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Old 05-01-2012, 07:37 PM   #62 (permalink)
NachtRitter
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Location: Placerville, CA
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Helga - '00 Volkswagen Jetta TDI
TEAM VW AUDI Group
Diesel
90 day: 51.85 mpg (US)

Mathilde - '99 Volkswagen Eurovan Camper
90 day: 16.87 mpg (US)
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Here are some pics of the aero work I was able to do before leaving on this trip.

Lawn edging air dam and partial wheel covers:


Air dam is 2 strips of lawn edging screwed and taped together. A single strip of lawn edging was 5", which was not deep enough to be useful. The 2nd strip (as you might be able to tell in the image) is another ~2.5" down from the bottom of the 1st strip.

For the wheel covers, I just taped over every other slot. Would have done them all but it was relatively time consuming.

A few more images of the air dam:





I didn't get a head-on shot, but the edge of the air dam is within an inch of the edge of the tire.

The rear belly pan (the one that came loose during the first day):




This was a quickie job as well, but I was relatively happy with how secure it was at the rear. Unfortunately, it was the front end that came loose, and the rear of it stayed well attached... I had jammed the coroplast between the struts so the front stayed in place (that is, it didn't drag on the ground), but it turned into a giant air scoop which allowed the air to exit at the rear... making the whole thing act like a large parachute... I could see the effect on the scangauge. So I finally stopped at a rest stop, detached the whole thing, and threw the coroplast into the garbage... I hated to do that since it was such a nice big piece, but there was no way I could have carried it with me in the car with all the stuff I had packed already.
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