Quote:
Originally Posted by DoctorP82
It may have been posts by you or by DPOV that I found on Google that lead me to ecomodder.com in the first place. I had recently seen the hypermiling article in USA Today, and started doing my own personal research (I'm a medical student, and an uber nerd. I try to validate anything I see in the news with my own researching  ).
My next steps are likely to do a partial grill block (your threads are helpful on this!). I want to get my bumper replaced; it's slightly bent, and the right bumper flare is broken off. I'm sure I can improve my aero by fixing that. I am really interested in a front air dam to push air lower and around the Jeep, and I think I've got a great idea for how to do it without it having to be permanent (and can go on/off in under 5 minutes!). I'll share that soon....
Re roofracks: I do want them off. They are tricky just looking at them, though I didn't try too hard to find a tool to fit the star-tip bolts hiding inside the longitudinal rack mounts. I have just looked a little at different kammback aeromods on the forums, and wondered how a plexi partial kammback might be set to mount on those racks. If you built it just right, it might be retractable back over the roof when not deployed on long highway trips. Input on this one highly welcome. |
Glad to hear my posts might be helping spread the word out to other Jeep owners.
The grill block is pretty easy to do with the 7 slot jeep grills. Making separate panels for each slot is a little harder but I found over the summer it was getting a little warmer then I wanted, so the setup made it quick and easy to improve the cooling. I figure over the winter I may fill all 7.
I'm very interested in seeing what you have in mind for the front air dam. I had been pondering making one for mine. I was thinking about setting it up to flip down. Make it an L shape so it's always about 1in tall, but for highway trips it could be flipped down making it 3-4in tall.
The roof racks are easy. I had a $20 tool kit from Wal-mart that included the star key for the screw driver. The sets nothin fancy but seems to have a lot of what I need for the Jeep. I went ahead and just took the cross bars off. I kinda like the looks of the side channels, Plus I didn't figure the side channels would really make that big of a difference anyway.
I've also been wondering about a small kammback. I've been noticing on a lot of newer suvs these small kammback looking panels on the back. Just wondering if that would be something that could be set up on the cherokee? I liked the looks of all the ones I've seen. Ford edge/Rav4 etc.