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Old 04-22-2020, 09:43 PM   #30 (permalink)
California98Civic
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
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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 JulianEdgar View Post
That shows that the wheel with the "thick outer radius cover" is in fact better than a fully covered rim.
Right, but it is a quite modest improvement from the solid cover and without a wind tunnel for testing, guys could be forgiven if they went with the rule of thumb and used a solid cover. I think a nuance is getting lost here. The smooth wheel covers are still REALLY GOOD compared to baseline. Although COCyclist may have found a design that seems by his (necessarily imprecise) testing to work better than a smooth disc, it seems highly unlikely to me that smooth discs are infact worse than baseline.

For what it is worth, COCyclist's rims are a little like the "thick radius" rims, but they are not the same. The openings are larger and longer, extending further out from the center. A maxim to remember: each car is different, YMMV, and be skeptical of how any test applies to your vehicle.



In my case I made rims I knew would not conform to the smooth cover standard, but I liked them better because they are lighter and don't scream HYPERMILER. If COCyclist is digging the OEM look and feels confident they give him good results, I don't think it is "heresy" (or a "myth" "busted")
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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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