Aerohead's going to the wind tunnel! We're passing the hat to help with costs.

[freebeard]

Don't know about other car types, but in my experience there is a friction fit dust cap on the front drum or rotor. An obvious attachment point assuming the bolt is heavy enough to take the repeated whacks it takes to seat the dust cap. The speedometer is driven by a square hole in the left dust cap, but you always wanted a GPS speedo anyways.

I don't like the idea. I'd rather see skateboard wheels on the front and back of the skirt that bear on the side of the tread (instead of the sidewall).

[aerohead]

After 10 man-hours of hammering,shrinking, bending,and riveting I got the diffuser straight enough to put back on the truck last Friday.
Yesterday,I completed the alterations and re-installation of the two front skirts,using Harbor Freight Tools' latest roller offering.These new units are 1.9" diameter,up from 32mm.They spin about 1/3rd slower rpm.And the gaps leading into the bearings are much tighter.I finger-squeezed in as much white lithium grease as I could.
While I was under the truck I saw many opportunities to improve the belly pan,not to mention,restoring the central pan section,which according to Carr,would have knocked 0.01 off the Cd at DARKO.
The wheel wells are going to be closed off entirely.
Many,many things to improve or add.It's good to see the ol' girl coming back to life.

[whatmaycome14]

Originally Posted by aerohead

The wheel wells are going to be closed off entirely.

How are you going to manage this without the suspension getting in the way? I'm really REALLY curious.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by whatmaycome14

How are you going to manage this without the suspension getting in the way? I'm really REALLY curious.

With the torsion bar front suspension up front,there's very little mechanism to deal with.The forward and rear well faces can drop,unobstructed to the belly pan.
The interior surface is already defined by Toyota's rubber curtain wall of which I can use all the existing attachment points to drop material right past the frame rails down to the pan,allowing just a few penetrations.The lower A-arm can have a pan section attached directly to it's bottom.A panel can be attached to the spindle/brake backing plates which will articulate through the wheel-flop.Rubber panels can displace as needed until the wheels center.
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The rears are a walk in the park.The leaf springs are well above the belly pan and panels will be easy there.There's a lot of real estate under there for curtain walls to drop. Part of a seal can travel with the axle itself which can slide within an air maze attached to the pan.Vertically,the axle only displaces 2-inches to the bump-stops.
If the rain would stay away long enough to keep my pit dry,I'd be able to get under there to do something.

[aerohead]

I spent 2-hours this morning creating cardboard patterns for mods to the 'Poco Loco', sailboat-based bed cover.
The plan is to have side fairings which tip from the bed rail top,straight over sideways in a straight line until they contact the bed cover,filling in the twisted void created by the plan-taper of the cover vs the straight-sided bed rails.
I didn't like the way the smoke behaved around this area at the wind tunnel.
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I scoured the only metal recycling center which allows salvage,for sheet aluminum, and came up empty.
A trip to The Home Depot didn't help.I found some 10-inch by 10-foot aluminum flashing in the roofing section for $10 a roll.If I'm forced to use it I'll make it work.
I'm inclined to just fix a blocking barrier on the truck and do wet layups over the cardboard and tape to create composite skins like I did on the CRX long ago.If I did,I could make one continuous fiberglass fairing,rather than sections of lapped aluminum.These fairings would lap over the sides of the rail tops,making for better weather protection and attachment.
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The modified bed cover would allow for a shorter,better,boat tail.And I could dispense with the heavy plywood of the existing tail/stinger,and go with an all-composite,lightweight unit.Maybe on a swing-away mount which I've craved since the 80s.
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I like the new Harbor Freight rollers.They're working out fine and perhaps I'll be able to find replacements as the years unfold.
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And I think I may abandon acrylic lacquer as a paint system.The enamels don't skin as quickly,and once you have traffic,they melt into a nice glossy surface which doesn't require all the color-sanding and polishing required by the lacquer.
If anyone needs chiggers,ticks,or mosquitoes let me know.We've got a bumper crop this year!

