Quote:
Originally Posted by Cd
Prolly ? Is that a new word that everyone uses now-a-days ?
Nice way to introduce yourself - insult someones hard work. 
I actually agree with you though.
While there would be little aerodynamic benefit, the least that could be done to make the car look better would be to smooth the caulking in the seams. When applied, it would have taken mere seconds to do.
I emailed Jim about this and he stated that he intended to re-do it when he gets around to it.
Car Aerodynamics - Modifications - Hot Rod Magazine
According to this source, quote : Rarely if ever are body-panel seams so large and misaligned that smoothing them with duct tape will make a measurable difference in Cd. We tried it on our Camaro, and it did nothing."
This was done on an old 1980 Camaro, back when body gaps misaligned body panels were quite bad. |
That is a photo of the Coroplast prototype nose along with the hood attachment points for the second windshield I was testing at the time. Of course it is butt ugly with those slabs of Coroplast. But it's a prototype, for God's sake, and isn't meant to be pretty since research, rather than aesthetics, was the goal. Its prettier now since it has been reskinned with aluminum sheet, but the sheet has picked up a few dents over the years and the 100,000+ miles I have driven since I replaced the Coroplast, including 2 deer collisions and a dent from an impact with the sign post (cold salt-covered road + warm humid air = slick saline covered road, but just at the intersections where they sprayed the salt, the unsalted parts of the road were bone dry under a clear starry sky). If the sheet was still serviceable, I just beat out the dent and reused it rather than replacing it with a fresh aluminum sheet.
In the time that some have spent working on the ultra clean look, I've put over 160,000 miles on my aeromodded car, had 2 deer collisions, been rear ended, hit a sign post as mentioned above, had one front skirt knocked off when I dodged a truck suddenly spinning out on the wet road in front of me, had another front skirt knocked off by another truck on a narrow section of dirt road. After each of these accidents, I only had to spend a few hours or days of work before I had the car back on the road. My car is a daily driver, not a show car, and it looks it, but it proves that aeromods are not just for the rarified world of concept cars, but are practical and can withstand the rough and tumble of everyday driving in all weather conditions.