hi colonelk
nice to see another cavalier/vectra on here.
i've been wondering about the stock lip spoiler too. because unlike other spoilers is extends the trunk. i can see no reason how it might hurt fe, than again i don't think i't will have that big an impact either. the sideskirts might actually have a little function to them as well as they're rather similar to what the calibra had, wich is basically a rebody of this car.
i've done a few mods on my car i'm quite happy with, the best thing to start with is an undertray, and some front wheel dams. both are quite easy to do.
the wheel dams are based on measurements i took on cars that have them, they're just screwed unto the plastic wheel well liner
on thing i found with wheeldams is they really don't work when they're to big... on a lot of cars they seem to be aimed more at deflecting ait away from the area behind the tires than the actual tires, so i just modeled them after real life examples rather than try to cover the whole tire (wich is difficult with this bumper anyway)
the wheeldams are independant from the undertray, but they do prevent dirt that's kicked off the tires to be deposited on the undertray that extends lower than the original wheel well liner
the undertray is made from coroplast, and an aluminum L beam. this is attached with two L brackets to the bumper; than the precut coroplast was attached to this beam with zipties and at the front behind the bumper lip with a few screws trough the plastic of the bumper.
funally at the back two zipties pulled it agains the subframe to make a very solid construction.
the louvres where an experiment, and i sugest leaving them off as i suspect they actually let air in rather than out.
the undertray has the aditional advantage of dampening road noise and keeping dirt out of the engine bay. i'm considdering deleting the lovres and adding some support halfway the subframe to give the tray a more vavorable curve, right now it's smoorh with a dip down at the end, i'd rather have it curve down than go more parallel to the road. i'm also thinking about an extention so that i'll cover the rest of the engine, but i'll do that in aluminum and exhoust and oil sump clearance might make this less straightforward
half of the topgrill was blockd from the factory on my car, as also the lowest row of the bottom grill (this might be standard on all cars, not sure about diesles)
as a resuly any aditional blocking tended to leave the car getting very hot is stop go traffic.
another problem is the airbox takes the air from an area behind the bumper that's fed by the grille, so blocking it off seemed to cause the engine to loose power and FE went down... if you do a partial grillblock, i sugest blocking the side farest away from the airbox.
i'm curently thinking about a (partial) rear undertray, there's some big gaps there especially the transition of the spare wheel tub to the bumper.
the spare wheel well has some rubber plugs that cover (waterdrain?) holes wich would allow things to be attached without drilling.
i've been thinking about rear wheel skirts as well as the car lends ifself to it. but i'm reluctant to drill such a rust prone area.
a setup like the omega/carlton would be cool