Ok so I have started the aeromods on the Vibe, stage 1 is simple, seal off unecessary holes and see what happens.
Well as you can see by the pics, I sealed off the grille and the fogs, also removed the roof rack, which uncovered an unpleasant issue.
Looks like the Vibe, unlike the matrix was not intended to be without a rack. What impact do you think this will have on the grand scheme? Should I put the cross bars back on? I'm sealing open holes otherwise and any water falling through the hole simply drains through the hatch, so those are not my concerns, the aero impact is ... your thoughts ??
Next week if this works the holes will be covered with proper blocks likely made from abs plastic ...
__________________
Thx NoCO2; "The biggest FE mod you can make is to adjust the nut behind the wheel"
I am a precisional instrument of speed and aeromatics
If your knees bent in the opposite direction......what would a chair look like???
Last edited by trikkonceptz; 07-09-2008 at 07:06 PM..
As for that unexpected gap at the hatchback, I'd leave the roof rails off, and try to find a way to fashion a plug that cleans that up. Aerodynamically, it's a bad place to have exposed edges and openings.
Hard to say that's worse than the roof rails (I'd guess it's not), but there's no question that the best case scenario is no roof rails plus closing up those gaps.
I'm not running a scanguage, but there was no movement in the temp needle at all. Yesterday is was over 90degrees here and I therefore did some intentional city driving to see if the car would overheat, but no ...
I did discover that my thermostat for the dash readout has to be somewhere behind that grille though, because all day long it read in the high 90's instead of actual accurate temps ....
__________________
Thx NoCO2; "The biggest FE mod you can make is to adjust the nut behind the wheel"
I am a precisional instrument of speed and aeromatics
If your knees bent in the opposite direction......what would a chair look like???
Thanks for the idea .. LOL I am going to mount the back pieces again, cut them down with a dremel until the are flush with the roof line, cover them with some fiberglass, sand and paint them black ...
I'll be busy this weekend .. LOL
__________________
Thx NoCO2; "The biggest FE mod you can make is to adjust the nut behind the wheel"
I am a precisional instrument of speed and aeromatics
If your knees bent in the opposite direction......what would a chair look like???
Was it hard to remove those rails? If you did a short DIY writeup with a few pics, and document the making of your "caps" at the hatch corners, I bet there are more than a few Vibe owners who would use that info.
I'm leaning towards doing that, however with my drive consisting of 90+ miles of non stop hwy driving, I can't imagine it comes on that much anyhow ...
__________________
Thx NoCO2; "The biggest FE mod you can make is to adjust the nut behind the wheel"
I am a precisional instrument of speed and aeromatics
If your knees bent in the opposite direction......what would a chair look like???
haha, when i saw the thumbnail image of the taped openings, i thought it was a cadillac CTS lol. I was like, man...times must be tough when you have to hypermile your caddy. Aerodynamics FTW, though. I need to look into cleaning up the front of my car too. Good job.
I love the front,it looks like its smiling.Perhaps its foreshadowing what you'll be doing at the pump.Hope so.If I were swimming in cash I give you buckets of it so you could push it out the gaps in the back.When people asked what your car was doing,you could say those gaps were losing you money! Sick humor aside,yeah,it would be a good idea to clean that up.Too bad the rack was that deeply integrated into the body.Like what your up to.
haha, when i saw the thumbnail image of the taped openings, i thought it was a cadillac CTS lol. I was like, man...times must be tough when you have to hypermile your caddy. Aerodynamics FTW, though. I need to look into cleaning up the front of my car too. Good job.
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