Quote:
Originally Posted by botsapper
Great to hear from basjoos. You have actual daily driver experience of living with a boat tail. I'm curious of the driving (handling) dynamics of the added weight of your tail. But I presume that the other aero additions may have counter balanced the rear weight bias of the added tail.
As for cutting out the rear bulkhead just for interior visual 'referencing' may structurally weaken the monocoque shell. Crash worthiness compromised. Structural tube cages add weight. Exhaust gases has to be completely sealed out. An alternative is to keep intact the existing rear hatch (accessible by power actuator locks) and add another lockable hatch to access storage in the new boat tail space. Rear sensors are beneficial & easily integrated to any 'tail'.
Especially for many 'new' (auto bloggers & reporters) drivers who wanted to test drive this boat tail.
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My boattail didn't add any additional weight. I removed a heavy steel and glass hatch and replaced it with an aluminum monocoque and lexan boattail using strong but lightweight homebuilt aircraft construction techniques. The added side area made the car a bit more sensitive to crosswinds than it used to be. I didn't cut out any of the car's main monocoque structure when building the boattail. I just removed the tailgate and built the boattail around the opening created by the missing hatch. My muffler has a long fairing to release the exhaust about halfway up along the bottom of the boattail. The crash worthiness of my boattail was been tested in real life and its crush space saved my car from being totalled by a rear end collision. It was much cheaper to rebuild the boattail than it would have been to repair the car's stock bumper.
Wayne Gerdes is the only auto reporter who has driven my boattail and he said it coasted better than any vehicle he has ever driven.