Silverado ideas

[Nonhog]

I did a poor "paint" rendering to get my idea across. Not sure it would be worth paying attention to. My plan is building a lumber bar so I can haul longer boards with my short bed w/o damage to my cab or having it hang out the backside. My thought is if make 2 bars one lower than the first maybe it will help with airflow direction? I could add a removeable wing (for lack of better word) having the air point to the top of the tailgate.

Also lowering the rear to level out the stance. Not sure it will help but it will look better. And it will get a bed cover.

Wondering if adding a wing to bring airflow past rear bumper might help?
easy to try and remove if need be.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[bikin' Ed]

OK, this is a lot more work. It'll take a lot more figuring out, but here is my suggestion. Read some of the threads about boattails mounted to a trailer hitch. Also read some of the aero cap threads. Combine the two and you end up with a very aero back end of the truck and extra payload length.

When it is perfected, mass market it and make millions of dollars.

[Nonhog]

Originally Posted by bikin' Ed

OK, this is a lot more work. It'll take a lot more figuring out, but here is my suggestion. Read some of the threads about boattails mounted to a trailer hitch. Also read some of the aero cap threads. Combine the two and you end up with a very aero back end of the truck and extra payload length.

When it is perfected, mass market it and make millions of dollars.

Thanks bikin'Ed, I'm only interested in my 2 ideas. I've read on aero caps and
like them but not for me. Not a chance on an boattail. I use my truck as a truck and have no pie in the sky ideas about getting great gas mileage with it.
I do think it would be fun to see if I could pick up a couple miles per gal.
Both ideas I have could be removed in a few minutes and easily stored.
I plan to make my own lumber support (rack) because I could use one.
If it ends up being able to direct airflow that helps in fuel efficency I would just leave it on.

[graydonengineering]

Originally Posted by Nonhog

Thanks bikin'Ed, I'm only interested in my 2 ideas. I've read on aero caps and
like them but not for me. Not a chance on an boattail. I use my truck as a truck and have no pie in the sky ideas about getting great gas mileage with it.
I do think it would be fun to see if I could pick up a couple miles per gal.
Both ideas I have could be removed in a few minutes and easily stored.
I plan to make my own lumber support (rack) because I could use one.
If it ends up being able to direct airflow that helps in fuel efficiency I would just leave it on.

I think you could make the front part "invisible" to by mating it up to the back of the cab with some type of plastic trim and setting the slope angle to around 12 degrees. I don't expect that you would see any gain but You should not see any loss either. Assuming you have the bed covered, the tail gate cap could double as a spoiler. If you have it raised slightly with a profile that slows the air on the underside, you could create a slight up draft that would help smooth the air flow off the back. You could also just make it a small ridge that would add some local turbulence that way. That would look a little more subtle on a truck but it would also be less effective.

The best bang for your buck is generally an extended air dam under the front bumper. You can use lawn trim plastic for very factory looking results. I boxed off my front bumper by adding flat material to the underside and then adding front wheel well linings to mate up to it. I now have a full belly pan but from what I have gathered, this front end work seemed to do the most good. I just figured why stop there..

[ChazInMT]

See your idea here, it's a good one to make a lumber support rack, I just used the cab a few times on my 2000 Sierra and have the dents to prove it. Maybe look for a 2 X 6 or 2 X 8 thats cupped but not twisted to match the roof line a bit, don't angle it down much, too much angle won't help a bit, go maybe 2° max. I read somewhere that raising the height of the bed helps MPGs too. It may look like crap but you may wanna make your cap with 2x4s edge wise on top of the rails. Also, covering the back half of the bed gets you like 80% of the FE gain from having a full bed cover.

Here's a crude pic of what I'm thinkin