[SpeedyCorky]

air dams VS belly pan

by belly pan i assume you mean under the engine (?). and if so, then yes i could easily see where u are coming from - most of the air that gets under that air dam, is not going to get caught on the underside of the engine, its gonna fly right by, and maybe get caught on the mid section of the car - and for sure get caught on that parachute of a back bumper

when the weather gets better, i'll likely start by doing the custom rear bumper (as to eliminate the parachute effect), along with the rear wheel covers. from then, i might do some experimentation and try running the car w/o an air dam - and see what kinda results i get. i've heard that a proper rear diffuser as opposed to a hollow rear bumper (read: parachute), can see MPG gains of perhaps as much as 10%... i'm hoping.... i'm averaging about 58mpg on the freeway at 65~mph, another 10% would be ~6mpg, easily bringing my freeway average comfortably above 60mpg!

man i'm kinda skeptical if i can get a tank average of 60mpg tho. to make that happen, you really gotta be getting 70 or 75mpg on the freeway to average out the 40 to 45mpg that i get in the city .... time will tell - and warmer weather will help a lot... i'll keep ya all posted!