[freebeard]

http://community.woodmagazine.com/t5/General-Woodworking/Boat-Build/td-p/336245

I am attempting to build a 1942 Mahogony[sic] Barrelback Christ[sic] Craft 19 foot runabout. The famous JFK boat.

Something like this for shape? You could shear the 1x10 aluminum into long tapered pieces and use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinker_(boat_building) or lap strake construction; or flange the edges and use rivets on the inside of the angles.

Or run the strips laterally and make it like an armadillo, with exposed rivets.

Edit:Also ... Plastidip.

By the late 80’s PDI was already recognized as the industry leader in low VOC water base coatings for flexible foams... The development of these water base coatings was particularly valuable since the 1990 Clean Air Act was pending and manufactures had to choose how to deal with new emissions standards.

http://www.plastidip.com/about_us.php

the MSDS for rubber dip (unthinned) says it has 4.8 to 5.2 lbs of VOC per gallon, not sure about rubber dip spray, probably closer to 6.2 due to more thinner used. Better verify with Performix though to be sure.

http://www.dipyourcar.com/forums/showthread.php?12173-plastidip-voc

Or are you talking about the shop floor (traffic)?

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

http://community.woodmagazine.com/t5/General-Woodworking/Boat-Build/td-p/336245


Something like this for shape? You could shear the 1x10 aluminum into long tapered pieces and use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinker_(boat_building) or lap strake construction; or flange the edges and use rivets on the inside of the angles.

Or run the strips laterally and make it like an armadillo, with exposed rivets.

Edit:Also ... Plastidip.

http://www.plastidip.com/about_us.php


http://www.dipyourcar.com/forums/showthread.php?12173-plastidip-voc

Or are you talking about the shop floor (traffic)?

*The back of the Chris Craft is what I'll end up with,like a sawed-off streamlined half-body.
*The fairing has twist but not much else.A single piece of aluminum,longitudinally, would be better than joining narrow strips.
*I've talked myself into fiberglass.I can tape them on for the next trip,then pull them at the tunnel to compare results and isolate any effect associated with the difference.
*As to the Plasti-dip,I want as much sheen as I can get.The enamel dries very glossy.
*The term 'traffic' is used by painters to describe a full wet-out paint condition,after which any further spray application would create a run or sag (which is hard to deal with in a paint system which can't tolerate spot repairs without revealing a cosmetically unappealing blended area).

[Xist]

We always say that it is virtually impossible for vortex generators to improve anything without engineers and a wind tunnel.

What about a mad scientist with a head for aerodynamics and a wind tunnel? Just idly wondering, if this were done properly, what is the best-case scenario?

[freebeard]

Why did you pick a year-old thread in which to ask the question? I direct you attention to a thread that addresses that very question, that's been up 28 hours in this subforum with no response and only 104 views:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ion-34036.html

*The term 'traffic' is used by painters to describe a full wet-out paint condition,after which any further spray application would create a run or sag...

Last time I repainted my brake rotors and drums, I was using a heat gun to speed up the drying, and I found that once the paint had skinned over, I could push the run backward until it smoothed out, except for a little ridge at the bottom. Which flowed out as the paint continued to dry.

Probably one of those results I'll never get again.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Xist

We always say that it is virtually impossible for vortex generators to improve anything without engineers and a wind tunnel.

What about a mad scientist with a head for aerodynamics and a wind tunnel? Just idly wondering, if this were done properly, what is the best-case scenario?

*If we presumed that Mitsubishi engineers investigated every conceivable type of VG,and experimented with number and placement,and arrived with what they did to the Lancer EVO;then all we could say is that if a mad scientist did what they did to the same car,you'd see a 0.006 drag reduction.
*You couldn't say anything else.
*For the types of available VGs that exist,to isolate the best type,the number of them,and placement location for any given car to achieve the maximum effect,I would venture that you'd be looking at $100,000 in wind tunnel time,even at only $500/hr.
*Ferrari spent this much just to refine the C-Pillar winglets of their 599X race car.