Hey guys, I just bought this brand new
Facebook Picture of my baby bonus points, identify my other car with the Dominos Cartop on it
It's a 2013 Suzuki Swift. You can see the mileage in my signature, but its first three fills are averaging 7.1l/100km (33mpg us). That's around town doing pizza deliveries with the a/c blasting and only the most basic of eco driving (in gear coasting with injector cut-out, changing up at first opportunity). However this tank was done almost entirely without a/c except where it was for safety or sanity reasons (i.e. forced to park in sun, driving in full sun with little ambient breeze. Or raining when you need it for defog in the tropics) and I'm looking at getting 5.5l/100km
But on to the point, the clued on of this list are going to think the same things I did...
Oh my what big wheel arches you have... (the better to suck fuel with)
Oh my what bumpy wheels you have (the better to pull air with)
Oh my what a short spoiler you run (you get the point)
Plus there are those fake fog light/intakes which are in fact neither, so could be smooth.
Not shown in the photos due to angles is that the rear wheel arches are almost vertical (so the cover can be nearly flat), and also due to the hatch metalwork (you can't see it because of the wrap around black glass on the hatch hiding the true size of the vision opening) I can actually extend the c-pillar airflow surface back about a foot without affecting rear visibility at all. So between that and the roof extension I can probably drop the area at the rear cutoff by 10% or so.
I haven't properly inspected the underside of the car but given that it's a cheap car ($15500 drive away when a mirage is $12000) it's likely that I can do a small amount of improving.
So:
Rear skirts
Fill in front arch gap
Flat hubcaps
Smooth out fog light holes
Partial boat tail/kammback (rear area reduction)
Undertrays front and rear
The first four are going to be easy to build and easy to test. The last two will require a bit more effort and will be tested separately.
Any guesses on what results I'll get in terms of drag reduction and fuel economy?
Note that fuel economy testing will be difficult, the highway design and landscape in my area kills my chances to just set cruise and let go for 5 minutes. Coast down testing though, I have a place for.
Of course if the damn things work it means I have build them properly out of decent materials. Damned if I leave real estate sign that's been used as a paint testing platform on my wheels for more than I have to...
Thanks
Ben