Quote:
Originally Posted by Cd
A few years ago, I added side skirts to my Civic.
I removed them since they add several feet of frontal area to the car when hit by a crosswind. *
What kind of FE hit does a car get from increased side frontal area ?
On a similar thought, what about boattails and the increase in frontal area that they produce ?
* Where I live ( the 'hill country' ) , there is a lot of wind that blows in from the sides of the car.
 |
Skirts should not project below the "bottom" of the vehicle and consequently should not aggravate it's side area.
I can't answer the question about drag vs increased side area.I've never seen anything published on it.There is a table published by EPA on wind/mpg effects.
One benefit of skirts in crosswind,is that they help cancel roll moments above the C.G.,actually increasing stability and safety to an 18-wheeler.
I've only run "short" tails,so I can only address those,and my experience so far is that they offer no degradation of stability,thanks to Professor Morelli's work at Pininfarina.