Dipping Tiptoes

[elhigh]

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]IMG_20140729_072551999[1] by elhigh1, on Flickr[/IMG]


And this is what I did this morning right after eating my Cheerios.
[IMG]IMG_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.

[aerohead]

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.

[elhigh]

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



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.

[cowmeat]

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

[freebeard]

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

[elhigh]

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.

[freebeard]

Boat-tail!

[cowmeat]

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!

[freebeard]

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.

[mcrews]

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