Went (almost) all out on my 6th gen civic

[brucepick]

Originally Posted by Wonderboy

... What kind of results has it yielded? What exactly is your car? When in your fuel log did you add (subtract I should say) it?...

97 Civic HX coupe; lean burn fuel system is oem. Similar to earlier VX system.

I have to say, your wheel skirts are inspiring. You made it look very easy. I hear you about the indent above the side molding. Doubtless someone with body work skills would know how to fill the gap nicely with Bondo and then paint it, but I'm not that person!

As for the WAI - I set that up on 3/7/09. You can see the note in my fuel log at Fuel log: - - EcoModder.com. That's 11 fillups back from the most recent one, so you can count bars on the graph to see the mpg trend after that. That time also includes the spring warmup so some of the credit simply is due to the weather.

One major aim with this car is to keep it in Lean Burn as much as possible; that reduces fuel consumption by about 20-30%. The first fillup with WAI was pretty good, the next two two were not so good but one tank wasn't driven by me (see notes in the fuel log). I've since learned that my car needs a full block on the exhaust (a/c) side of the grill to keep the cat hot, to get max Lean Burn time. I had some CELs with a cat code but none for a little while now; even so, I think the cat is not in the best shape.

I've also learned that in current weather (maybe 80 deg. daytime??) I need to close off the WAI ports and go with the oem intake. IAT is up around 100 deg F. with oem intake and I don't trust it to be OK if hotter. But I still need to keep the cat side of grill blocked.

[MetroMPG]

About the small gaps in the lower leading edge of the rear skirts, I'm with brucepick:

Originally Posted by brucepick

Doubtless someone with body work skills would know how to fill the gap nicely with Bondo and then paint it

Yes, bondo is your friend. "Blunt" is OK, as long as it's sufficiently rounded (a radius of 1 inch is fine). I forgot to talk to you when I was looking at the skirts at the Green Grand Prix.

[MetroMPG]

About the small gaps in the lower leading edge of the rear skirts, I'm with brucepick:

Originally Posted by brucepick

Doubtless someone with body work skills would know how to fill the gap nicely with Bondo and then paint it

Yes, bondo is your friend. "Blunt" is OK, as long as it's sufficiently rounded (a radius of about 1 inch is fine to retain attached flow/prevent edge separation). I forgot to talk to you about this when I was looking at the skirts at the Green Grand Prix.

[99LeCouch]

Only 100*F for IAT? I've seen low 140's on hot days sitting in traffic, with only a grille block near where the intake gets its air from. You "should" be fine.

[alohaspirit]

for the wheel skirts

is the corplast adhered to the bottom bar at all?
or is the panel just screwed in on top of the bar


also for the top
is the coroplast screwed in without any metal plate (for rigidity)

[Wonderboy]

The wheel skirts are attached at 3 points - top and each bottom side (fore and aft). They are attached to small aluminum "L" brackets that are attached to the wheel well with small self-tapping screws. The reinforcement aluminum bar at the bottom is there to push the coroplast out into shape, preventing it from brushing against the tires - the wheel covers did not fit under here, so I'm just using raw steelies. (I may later opt for smooth covers). The coroplast does not deliberately attach to that alumnium reinforcement/shaping bar at all - only at the fore and aft attachment points.

An update on the other components: I've seen temperatures in the intake no more than 150, but usually 140F. With all of these modifications, I've seen SIGNIFICANT improvements in FE. Look at my logs, but I think it jumped up from ~42 to ~50, which has reached my goal already - surpassing 50 normal driving.

[alohaspirit]

so just to make certain

the bottom of the coroplast arent glued to the aluminum bar

and

the top of the coroplast (by iteself) are secured to the L bracket

[Wonderboy]

You got it.

[basjoos]

Instead of deleting a wiper, you could get lower drag by keeping both wipers in place and constructing a wind deflecter at the base of your hood. Its a quick 20 minute job to construct with sheet metal and pop rivets.

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by Wonderboy

Any suggestions on this little problem would be appreciated. You can kind of see in the next two images what I did to combat it - I just cut small pieces to plug up the hole, but its still pretty blunt and perpendicular to airflow.

You could make a new set of skirts with an additional area as shown by the red lines in the following pics. They would be fitted to come to a point at the bottom of the V in the side of the body. This should give you a smooth transition to the outer surface of the skirt.