Ok, finally some actual progress to show. The kayak rack is back off the car for a little while also.
Car is currently in the shop getting a new timing belt, clutch, and 5th gear swap! New gear ratio should give ~13% lower rpms.
Before she went in to the shop, I managed to get started on some more aero mods.
Found a local plastic supplier and picked up some ABS and polycarbonate sheet. This stuff blows coroplast away for material properties, but yes, it does cost money. The ABS is pretty cheap though at ~$3 per sq ft. I have another 1/8" thick half sheet (4' x 4') on order.
I had already ordered some "custom" side mirror delete panels a while back. Now I wish I'd just made them myself though, as I ended up trimming off this much just to get them to fit:
First, pull the mirror off. This requires removing the inside door panel, so that you can remove the tweeter cover on the sail panel, to then finally unbolt the mirror. I would call only breaking one door clip a success! ha.
The small convex mirror is just foam taped to the dash with a simple L-bracket. View from Driver's perspective:
vs the actual view to the rear in my garage:
First impressions are that its really not too bad! Nearly complete blind spot coverage. Once a car in the next lane disappears completely in the mirror, its headlights come into view in my interior rear view mirror. I was planning to add one of the small sit-on-top safety mirrors that everyone else has been using, but I'm not sure its necessary yet.