Dipping Tiptoes
 

I work for a homeless shelter. Being a donations-funded ministry, we ain't exactly rolling in dough...and pay accordingly.

So my first try at aerodynamic mods to my little Civic are necessarily low cost. Another important thing is that they have to be easily reversible, preferably without having made any permanent modifications of any kind (i.e. drilled holes) to the car.

So far as I know the Gen I Insight has so far been the only hybrid offered in the States with fender skirts. That's such an obvious mod it isn't even funny, why don't they all have faired in rear wheels? Or for that matter, why do the manufacturers keep fitting wheels that are contributing so heavily to drag?

For instance:
[IMG]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3895/...52bd116a27.jpgIMG_20140729_072551999[1] by elhigh1, on Flickr[/IMG]


And this is what I did this morning right after eating my Cheerios.
[IMG]https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2921/...6cb78c82f1.jpgIMG_20140729_072538387[1] by elhigh1, on Flickr[/IMG]

I've only done the rear wheels so far. Sweetie hopped out of the car after we dropped of Son #1 at the lab so she could peek at them while moving; she said I got the concentricity nearly perfect.

They're made of shelf paper. I have enough paper left over to make about 100 more. Sweetie is on board this is the most important part of vehicle modification at my house.

why no skirts
 

The 'designer' wheel industry took off in the wake of the introduction of Hallibrand magnesium racing wheels (mags) at SCCA sanctioned racing events in the 1960s?
After Crager and Micky Thompson and others made a fortune selling their 'mags' in the aftermarket,automakers smelled money,and decided that they'd offer their own in-house cosmetic wheels to steal sales away from the aftermarket and boost their own profits.
It's probably a multi-billion dollar industry today.
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Skirts steal fire from these fancy wheels,and you can imagine the hesitation on the part of boards of directors to cover up the golden goose.
Skirts have to be dealt with in 4-season driving environments and maybe,from a utility standpoint,seem more like a PITA to owners,than a technological boon.
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We don't have really low drag cars for sale yet (the VW XL1 is knocking on the door),so the impact of skirts isn't fully felt until we get further down that road.
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'guess we could go on and on.

And of course SAAB discovered that front skirts could cause unforeseen steering problems, when the turning clearance got taken up by packed snow.

http://www.gm.com/content/gmcom/home...image1.img.png

The thing is, I'd pay extra for the skirts. If they made the skirts an option as well as the wheels, I'd be happy.

Yeah, why don't all cars come with the rear wheel skirts?

Of course, if you have about 10 bucks and a couple of hours of time on your hands, you can fix that!

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ete-28974.html

cowmeat's solution may not pass the Sweetie test. Consider what MetroMPG did (after he gave up on Velcro):

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...html#post37089

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1214175313

The Sweetie test has...flexible... restrictions. She's actually kind of jazzed about the idea of pushing the car into a higher MPG bracket.

"You're how high in the leaderboard?"

"Uh, middle teens? Highest Civic hybrid though."

"You're pretty sure you can do better?"

"Sure."

"Go for it."

Then she described how we might test for the adhesive's compatibility with the car's finish by putting test swatches directly on the paint, inside the door jambs.

Boat-tail!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, I know my wheel skirts suck in comparison to Metro's!

In my defense, I did them on my driveway in less than two hours (including the paint job)

If only I had read Metro's thread first, . . . . . . . I would have made some clips like that! I've been dying to change mine out ever since I saw that thread, unfortunately I'm working like 60 hours a week at the day job and mowing yards on weekends, so I just have to live with the ugly ones for now

My wife actually loved the Insights we test drove lately, so I have to assume at this point it's just MY wheel skirts she dislikes, so I'm thinking I failed the Sweetie test!

Sorry. :( Don't beat yourself up too much. They're on the car and working, right?

My fender skirts are two triangles of ABS plastic in the back of my carport. If I could figure out a mold to slump-mold them into to get the dished shape they need, I could progress to the next steps, trimming them and making a handful of MetroMPG's clips.

see the link:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post247938

Just messing around man, I never bring my feelings to the Interweb!

She carpools with me in the Black Widow anyway, ugly wheel skirts and all, lol!
She's pretty numb to anything I do to it now, and she just sits hunched over checking Facebook on her i-phone the whole time. Occasionally she'll look up startled if I bump start it too hard, but otherwise she's just waiting on the ride to be over . . . I am trying to find something with AC to replace it, so I can pass the Festiva on to my son and carpool with her in peace

I'm thinking about adding some kind of flexible plastic molding over the tape joints on the wheel skirts to make them look a little more legit, anybody got any ideas?

elhigh - nice to see some toe-dipping.

I'd say so! I thought that was Photoshopped.

Shelf paper ... what about durability?

You've got extra... how about making cutouts to go over the holes in the wheels as well -- do you drive in the mountains?

It does look fake, doesn't it?
 

That's what I thought when I posted the photo: "They're never going to believe that."

That's why I say dipping: these little discs are just to feel things out. Today marks their fifth morning and so far they seem to be holding up. We haven't had any rain but when we do, then we'll see if they're up to the greater challenge of Tennessee weather.

Sweetie and I have talked about making more covers to seal up the perimeter openings, and also about using a much larger piece, backed by coroplast, to become an entire fender skirt. But that will have to wait for the adhesive compatibility test.

I'm curious, but your link just dumps me at the forum home page. The URL became elided.

^^ Which link is that?

I've noticed this on someone else's posted link, it just threw me back to the forum home page.

Sorry — mcrews at Permalink #10. That snip of code is from viewing the page source. When the post was created the middle of the URL went to ... and now vBulletin offers the main page as a 'best guess'.

...and that's the end of that.
 

They fell off. Sunday morning saddling up for a short hike, I noticed that both discs had come off the rear wheels. In defense of the concept however, I must point out that the discs were actually making contact only on a very narrow strip of wheel, about 3/16" all the way around. My wife had noticed that they were almost too small when I put them on in the first place, and had expressed concern last week that there might not be enough of a contact patch to ensure long-term adhesion.

Sweetie, on the morning commute just a few minutes ago, said, "Well, let's make another batch, and use those dressmaker tricks I told you about so we can wrap a longer waistband further down onto the wheel."

"You mean, taking darts out so they'll fit the cone?"

"Right. And then we'll make gores to cover the perimeter holes."

Guys, I married up.

Good for you.

Try some dots of superglue around the edges to limit the delamination. Maybe one at each dart.

Nice!

Oh... show her the grille block/bra I made. Sounds like she could put together something much better than what I came up with: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...k-bra-285.html