Airdam vs Ride Height vs Belly Pan what is more effective

[tunedbytad]

ok thank you: ChazInMT, cfg83, Piwoslaw

Are you saying
an airdam adds frontal area but cleans up the air moving unde the car. So AirDams are a bit of a trade off.

I might be better with some home made belly pan sections and lowering in tandem vs just an air dam?
here is a pic of the unnder side of the Impala / identical to the Caprice.
Looks like there is room to improve to me



My main intent here is to focus my ecomodding to my Caprice.
looks like I need to lower my driver Caprice.
It is 5 inches higher / taller than my Impala.

Here is the ride height on the Impala


Lowering these car is benificial to handeling, camber curve and looks.
There is pleanty of wheel well clearence.
All kinds of these cars running around LA with 22s" & 24s" on them..

It is also very very cheap to lower them.
Cutting the front coils is just labor.
Lowering the rear I need spring clamps form the local parts stor for $10 - $20.

[gascort]

Don't be upset by Frank. He's a nice fellow, but often dry and witty humor can come off harshly. He's also pretty wise and a good opinion to help if your question is specific.

I will share my experience; my air dam resulted in overheating of my car, even with a massive hole in it. The solution? Belly pan, especially between the bottom of the air dam and the bottom/sides of the radiator. I think my air intake was dumping straight down instead of going through the radiator. So I recommend doing both if your airdam is very extreme. If it's just a small block of part of your grill (your cars are nicer than mine), you can surely do one or the other.
Welcome to EM! Make sure to use the search function and you will find lots of information from the past 2 years, and if you haven't already, introduce yourself in the introductions forum.

[gascort]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

The only thing reducing ride height helps with is reducing tire frontal area... right??

Reducing total effective frontal area, I think. The underside of your car will be turbulent to some extent, regardless of belly pans, etc. Reducing that area has to be as effective as taking off roof racks, maybe more depending on the car's underside.

Obviously in addition to the other things noted; looks and handling

[Piwoslaw]

A bellypan also increases the efficiency of other aeromods. The smoother airflow will improve the gains from wheelskirts and boattails, possibly Kammbacks and rear decks.

[moonmonkey]

a full belly pan is a win-win, it does not increase frontal area, it will reduce drag, and its dirt cheap if done with coroplast (corrugated plastic) avalible where you purchase lexan plexiglass and other plastics, there are many posts with pictures on how to do this, in summary im for the bellypan.

[cfg83]

gascort -

Originally Posted by gascort

Reducing total effective frontal area, I think. The underside of your car will be turbulent to some extent, regardless of belly pans, etc. Reducing that area has to be as effective as taking off roof racks, maybe more depending on the car's underside.

Obviously in addition to the other things noted; looks and handling

In addition to reducing frontal area, I think it reduces the maximum possible "volume" of air that can pass under the car and contribute to turbulence.

CarloSW2

[moonmonkey]

if you look at the aeromods done to the ford fusion 999' lowering the car was listed as the biggest benifit at .08 reduction? google it and you can find the car and data , i have read data that suggest if your undercarrage is very aerodynamicly dirty then lowering can hurt by not allowing the turbulet air a large enough escape area (research that your self), so lowering in conjuction with a bellypan, but as suggested originally by frank some combination of all three,would probably be best. i have panned my car and am now eyeballing an air dam with a high center to allow air thru the middle of my undercarrage and diverting air away from my tires and wheel wells. i would love to lower my car but it would have to be rasied back up several times a day, to get in and out of my 3/4 mile dirt road to get in and out of my property,i can think of no cost effective way to do that on my echo. so if its chjeap for you thats awsome!.

[Otto]

Lowering the vehicle will reduce the frontal area somewhat, thereby reducing drag somewhat. OTOH, it may also simultaneously increase the interference drag between underbody and ground, meaning the air has more difficulty and drag escaping from under the car, thereby increasing total drag.

Hoerner's Fluid Dynamic Drag has a section on external stores (bombs, fuel tanks, etc.) on aircraft, which have both streamlined stores and wings or fuselages. Despite this, the flow around the otherwise streamlined bomb gets tangled up with the flow around the otherwise streamlined wing, and total drag may thereby increase by as much as ~60% more than the sum of the individual parts. Ungood. Optimum solution is to increase the gap between bomb and wing to a dimension at least ~40% of bomb diameter, and fair the strut. By way of analogy, increasing the gap between car and road may actually be better than lowering the unfaired car, but raises c.g. and increased frontal area. Better to add fairings and belly pan.

For your application, consider cheap fixes first: Coroplast (used politician's signs for free) under body, in good, smooth application as commonly seen here on EM. Cheap. Light weight. Invisible to casual observer. Then, maybe add some wheel fairings as seen on recent Mercedes et al and also shown previously on EM. Somebody talked about making such wheel fairings from used plastic trash cans, cut diagonally. Works. Resists curb rash. Light weight. El Cheapo. Removable when pesky wifey poo and kids do eeew factor.

The most advanced designs from Germany and Japan seem to have smooth belly, air dam with center section somewhat cut out, and wheel fairings. If you are a good scrounger, you could probably get 98% of the benefit of this research and apply it to your car for very little money, and an afternoon's work.

[White118]

I would go belly pan and maybe a small air-dam in the front. I was also thinking maybe look at your muffler and maybe you could clock it. Some times the stock muffler hangs down. Just a thought.

-Matt

[tunedbytad]

Originally Posted by White118

I would go belly pan and maybe a small air-dam in the front. I was also thinking maybe look at your muffler and maybe you could clock it. Some times the stock muffler hangs down. Just a thought.

-Matt

me and the welder get along.
Mechanically, I could do what ever I can imagine.