2008 Corolla 1st Aero Mods
 

Nothing overly special here, but after becoming a little more familiar with my Scan Gauge and getting a feel for my driving, I felt like I needed to take it a step further. So here is my first attempt at an Aero mod! Rear wheel skirts! And I have enough coroplast left over that I'm going to try and do the front wheels as well!

Overall I think the whole thing took me about 2 hours to do for the rear skirts.

The Materials:
2 4x4 sheets of blue coroplast
1 3.5x4 sheet of white coroplast
it was 40$ for both (Ripoff!)
2 shelving rack rails
8 screws
Drill
Zip ties
1 Can of Black spray paint
All weather duct tape
TOTAL COST: Around $57 :thumbup:

Here's a pic of all the materials I used
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla010.jpg

Next, I set out to try and figure out how to cut this thing to shape. I wasn't sure at first what to do, so I traced the general figure with a marker onto the white coroplast, and then drew another line about 2 inches beyond that to give me some leeway.
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla011.jpg

Then I figured it would just cut slits along the top to allow for bending, that way it would fit snug and I wouldn't have to worry about gaps or holes.
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla005.jpg

Unfortunately, it didn't really fit that well. The edges weren't really that smooth with the surface of the car and it was pushing itself out of the wheel well due to the pressure from the folds. It looked alright, but I wasn't really satisfied with the results, so I decided to try it again with the blue coroplast.
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla017.jpg

With the blue coroplast, I decided to cut it directly to the shape of the wheel well, but this time with flaps at the bottom and the top.
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla014.jpg

It fit much more nicely!
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla007.jpg

After that I spray painted them black. While the paint was drying, I decided to bend the brass shelving rods I had bought from the hardware store ($2.59 a piece for 48 inches) These were used to support the bottom part of the skirt and to keep it away from the wheel while I'm moving. The metal was actually very easy to bend by hand!
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla003.jpg

Once I had the metal bent, I put screws part way on the metal rod and into the coroplast, then I screwed the rods into the plastic body parts of my Corolla. It wasn't looking too badly now, the only thing really left was to deal with the gaps between the skirt and the body of the car.. nothing a little duct tape can't fix!
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla006.jpg

And here's the final result! :cool:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla012.jpg
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...Corolla009.jpg


I don't have any hard results as to improvements in fuel efficiency yet, but I promise I'll post them when I do! I plan on doing a drag coefficient test, much the same as AndrewJ did earlier in Feb with his civic. The drag coefficient stock on the Corolla is .30 which isn't too bad!

I'm hoping to replace the duct tape with something a little more aesthetically pleasing? Any suggestions? Thoughts? There's always room for improvement, especially with this being my first mod! Hopefully many more to come :D

Thanks for lookin :)

Looking good so far!

I'm not a fan of using duct tape to hold things to cars, but it doesn't look too bad. Good job. I'd definitly like to see some testing done though. :)

Looks good :thumbup:

1st aero mods
 

With the body-match color,the casual observer may not even pick up on them.Looks good! Don't expect great things at the gas pump but consider how many hundreds of thousands of Corollas are out there! And should you do mods behind the rear bumper,the skirts will help guarantee good quality flow there.Thanks for your investment in my clean-air future!

As a replacement for duct tape, I would use vinyl. A sign shop should be able to sell you raw Vinyl for relatively cheap ... It will stick to the car, and will not damage the finish over time ....

I like what you've done so far, and you've given me ideas on what to do with my own skirt mod, I think I'll just do exactly what you did since your mod looks pretty good as it is....

There has to be some way to smooth the whole thing out... it still looks like coroplast from the outside (it has a texture), maybe you can buy some sort of material to make it nice and shiny and flat?