Quote:
Originally Posted by Weather Spotter
Sven7, nice sketch 
aerohead:
what do you mean that the Matrix has the ideal shape already? it looks like a brick. I get that the best spot for an air intake will be dead center before any upward angle starts. |
In Hucho's text,he depicts an ;ideal' nose which was tested on the 1st-gen Golf/Rabbit.(there should be a photo of it in the photo-archives).
Hucho was one of the aerodynamicists doing the aero-optimizations of Georgio's design,commissioned by VW.
Hucho found that just by radiusing Georgio's original nose,that they could essentially achieve the same low drag as with the 'ideal' nose.
This nose dates at least to Paul Jaray's wind tunnel 'pumpkin seed' model of 1921,also investigated later by Lay,Fachsenfeld,Kamm,Prandtl,Schlor,Railton,Andrea u,Korff,Hibbs,Schenkel,...................... the list goes on forever.
The only thing that would improve what you have,would be to maintain the downward curvature projecting forward,never letting it roll under.(think today's Chevrolet Cruze) or any NASCAR racer.Many ,many others doing it.
You want the air to go around and over,not under,even if you have a perfect belly pan.Just as depicted in the 'Template' illustration.
Pushing the nose forward would give you room for the Korff inlet and airtight ducting to the radiator,and low forward stagnation point.And all this would be good for high speed stability,as this is where Morelli ended up with CNR.
With this nose mod the T-100 is getting 'boat tail' mpg without the boat tail.
I hope to know soon what will happen when the tail goes back on.
GM/Toyota has done a really good job with the Matrix/Vibe.