Another Metro goes aero

[robertwb70]

Do you think side skirts are worth the work? I've been thinking about them but I haven't seen anything on how effective they might be.

[2000mc]

Testing grille blocking & wheel skirts: +5.7% improvement - MetroMPG.com

...der side skirts not wheel skits

[Christ]

They will prevent potential cross flow from under to outer, and from outer to under - remember, the under belly of your car has several low pressure sections that might actually be pulling in air from the outer area.

You can also add inner and outer skirts which prevent air from getting to the tire faces at all, and help streamline the underbelly of the car after getting a belly pan.

[robertwb70]

I was just looking at the aerocivics catamaran style skirts and that looks interesting.

I was thinking maybe the outside skirt angled from the inside back of the front tire and flaring out to both sides of the rear tire (long triangle like), enclosed in the center.

[Crono]

The autos aren't too bad, and the 36mpg is the sort of mileage my mom gets in hers, and she is, by no means, an ecomodder. If you really want to go for the mpgs eventually going to standard would be better...though I'm not sure if it would be worth the work involved. (Though if you did you could always put the 4 cyl transmission and change other stuff while you were at it).

[robertwb70]

I'm not much of a hyper-miler myself, Florida and an automatic trans don't present much of an opportunity for P&G or coasting so I mostly DWL and bear it. I'll probably get a MT car eventually but I want to see how far I can get this one first, would be nice to get to 50 but that's a ways off.

Last tank (most of a tank, 300 miles) came out to 40.88 MPG so I don't know if it was a bad tank or some of the mods are actually hurting FE. There were other changes at the same time as well though, I replaced a fuel tank that was full of rust which might have been creating some kind of lean burn condition due to it clogging up the fuel pump "sock/filter".

I'm going to put another tank through and then tape the part I cut off the rear back on and see what that does for a few tanks. Then maybe I'll remove the front air-dam and see what that does for a few tanks-at that point all the mods on the car will be ones that can't possibly be having any negative effect (wheel skirts, partial grill block and mirror delete).

[robertwb70]

Added what I have written down to the fuel log here. I didn't do a very good job keeping track in the beginning but I'm getting better.

[solarguy]

Hey, nifty trick with the laser. I'll remember that one.

Keep us posted on your progress.

Finest regards,

troy

[robertwb70]

Finally added some new pictures- cardboard Kammback, Frankensteined rear bumper cover and the latest battle scars.

[robertwb70]

Just a little update (new pics soon)

I've installed Intax lowering springs and new struts all the way around, shortened the front air dam and the rear skirt parts that used to hang down so now I can drive anywhere normal cars do without scraping anything off.

Working on a permanent Kammback right now, trying to make something that works better than the cardboard prototype by making it as long as practical.