Quote:
Originally Posted by Stubby79
I would think the larger rear area of the back would cause more drag than is lost by decreasing the slope of the roof line. You want to minimize said area as much as you can without exceeding a certain slope. Heck, it might be better to exceed it a little if the result was a noticeably smaller back area.
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Interesting points, lots to think about. The whole in the air the body leaves is important, but so are the air vectors releasing from the body.
Would the Corvette be part of the Bluff Body family? It certainly is not teardrop shaped beyond the canopy.
Some of the reoccurring issues we have in the forum is that only the side view gets compared to the template, no part of the top view is included, and little other 3D analysis.
I could do a template overlay on the stock and AeroWagen version, and include both side profile and top views, I could even attempt to toss in a cross section at the 3/4 mark.
However I'm not convinced it would prove much, and that full scale testing is the only alternative when splitting hairs as fine as this.
EDIT:
The difference between "b" and "c" is a surprise to me.
http://alfa-img.com/show/lift-coeffi...of-shapes.html
There is a chart floating around the forum which shows Bluff Body lengths or perhaps Semi-Truck lengths with small differences in relation to Cd. If I stumble across it in the next few days I will post it here.