[orange4boy]

Originally Posted by JulianEdgar

I don't want to overly labour the point,

*Overly labours the point*

THE POWER OF PEDANTRY COMPELS YOU!!1!

And I should know...


A word about the models directly from the creators of the DrivAer Models:

A lot of the investigations in automotive aerodynamics are still based on strongly simplified generic bodies such as the Ahmed Body or the SAE body. A different approach is the direct investigation of production vehicles. Especially transient investigations often use generic car bodies. This is due to the fact that an unsteady investigation of an actual production car has so far not been feasible without enormous computational and experimental effort.

Additionally simple car models can help to understand the fundamental flow phenomena and to gain basic insights.

However, as their shapes are too different from actual car geometries these results will not be fully transferable to the development of production vehicles. This is especially true where complex body surfaces are involved, such as the A-pillars, the highly curved rear end or the wheelhouse region.

Actual optimization is therefore often done on real production cars.

Scientifically verifiable results from doing this as amateurs on our cars, is extremely difficult by the words of the experts themselves:

...due to the fact that an unsteady investigation of an actual production car has so far not been feasible without enormous computational and experimental effort.

I'm not saying it isn't fun or that you shouldn't try (god knows I love to do this kind of thing) but there it is. The struggle is real.

I do care about being through and fact based despite what some people make up out of inviscid air but, my favourite way, IMHO, to measure if results are positive: Am I enjoying myself? The rest is gravy.