Aeromoding my truck ('95 Chevy S10 pickup)

[MarkM66]

Have you tried blocking the grill?

I have an '85 S-10, and when it's cold out I almost completely block of the grill, and it still runs a little below the thermostat temp.

Have you considered going to a manual steering box? I have a manual box on mine, and it steers just fine IMO.

You could lower it a few inches pretty cheap too if you wanted.

[bennelson]

I block the grill in the winter.

I removed the engine-driven radiator fan, and replaced it with an electric radiator far. That's not even on a thermostat - I just plug it in as needed, which is about twice a summer.

I wouldn't mind lowering it, but I have never done any suspension work before. That's only something I would want to tackle with an experienced friend.

I don't have any great urge to swap out the steering. Seems like a lot of work for not much gain.

[BamZipPow]

You just build a belly pan like I did fer my T-100...

Clearance before the belly pan is close to 12" from the bottom of the floor pan...it becomes close to 7-8" afterwards. It will eventually be the same as the bottom of the differential/rear springs.

[MarkM66]

Originally Posted by bennelson

I block the grill in the winter.

I removed the engine-driven radiator fan, and replaced it with an electric radiator far. That's not even on a thermostat - I just plug it in as needed, which is about twice a summer.

I wouldn't mind lowering it, but I have never done any suspension work before. That's only something I would want to tackle with an experienced friend.

I don't have any great urge to swap out the steering. Seems like a lot of work for not much gain.

Well if you ever decide to do either, just let me know and I could help with the process.

[max_frontal_area]

Originally Posted by scopedope

Ive got one more thing you might think about. You might ask where the truck was built for. I had a 95 sonoma with a 2.2 L engine. I bought it in Colorado and took it to California where I lived at the time. I got a good 30 MPG. When I moved back to Colorado I got 35 MPG. I found out that the computer is programed for a range of altitude. You might look that over as well.

what do you contribute that increase in FE to? you were likely crawling lots of hills there too...
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oh Brett polycarbonate is pricy, scratches easily ans is difficult to polish.
it takes over 400 f to manipulate its shape so ther sun wont be a concern
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bennelson, had you started with a VW rabit IDI based truck your baseline woulda been 40 mpg. what dia is the fan from the metro, is it able to keep the s-10 radiator cool under heavy load?
sideways hinging - good one! it will eliminate some problems. we still dont know at which speed you will be driving..?
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Metro, "some of the much easier to pick low-hanging aero fruit" i love it you should think about gettin into sales

[bennelson]

I would have originally LOVED to have gotten a Rabbit pickup. The trouble with them is prying the keys from the owners' cold, dead fingers...

I wonder what the cost and availability of parts for those VW trucks is. One thing I really like about the S10/Sonoma is that there are SO MANY of them. They are real easy to work on, and there are tons of parts and aftermarket items available.

I think the Metro electric fan is something like 10 inches in diameter. It's not huge, but not tiny either.

The truck does fine without a radiator fan as long as it's moving, air flows right through the radiator. I manually turn on the fan in bumper to bumper traffic in the summer when loaded down.

For the truck driving speeds... The truck is generally for longer distance, so it will be on the freeway. Typically 55 to 65 mph, depending on traffic, weather, and hypermileability.

[ecofreak]

VW trucks are pretty common, usually there's one on the craigslist every three months or so around here.

Usually they have some pretty scary condition, but they always seem to be fine mechanically.

If I ecomodded one, I'd remove the metal bed, replace that with an aluminum tubing bed, and coroplast it into a boattail. The problem I see with the trucks themselves is that they are pretty nice looking out of the box, and throwing on some aeromods wouldn't really help it.

I'd convert it to biodiesel and drive it rarely.

[aerohead]

Don't forget that a cab-wing/half-tonneau can perform almost as well as an aeroshell.It's wind tunnel proven,both in model and full-scale testing.Good bed utility aspects as well.

[bennelson]

i have been using a real simple half-tonneau on the truck much of the time.

The only trouble with it is that it doesn't keep the rain and snow off the other part of the bed!

I work with enough valuable tools and gear that I sort of need some type of locking cap. If I am going to have a cap anyways, I would like a cool aerodynamic one!

[oldenway]

I am planning on doing several of these mods to a 94 s-10.

old...