Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead
I perused the 1995 Sunrayce Technical Report again last night.
They made mention that with one of the George Washington University cars. When full wheel fairings were added, the overall drag was reduced over 34% (a 17% 'fuel' savings right there).
Hucho says that with low-drag vehicles,the wheels can constitute 50% of the drag.
Only more perspiration will tell!
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I looked at the Sunrayce Technical Report some last night. I'm looking for some photos and any info I can find on wheel fairings for some inspiration on the shape of the wheel fairings, especially for the dually rear wheels. Anyone have any reference materials or links?
Something interesting happened yesterday. I took the Aero RV to get it emissions tested. I didn't think about it until I was driving onto the dyno-like rollers to test the emissions output, but just then I realized the entire undercarriage is covered by belly pans, including all but the last 5 feet of the tail pipe. The guy whips out his mirror, 'on a stick', as Jeff Dunham would say, looks underneath and calls over his supervisor. I'm thinking Oh crap. The super walks over and says, 'Sir, you're entire undercarriage is covered'. I said, yes, I know. He says, 'We can't...' trails off and then says, 'What year is this vehicle?' I said '95'. He said, 'OK, nevermind.'
There's no cat on this vehicle (it's a 7.3 diesel) so they didn't have to confirm the cat was on. Anyway, something to remember when you're building belly pans, if you put a screen or something under the cat to smooth the flow, make it easily removable so the emissions guys can easily identify it.
So anyway, then the first guy sticks the probe in the tail pipe, which is now several feet under the boat tail. He comes back to the cab looking really perplexed and worried and says, 'What the hell is that thing in the back?' I said, 'It's a boat tail.' He just looks at me, deer in the headlights. I said, 'It's to improve the aerodynamics'. All the sudden the furrowed brow turns into a big smile. 'Cool!!', was all he said and we finished the test.
After the testing he prints out the results (it passed), and walks back over to the cab and hands it to me, looks over at the console where the 9 inch camera monitor sits, with four camera views showing, and says, 'What the hell is that?' I said, 'It's a camera system'. He looked at me real serious like, gets a big smile on his face and says, 'Cool!'.
Anyway, that was one trip to the emissions station I enjoyed a lot, for a change.