Turn your car into a golf ball! (FastSkinz wrap)

[Sayyad]

From the makers of vinyl car wrap advertisements comes something potentially far more useful: golf ball textured wrap for vehicles!
MPG-Plus™, Drag Reducing Technology, Improve MPG, Vehicle Wraps, FastSkinz™
Anybody want to try it?

[ConnClark]

Ummmmm..... golf ball dimples aren't effective on larger objects. If they were we would see large aircraft like 747s dimpled and such. On larger objects people use vortex generators to do a similar thing with less drag.

[aerohead]

you might want to check my thread on dimples on page five here at the aero forum.

Dimples

[Cd]

Much to my surprise, vortex generators on cars do not improve drag either - even when you can see an actuall difference using tuft testing.

[trikkonceptz]

Originally Posted by Sayyad

From the makers of vinyl car wrap advertisements comes something potentially far more useful: golf ball textured wrap for vehicles!
MPG-Plus™, Drag Reducing Technology, Improve MPG, Vehicle Wraps, FastSkinz™
Anybody want to try it?

I'd be willing to try it, hell my car already looks some what rediculous, my tank averages are quite consistent and I put down enough mileage. I think I would make a good test subject in order to see if this myth needs to be busted ...

So are they sponsoring real world tests?

[Daveedo]

You could have a dimpled car if you...
a. Bought the kit
b. left it outside in a BIG hailstorm
c. fed a 5 year old a whole tray of rice crispy treats then send him out into the garage with a 2lb sledge hammer.


ok, seriously, I've seen the dimple discussion before and I'm actually surprised to see it being marketed. It'd be interesting to see an independent test of their product.


edit: took a while but I finally saw the stuff. Its a mesh type material they put over the surface of the vehicle...so no big golf ball sized dimples.

[ConnClark]

Originally Posted by Cd

Much to my surprise, vortex generators on cars do not improve drag either - even when you can see an actuall difference using tuft testing.

They can reduce drag. It just takes a serious under standing of whats going on. Extensive skills with CFD modeling and a wind tunnel don't hurt either.

The only article I have seen was on autospeed.com in which their experiment failed. In the papers I have read on vortex generators, they need to be only about as tall as the boundary layer other wise they create excessive drag. Unfortunately most people don't have the ability to measure the height of the boundary layer so they are shooting in the dark when applying vortex generators. Another problem is that these improvements are quite small and it takes very sophisticated instrumentation and very controlled experiments to determine if it is an improvement (a road test isn't sufficient).

[Christ]

I find it amazing that these fly-by-nights spend all this money on their "R&D" and implementation/advertising, but they can't spare a few bucks for an editor... the grammar in that advert is horrible enough to consider that a 12 year old wrote it.

This is usually a good indicator of whether or not a company is reputable, believe it or not... real companies go through several channels to get their advertising out there, as well as PR materials, etc... someone would catch all those mistakes and they'd be fixed before the company had an embarrassing moment on a national level.

Think about that, everyone, the next time you look at something like this.

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by Daveedo

a. Bought the kit
b. left it outside in a BIG hailstorm
c. fed a 5 year old a whole tray of rice crispy treats then send him out into the garage with a 2lb sledge hammer.

d. left some_other_dave in the garage with your car, a 2-lb hammer, and a case of beer.

The case of beer is cheaper than the kit, but more expensive than the rice krispies treats. However, some_other_dave can reach the roof of the car more easily. He can also work on the sides of the vehicle, which a hailstorm will not reach as well. And he is almost (depends on how fast he goes through the beer) guaranteed not to damage your windows as much as the hailstorm.



-soD

[Christ]

Ok - I'm watching crappy youtube videos on perpetual motion and infinite operation, etc... and all of a sudden, I have an email. (Its' Gmail, notifies me in the tab if I have new email instantly.) I check my email, and it's a subscription notification from EcoModder. Cool, this will get my attention off stupid videos for a few mins.

I read in the email exactly what Dave has posted. All of a sudden, I have this weird sensation building in my gut and chest... at first, I'm confused by this... I can't understand it... but then, all of a sudden, a blubber of air comes rushing out, and I choke the air back at random intervals... then it's constant, and my ribs and sides start to hurt.

I'm not really sure why, but I laughed harder at that single post than I have at anything in my immediate memory...

Thanks Dave - You made me double over and hit my head on the damn monitor! LOL.