Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee
I think you'd see some gain- say, 10% vs the- say, 50% on the Pinto (turbulent wake reduction, not necessarily Cd reduction or fe increase). My understanding of it is, you can boattail quite nicely, and do things with spoilers re: that airfoil template, but wherever that bodywork ends, you still end up with a turbulent wake. Aerohead has a description of that phenomenon somewhere here.
Yours is kinda the difference between a regular minivan and an Aztek.
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Frank,the best I can figure it,is that if you can reduce the wake by some percentage,then you've reduced your drag by the same percentage.It's actually probable to scale the area of the wake from the template if you measure top and sides.Wherever one chooses to cut the tail,if they figure the size of the wake at that point,compared to the original,that percentage would be the drag reduction.At 55-mph,mpg increases at 50% of drag reduction,so a 10% wake reduction should yield 5% better mpg.--------------------- The premise of my boattail trailer is to follow the template all the way out to a point,effectively reducing Profile drag to zero.I'm left with skin friction,internal drag (already cut with grille block),interference drag from side mirrors,and some lift which I'm stuck with."Proof's in the pudding" as they say,so I won't know anything 'til late September,but I really do feel as though anyone using the template can expect savings based on the wake reduction their mods provide.