Originally Posted by basjoos
Before I started aeromodding it, my civic CX got mpg's in the upper 40's in the summer and lower 40's in the winter. I would occasionally get a 50 mpg tank on a summertime 55mph interstate cruise, but the mileage would drop into the 30's if I cruised at 80mph. Currently the car gets over 70 mpg at 70mph and over 60mpg at 80mph, and 100mpg at 45mph.
At the time I was aeromodding, I didn't have any mpg monitor installed. I drove a regular commute and used changes in my coasting performance and the fill up calculation to evaluate the effect on my aeromods. At the time, MPGuino didn't exist and Scangauge wouldn't work on my obd1 can, so the $150 SuperMID was my only option for a fuel consumption display. Since money was tight, I'd rather use that $150 for buying materials for aero mods than buying a fuel consumption display.
Of my aeromods, the boat tail had the single biggest effect by eliminating that low pressure void trailing the car that was constantly working to slow it down. Fringe benefits of the boat tail was the added cargo space inside the car, a rear window that stayed clean (unlike the OEM hatch glass that dirtied up very quickly on wet or dusty roads) , and 4 feet of additional crush space in the event of a rear end collision (tested one time so far).
The 2nd most effective aeromod was the underbody paneling, which also quieted the interior since a lot of "road" noise is actually wind noise generated under the car.
Moving the side mirrors inside also greatly reduced the level of wind noise inside the car.
The rounded nose on the car lowered the stagnation point, provided a place to install the driver adjustable grill block, got rid of the flat front bumper's dead bug collection area, reduced the radar reflection as seen from the front, added a foot of crush space to the front, provided a wedge to redirect collided deer up and over the top of the car, minimizing damage to the car (tested 2 times so far), and greatly reduced the number of birds hitting the front of my car (the redirected wind carries them up and over the car rather than impacting on the OEM flat front bumper).
The wheel well covers, wheel spats, wheel boat tails all provided some improvements in coasting performance, but the effect of all of these modest improvements added up.
Bridgestone Potenza RE92 tires helped reduce the rolling resistance.
So far, people have asked me if my car was an EV, a hybrid, an amphibious car, or a roadable aircraft.
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