter of gasoline today. Too bad they don't have American friendly units, as thats nearly 100 tons per gallon. Yikes. Just another reason why anyone who thinks that there's no reason to conserve energy is completely insane.

Anyway, my point was, that if you found out the total amount of fossil fuels consumed to make that set of monitors and cameras, you might be quite alarmed also. Feeding, heating, and transporting the employees, powering the office space to design it, transporting the raw materials to make it (including fossil fuels to make the plastic), then packaging and shipping it to your door, well, doubt you'll ever save that much fuel from using them. But that is a major buzzkill in your pasta. And who knows, you are the best candidate for extracting major gains out of something like this.

So the cameras have night vision, but how does that interface with the monitors? Is there a switch to activate that mode on the camera? What type of cable interface does it require?

Are you mounting them on the Sail panels of the doors? Or inside the a pillars on/in the dashboard?

[Funny]

The IR LEDs bounce infrared light (not visible to humans) back off of objects and is captured by the camera and converted into a visible spectrum that the human eye can see. That is the same technology Sony employs on their Handy cams with "night-shot". It just compresses the spectrum that the camera sees to what humans can see, no special interface, switches or cables required. I think that that is a decent deal for one of those cameras, but I have seen cameras with 20-30 IR LEDs for night vision that are truly spectacular! About twice that price though...

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

I agree with your expanded statements about embedded resources -- we are on the same page. The only good part of using the cameras and the screens is that they (hopefully) will help me better use the embedded resources of the whole car!

Originally Posted by Deezler

Are you mounting them on the Sail panels of the doors? Or inside the a pillars on/in the dashboard?

If I put them on the inside of the sail panels (great name!), then they would cover my tweeters...and any other place near the windows will possibly interfere with either the side air curtains and/or the passenger air bag. The only clear location, I think, is the open area just ahead of the steering wheel -- since the xA has the instrument cluster in the deep center part of the dash.

The stuff is probably sitting on my porch, right now -- shipping from Brooklyn NY to MA is overnight, even by UPS Ground. I will be trying the passenger side first, and I may be able to do that this weekend! I'll take pictures and keep y'all posted...

[alohaspirit]

i like everything youve done neil

you should make a website dedicated to that xA

[basslover911]

Hey at least we help the enviro and get some (maybe not all) of our money back!

Now, you can build your car for speed and a) you will NOT help anybody and b) your wallet will keep on shrinking as those fast mods generally decrease fuel consumption so your $3k turbo ends up being $4k in a year with the extra fuel added...

Plus we dont get speeding tickets!

Its all about what hobby you choose, its still a hobby and it still costs money

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

The "video mirrors" arrived!



They got here in about 24 hours -- UPS Ground from Brooklyn NY to MA is fast for cheap...

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

I've installed the passenger side camera and the one screen -- I'll post pictures soon. The most surprising thing is when driving at night is the screen is reflected in the windshield -- you must use a shroud to prevent having a large blind spot...

The ~110 degree view is great! This lets me see the (right) side of my car, and I still seeing the back bumpers of cars that are ahead of me!

Oh, and the aero is noticeably better -- I am going to have to get used to the additional speed as I coast up to stops. In order to get better FE when you have improved aerodynamic drag, you have to adjust your driving.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

I unbolted the sail panel (after already having removed the paddle mirror):


I pulled the wire through the hole (I did have to widen the hole a little bit with my rotary tool, to fit the plugs through), and it is rebolted into place:


I cut a ~4" piece of light aluminum angle and bolted in place with a #10 stainless steel 3/4" long screw and locking nut (with the nylon insert):




Then I formed a (rough) airfoil shaped fairing out of two 5"x7" step flashing (trimmed and bent/folded) and what else -- tape!





And the first image I saw on the screen:


I'm hopefully going to get the second (driver side) unit installed tomorrow and stash the wires after I finalize the locations of the screens. The challenge is putting them where they won't interfere with the front or side air bags, and where I can see them well -- and in a way that avoids the reflection off of the windshield. I tried a shroud, but it needs to be pretty big to negate the problem. Maybe if I tilt them towards me at the top, then the angle will be out my sight?

The view in the screen is great -- it is very wide: I can see the side of the car to a point where the rear bumper of a car beside me is still visible when the car is actually ahead of me!

My hope is to foam inside the fairing and then remove the aluminum, and then shape and paint the foam. I'll keep you posted!

[Daox]

Nice install Neil. I love the teardrop fairing! The aero penalty from that small extension must be next to nothing.

Careful painting foam, I think most paint eats foam.