2010 Silverado Hybrid
 

Just acquired a used Silverado Hybrid. The front air dam is missing, should I buy a replacement or build a larger-than-stock version?

It has instant and average MPG sensing, should I also get a scangage? I'll be doing a grille cover, is it helpful to also have temp sensing?

I'm going to make an aero bed topper customized to the work I'll be doing out of the truck, but I'd like to hear suggestions and input about favorable designs!

I'd get the OEM air dam if I could find one in a junkyard or reasonably priced. Otherwise, I'd fabricate my own.

Gauges are useful, and especially setting a fan or an engine coolant alarm so you know if your grill blocking is excessive. If fans are having to come on frequently you need more airflow.

Start saving now for a replacement hybrid battery.

What kind of work are you intending to yse the truck for? BTW the good old body-on-frame layout leaves plenty of room to take even further steps regarding aerodynamics.

Part of my job is installing residential entry and storm doors. I need to carry doors to the jobsite and carry old doors away, so I need the top to open up. The good new is that a lot of the time I'm just commuting or will only have one door so I can take advantage of the aero cap.

I've looked at a lot of different designs here, and I'm trying to decide if I want it to open in the center similar to Bondo's and JRMichler's designs, or if I want a one piece shell that is hinged at the front and lifts up in the rear. Sometimes I work in bad weather, The more protection, the better.

What do you mean "body on frame"?

A vehicle featured with a chassis fully dettachable from the body of the vehicle, in contrast to the unibody structural layout which became a standard for newer cars and for some smaller commercial vehicles.

I'm trying to get used to driving a hybrid. I was very soft on the brakes on my Ranger, but now I wonder if I should use brakes more to engage the regen. Also, I've been a member here for five or six years and JUST RECENTLY read up on how to do pulse and glide. :o I had heard that engines are more efficient under load but it must not have "sunk in". I would always slow down up hills and only start to speed up as I rolled over the crest, then using gravity to help me accelerate down the hill. :rolleyes:

Can someone please invent a smart cruise control that will automatically pulse and glide for me. :cool:

Don't try to p&g your truck, it's not going to work. It's got the aerodynamics of a brick and that engine is already operating pretty efficiently under normal conditions.

Aside from the hybrid battery, the only thing that is going to be a maintenance issue is the afm (active fuel management) on that 6.0 ls engine. You can get a $200 plug in chip that will disable 4cyl mode or be proactive with oil changes and replacing the screen under the oil pressure sending unit. If $200 isn't a big problem for you, I'd go that route. Failure of an afm liter means an engine rebuild...

Where do you get the chip?

Regen is better than friction braking, but not as efficient as coasting to a stop. So your current way if being soft on the brakes is still better. Also, if you brake hard you activate the friction brakes because the hybrid drive can only regen so much.

Pulse and glide is more important the slower you go, the more aerodynamic your vehicle is and the bigger the engine. A smaller engine in a big, non-aerodynamic vehicle flying down the highway is already going to be under a lot of load.

Range AFM Disabler, amazon has them or you can probably find them 2nd hand. Just be careful which version you get, some are for afm disable and some are for stop/start disable. Check their website

I usually compare regen to those auxiliary exhaust-brakes more often featured on heavy-duty trucks and buses. Relying on regen as an extra safety measure, or to improve control while driving downhill for instance, is quite similar to how the exhaust-brakes are meant to operate.

I’m back!
 

Purchased a (fixer upper) house shortly after my last post on this thread, but now I’m almost ready to continue my project!

The aero bed topper plan is fully underway with a design that opens in the center when needing to haul larger cargo. However, more reading on this site has raised more questions.

I now have the stock air dam. Would side skirts help? What about rear diffusers? All I’ve read so far seems to be about already mostly efficient cars with much lower ride heights. I can add material to lower the air dam, and what about splitters? Is trial and error the only way to know what will actually help on my vehicle?

Questions about the aero topper, or the rest?

Lower vehicles benefit from less frontal area of the tires, and less air subject to turbulence in the underbody plenum.

More air underneath isn't a problem if it doesn't interact with the underbody, i. e., with a bellypan. The stagnation point [height] determines how much air goes underneath. An aggressive splitter puts it right at the bottom. (But a splitter at the top of the hood would induce lift) Those solar racers that run across Australia Have a lot of clearance with airfoil pants around the wheels.

As for side skirts, Aerocivic had double wall skirts to channel air around both wheels. What with break-over angles, look to P. K. Knox's Aerodynamic Template, or the VW XL-1. [links on request]

Hinge line lateral or longitudinal?

