1997 Ford Aspire

[bteck]

Hey Ecomodders,
It has been a long time since my last posts (the dodge caravan) a two second update on that, i built a permanent kammback and wheel skirts and underbody pannel, and was getting mid thirties (@55-60 on highway) on the dodge for about 70,000 miles. but alas, as tends to happen with cars, they eventually reach the end of their useful lives. after 215,000 the car eventually threw a rod, and i had to retire it.

I went for 7 months with no car and felt great about it, but a recent change in jobs has required me to get a vehicle. so I bought a 1997 Ford Aspire, with only 77,000 miles on it! cost me just $1000 and it runs like a champ. i have been getting great mileage pre mod, with just hypermiling techniques. the last it I did the math on I was getting about 50. at any rate, this car is my new project. The ultimate goal is to get this car to 70 MPG. I have taken up a hobby of fiberglassing, and plan on building some fiberglass body pannels.
So far my plans include:
-Complete rear end (Boat tail and wheel skirts) made from fibberglass with a steel DOM tube skeleton
-Complete belly pan, (I learned a lot from my las one and have a pretty good idea what i want to do here.)
-Front grille block
-passenger mirror delete
-Smooth wheel Covers
-Directed airflow system to avoid compression and flow separation around wheels as much as possible
- back seat delete
- interior weight staging
any suggestions?

[ecofreak]

Aspires, from what I can tell, have their own sort of kammback built in. If I was in your position, I'd say my best bet would be to begin with getting a feel for the car, while beginning to consider the mods.

Making a more pronounced kammback would be good, as you could then consider a boat tail. Grille block, belly pan, and wheel covers are also good investments.

You mentioned making a boat tail from DOM steel tubing. Might I suggest EMT (or any sort of thicker walled, aluminum variant) conduit? For me, it's cheaper, lighter, and a lot easier to work with. It's rigid, self-supporting, and forgiving; for me, permanence would be bad if the tail sustains enough damage.

[Frank Lee]

and was getting mid thirties (@55-60 on highway) on the dodge for about 70,000 miles.

Ha ha, no fuel logging, and cherry picking a number from the car's fe computer- know what that does to your claims?

[bteck]

@frank, Sorry my claims seem un supported to you. i was simply trying to give a recap to my last thread. you can brush up on how i was doing before if you'd like:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...avan-7166.html
thanks.

[bteck]

@ Ecofreak. Thanks for the advice, i am planning on taking it slowly. the kammback that is on the stock aspire is designed to promote a cleaner separation at the roof/ rear hatch transition. this is a pretty good technique for cleaning up a location where sharp changes in direction are inevitable, however a boat tail system would significantly clean the rearward flow. I am planning on replacing the rear hatch with a boat tail, so the DOM skeleton is for rigidity, I work with DOM at my job, and can readily get scrap for my project, so it is super strong, safe (we use it to make roll cages) and for the most part free for me. I'm working on making some models of the car to test it in a mini wind tunnel, to prove my theories in scale. the reason for this is my last project, the van has made me want to lean towards a more scientific method of testing and a more finished style of construction.

[Frank Lee]

OK I brushed up. Didn't change anything.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by bteck

Hey Ecomodders,
It has been a long time since my last posts (the dodge caravan) a two second update on that, i built a permanent kammback and wheel skirts and underbody pannel, and was getting mid thirties (@55-60 on highway) on the dodge for about 70,000 miles. but alas, as tends to happen with cars, they eventually reach the end of their useful lives. after 215,000 the car eventually threw a rod, and i had to retire it.

I went for 7 months with no car and felt great about it, but a recent change in jobs has required me to get a vehicle. so I bought a 1997 Ford Aspire, with only 77,000 miles on it! cost me just $1000 and it runs like a champ. i have been getting great mileage pre mod, with just hypermiling techniques. the last it I did the math on I was getting about 50. at any rate, this car is my new project. The ultimate goal is to get this car to 70 MPG. I have taken up a hobby of fiberglassing, and plan on building some fiberglass body pannels.
So far my plans include:
-Complete rear end (Boat tail and wheel skirts) made from fibberglass with a steel DOM tube skeleton
-Complete belly pan, (I learned a lot from my las one and have a pretty good idea what i want to do here.)
-Front grille block
-passenger mirror delete
-Smooth wheel Covers
-Directed airflow system to avoid compression and flow separation around wheels as much as possible
- back seat delete
- interior weight staging
any suggestions?

Going from 50,to 70 mpg is a 40% mpg increase.
To do that at 55 mph would require an 80% drag reduction.
If your original drag coefficient is 0.36,and if you did nothing to the cars frontal area you'd need to cut the Cd to 0.072.
That's below NUNA-3.
Looks like you'd need to chop off the roof and do a single bubble canopy.And its windshield would need to be laminated safety glass.Like James Bede's old Litestar of the early 1980s.

[bteck]

phil, im glad you said that. Its an interesting thought. You're totally right it would take a huge improvement in resistance. I guess I had such a big improvement on the MV I thought I might be able to get a similar result from the aspire (percentage wise). what do you think is a reasonable goal then?

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by bteck

phil, im glad you said that. Its an interesting thought. You're totally right it would take a huge improvement in resistance. I guess I had such a big improvement on the MV I thought I might be able to get a similar result from the aspire (percentage wise). what do you think is a reasonable goal then?

bteck,if you retain the roof and go quite insane with the car I think Cd 0.151 would be doable without a trailer.
I would do everything basjoos has done with AeroCivic.
I'd stick to the 'Template' for the aft-body.Extend the rear pillars with integral wing spoilers,(top and midway at least),then pickup on the 'Template' out to the 50% mark.
You'd be looking at 65.5 mpg HWY and you'd still have a roof big enough for friends.

[bteck]

so my car is similar size to aerocivic when it started, so why would i not see similar mileage as basjoos gets? just curious if there is more going on with his car than he states on his website?
--Either way, I'm planning on going a bit insane with this car, as I didn't spend much on the car and it is already ugly as sin, so i'm thinking at least I might get some efficiency gains out of it.
also, aerocivic has quite an upsweep on his boat tail, is this ideal? wouldn't it be better to "return the flow" to the level it was at before it was forced over the car? such as on the schor?