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Hey, fellow Ridgeline owner. Glad to see I'm not the only one not taking Honda's aero marketing too seriously. Also glad this hasn't devolved into RL-bashing yet like most forums do immediately. Honda won't release the official Cd of the first gen model but they released an alleged .31 for the new one and said it's a "15% improvement in CdA", which isn't that helpful of a metric considering the frontal areas are unknowns.
I'm curious why you're going for a tonneau and deflector rather than just making an aerocap. I definitely agree with the others, a) 45° is way too steep, and b) that sort of thing adds to the "frontal area" so it's hard for an alleged Cd reduction to pay off at all. However, if you look at the side profile, the rear of the cab to the top of the tailgate does hit that aero template curve precisely, so it's probably not terrible as is, if we're talking about aft-of-tailgate aero. The biggest mitigatable rear drag is that above-tonneau vortex. Your best bet for improving the rear aero is to just increase the flow attachment in the first place with an aeroshell.
I'm making my cap out of 1/2" black steel pipe (cheaper than EMT conduit at Ace, and much stronger!) and 1/8" smoked polycarbonate in the next couple weeks, and I may make a thread about it once I get going. I'm going with the praised 12° angle, which surprisingly works well for our 5ft long bed with minimal rear edge height over the rear of the box. Hoping I can manage a pop-up top like Bondo's for more utility. My plan is to sell my tonneau to break even haha.
By the way, I don't think RL owners need to worry too much about rear lift, guys. It's a 4500lb AWD truck with a partial body-on-frame bed that drives solely in FWD over 15mph.
I'm curious what your other planned mods are! Probably to remove the rear mudflaps, at least?
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