Silverado aero
 

When you get a chance, take a look at General Motor's 2013, Holden Commodore VT Ute.
It's kind of like the El Camino and Ford Ranchero of the past; passenger car-based 'trucks'.
The VT is Cd 0.309, the lowest drag of ANY 'truck'
Anything they did would be fair game for the Silverado, except the tonneau cover. Your aeroshell will have a drag advantage over the tonneau.
* You may be able to block off some of the radiator inlet.
* A full-sweep, wrap-around airdam, as low as the lowest part of the belly, excepting the differential's pumpkin, all the way to the front wheels dates to 1974.
* Rocker panel extensions to matching depth.
* Electric cooling fan if it doesn't already have it.
* Any belly pan you can stand. Begin at the front and work rearwards.
* There may be better side mirrors available since 2010.
* I've got rear skirts, and they've never been 'in the way.'( as low as the belly/ rocker panels )
* A rear diffuser typically requires a full belly pan ahead of it ( one race car website offered a countervailing viewpoint ).
* Low-porosity wheel covers which allow for brake cooling.
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If the aeroshell were to become a PITA as far as 'hauling' goes, a half-tonneau, plus cab-wing extension offers more bed access, and only about a 2% drag penalty, comparatively.
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If you and your's ever go in the truck on a longer road trip to 'grandmother's' on holiday, or such, a receiver-hitch mounted boat-tail extension can add another 4-mpg.
https://fastcars.com.au/products/hol...re-2013-vf-ute

Usually they help.


I see them mostly on sporty cars, but it may eventually be also implemented to a truck, as long as other aero mods are also fitted. Otherwise it would most likely be ineffective.

Laterally, similar to Bondo's and JRMichler's designs.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...0f89f1d9b5.jpg

I've always wondered (not being a truck owner) why if job boxes at the front of the bed butterfly open, why not an entire aerocap?

Of course, were I to have a truck the reach-over height wouldn't be much more than the tire height. My son has a Silverado, I can barely see over the bed.

A good starting point would be a spoiler/half tonneau like this

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...02-5-26-32.png

Maybe chamfered on the ends for tumblehome.

How’s this?
 

I was unable to upload the image with the template so I took some screenshots instead…

That's the loft line. The various aerocaps that have been shown here vary from a square shoulder like the Cybertruck, to increasing tumblehome until the truncation at the tailgate is a curve.

What do you think of combining the two ideas at #18? Or all three including readpoint5's?

https://external-content.duckduckgo....e62&ipo=images
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?....&ipo=images

Maybe a curved panel half the length of the bed?

Can you show some examples of what you mean? Although, the parameters of my design are already dictated by how I need to use the topper. It needs to enclose the entire lower portion of the bed to protect all my tools, and open up in the center to haul residential doors. I’d add a drawing, but the design is difficult to describe in two dimensions. It will have increasing tumblehome as much as is possible with this design.

ecomodder.com/wiki/Pickup_truck_aeroshell

hecomodder.com/forum/fuel-economy-mpg-modifications.php#c2

driving strategy is better by adjusting the way you drive
20/20EPA to 25.7MPG average (28.5% gain) 100% DEAD hybrid battery... MIL Code P0A80 confirmed..

the same route for the collora is getting a 47.05% gain. 34mpg EPA

getting 49.9-50MPG (100% stock...)

GAS STATION MATTERS!

any other fuel station I get barely 35mpg on the same route and 18 mpg for the SUV..

YES both vehicles are filling up correctly

So the gas station is giving me free gas (under reporting fuel actually dispensed)or the gas station matters.. or other gas stations are OVER reporting fuel dispensed aka scammers

You're in Cali where it's illegal to set your pump to either over supply or short supply +/- some small percent. They also random test stations in unmarked vehicles constantly and I have seen the affects of failing to properly set the pumps: the station gets closed.

Cant see a station setting the pump for free fuel just as a business practice, doesn't make sense.

Lotta variables you could be missing, formulation, air density, temps, loose step ring wheel nut.......

I don't know if there is any percentage allowed to short supply here, but I remember when ethanol dispensers in Brazil had a device to indicate the density of the fuel. Problem was mostly a higher density caused by moisture absorption by the ethanol back then.

I don't think a pump could be off by more than about a half-gallon on a fill without me noticing. I estimate how much fuel a vehicle will take before pumping, and am usually within a couple tenths. A station might get away with cheating me by about 5%, but anything greater and I'll notice.

I believe they were held to +/- 0.25%

There was a time when you'd hand pump the gas into a (5 gallon?) graduated glass cylinder where you could see what amount and color it was, then let gravity flow it into the vehicle.

https://p1.liveauctioneers.com/425/2...784220_1_x.jpg
https://p1.liveauctioneers.com/425/2...784220_1_x.jpg

My father told me similar pumps were still in use at some rural places in Amazon when he went there for the first time.

Detroit (Oregon) still had pumps that had to be switched on from inside, and had analogue dials until it burned down a couple years ago.

Apparently there's the latest style pumps now. I've never purchase fuel there before, because that just indicates poor planning. I have used the restroom and bought ice there before.

I don't remember the last time I saw a pump with analogue dial, other than at some facilities where the fuel dispensers were used only for a captive fleet.

i fixed a vacuum leak i was having
my LTFT was 7-8 it was upwards of 16-19

now i got it down to 0.8-3.6... i need to get a new oring