Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead
Rod,the SAE warns us not to hang any fixed structure so low that it falls below an imaginary line angled up at 16-degrees from the point where you can first see daylight in front of the tread of the front tires.
If below,on a straight approach to a driveway ramp it would be likely to experience a ground-strike.Ouch!!!!!!!!
If your bumper is not a 'wrap-around',with as much corner radius as the nose of the RV,this would be an area for an improvement.Then the airdam itself could have the same 'wrap-around' feature.
As to the depth at which increased frontal area of the airdam starts to erase drag savings,it might be something you'd have to experiment with.
CAR and DRIVER's Crisis Fighter Pinto had about 3-inches of ground clearance.
Bondo fabricated a fabulous composite airdam for his F-150,but did have to trim it upwards a bit due to a loss in mpg.
The rubber lip on my T-100 actually flexes back and scrubs the sidewalk when I pull up to a curb.It's at about 6-inches.
Ford's Probe-IV had an 'active' front dam which lowered to within 3.25-inches of the ground at 45-mph.
The Bugatti Veyron is doing something similar.
In California,the CHP will pull you over if anything is lower than the bottom of the wheel rim.
Some Bonneville cars have zero clearance on their airdams.Side skirts ditto.
It kinda a can of worms!  |
I'm not sure I understand that first paragraph, but that's OK because I get the rest and that tells me what I need to know. The first one is going to be made out of coroplast so I find out what height works and if it adversely affects the mileage, and if it scrapes. The pan is coming out sweet so far so I think I'm only going about 3 inches down from what's there now.
I'd say belly pans are kind of a can of worms also. Lots going on under there. I'm glad I did this even if the mileage doesn't go up that much, I found several 'issues' under there I wouldn't have noticed otherwise. Like a 3/4 inch wiring loom laying right on the exhaust down pipe. It's a miracle it didn't fry the whole thing. I also discovered it's time to replace all the bushings in the front end.
Most amazing discovery of the belly pan process so far? 5/16's hex head self tappers drill through frame and sub frame no problem, faster than a new titanium drill bit. Amazing. Anyway, thanks.