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Daox if the boat tail end upswept it will decrease lift it if ends downswept it will increase lift. Thats just basic aerodynamics. The overall shape of his prius concept is a lifting airfoil. Now his civic looks pretty neutral (no more or less lift than before) It could also just be the "perspective" of the image I am seeing. Hey Basjoos I wish you could do a higher res version of that red dream prius it really makes me drool :-)
I find the pics of your front wheel covers. INGENIOUS that it just awesome the solution you came up with.
One thing I noticed. I wonder how much of your drag reduction is being eaten up by parasitic drag from the rough joints connects etc.. of your aero fairings? have you given thought to how you would go bout cleaning up the lines? Packing tape applied "taunt" might be a cheap and dirty way to see if it has any measurable effect on short term FE gains before trying for a more permanent solution.
I really do have to say I hate and love you now. You have really planted the "aero" bug in me now for modding my Voyager. Grrrrr :-)
I am a big aeronautics hobbyist and never thought there was a practical way to attempt to clean up my voyager until I saw your civic and these threads. I fly a lot of Rockets where drag is everything performance wise.
We are going to myrtle beach this summer I would love if its close enough to take a look at this car close up. I love taking pictures I could shoot a ton of high res pictures and give them to you or help you put together some detailed descriptions of your work to make it easier for others to replicate and model on it.
I even have an idea for getting those tire boat tails closer to the tires. a Track linked to the suspension so as your suspension compresses the boat tails "move away" from the tires to avoid contact. This way while cruising they can be as close as possible to the tires themselves.
I am going to take some pis of my van tommorrow to photoshop some aero mods onto it to get an idea of what it would look like.
I also have an idea for cooling so maybe I can close up the front end all together using peltiers. I am even thinking I might be able to use the heat of the exhaust system to create the electricity to run another peltier to assist the radiator to compensate for its lack of cooling is I close up the engine compartment some more (grill underneath etc..) not an issue in the winter but would be an issue in the summer. I am even considering a battery powered system to run the cooling depending on what kind of power consumption I am talking about. IE plug the car in when I am at home or at work to charge up the battery so I do not transfer this load to the engine via the alternator.
Might even be able to get rid of the alternator all together this way but would need a way to "reenable" the alternator in an emergency etc.. I wonder if there is a way to install the "clutch" style pully like the compressor has on an alternator. So I can engage and disengage the alternator completely as needed.
GRRR now you got me thinking!!!
Oh one more thing HOW did you figure out the CD of your car? Mathematically (if so how accurate is that) or did you have someone actually measure it? (if so how!)
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