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Old 06-27-2016, 02:32 AM   #16 (permalink)
California98Civic
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
Posts: 6,299

Black and Green - '98 Honda Civic DX Coupe
Team Honda
90 day: 66.42 mpg (US)

Black and Red - '00 Nashbar Custom built eBike
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 19bonestock88 View Post
... And I read the whole article on the VGs, and they claimed that they achieved a .007Cd reduction on the Evo they developed them on, and the result of installing them was a smaller wake(in the second part of the above posted article by AutoSpeed), even with the wing considered... The makers of the AirTabs claim as much as a 7% fuel savings at a constant 120km/h... That alone, if I gained the full claimed benefit, would get me up to 32.8mpg at 80mph(30x1.07)...
Test the manufacturer's own claims for FE at the risk of your own $$. It might be fun, and perhaps there is an off chance that it'll work.

The AutoSpeed story does claim a small reduction in drag for the AirTabs. I see that. But 0.006 is not going to produce a 7% gain. A kamm or boattail is going to be better. I just think those are your better proven options. But if you are curious, then experiment. Share your tuft testing here.

On third thought, maybe your Malibu's rear window is close enough to the angle of the Gen 1 Prius that AutoSpeed tested, though the interaction with the trunklid is harsher:





Good luck.
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See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.



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