Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadeTreeMech
I suspect some of the increase in efficiency was helped by it having a really bad .455 cd. When you start bad, any improvement is substantial. I suspect if I were to do the same with my van, which already has a cd of .35, I would be lucky to net the same percentage decrease, which would be a .26
The work is indeed nice and clean, though. Reminds me of an Airstream travel trailer. Looks like the rear tailgate was completely inaccessible; wouldn't that be a problem for a VW camper come tune up time?
|
When I did the mods to the CRX,I was starting at Cd0.35 and got to Cd 0.23 for a 28% mpg improvement.From the speed runs at Bonneville,the boattail was the single largest contributor to top speed.Combined with the cardboard and duct tape mods derived at the Salt Flats,the trip on to the West Coast,and then back home to Texas got me an added 8.6 mpg compared with stock.The data suggest that most of that came from only 12-inches of boattail.---------- I'm certain that the VW boattail was also the singlemost contributor to mpg,later borne out of R&D by NASA,which conducted aerodynamic work on vans at Edward's Air Force Base,and published in the 1980s.-------- If you lived next door,I'd help you cobble something together for a test.I'd be very interested to know what it would do.Some of the recent van-type concepts were attaining Cd 0.19,and 146-mpg,as in the case of Renault Vesta.