Quote:
John Shinella,of Pontiac styling, researched wheel cover drag in the Lockheed Marietta wind tunnel during development of the Trans Am Firebird of 1982.
*The car,@ Cd 0.32,with no covers
*with ventilated flat discs dropped to Cd 0.296
*TAPING over the vents produced Cd 0.290
*Shinella's ventilated convex covers showed Cd 0.287
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The only downside of this testing data is that Lockheed Marietta's wind tunnel is not a rolling road type. Without the wheels turning, one of the most important factors of how the turning wheel interacts with the windstream is not represented in the test.
Speaking of windstream, the Windstream wind tunnel in Concord, NC is a modern, full scale rolling road wind tunnel.