Quote:
Originally Posted by Big time
If a car also had the underbody teardrop shaped, What would be the effect of air passing thru the front mounted radiator and then to the teardrop floor shape?
The radiator might slow down the air but also cause it to expand when heated.
In the sketch the radiator is shown in red.
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I'd recommend you look at Dr.Alberto Morelli's work at Pininfarina's wind tunnel for the CNR
'banana' car of 1976-78.He used the tunnel to create extractors which delivered the engine bay air into the body at the same velocity so as not to trip up the flow.
Also,on the internet,there is an article about the E-Z HOOK LSR streamliner aerodynamic testing at Cal Tech's Guggenheim Memorial scale-model wind tunnel.
The E-Z HOOK has a nose inlet and has the lowest drag of any wheeled vehicle ever tested at Cal Tech (around Cd 0.105).
You might be able to glean something from the article.
There are no handy,user-friendly,one-size-fits-all solutions for this sort of thing.
Hucho does mention that a comprehensibly designed cooling system can add as little as about 2% to the overall drag of a passenger car.He shows some designs and there should be Walter Korffs low drag cooling system design in the Phil Knox's Aerodynamic Photos Albums.