full belly pan good or bad

[dmafanp]

i would love to add a full belly pan to the bottom of my car, are there any parts under there that should always be air cooled or can i just cover the whole thing up ? my main convern would be the exhaust heating up. and what about just the back half being covered by cloroplast and not the front half.

[UltArc]

I'd be worried about chloroplast decomposing. The heat may make it catch on fire if it gets too hot and too dry.

Every vehicle is different. I first started by making a simple design that would easily come off if something went wrong, it was weakly attached, and easy to get to from the dirt on the side of the road. I also started in stages, first the front, then middle, then rear.

I would not advise starting at the rear, since if it is sealed, it may act like a parachute when air moves above the belly pan. Sealing it upwards seems like a lot of extra work compared to just starting from the front.

I would advise using polycarbonate (election sign material, basically thin plastic in the same design as cardboard).

These threads may help you develop a plan more so, often as we who have done it forget lots of things from when we make threads, and go into great detail- you may learn things there that we forget to bring up now.

belly pan - Google Search

or

underbody - Google Search

Look forward to following your build.

[jjackstone]

I would advise using polycarbonate (election sign material, basically thin plastic in the same design as cardboard).

Excuse if I'm mistaken, but I'm pretty sure what you are talking about here is coroplast. Polycarbonate(aka Lexan) is what eyeglass lenses and some motorcycle helmet faceshields are made of. I believe if you search some of the build posts that many folks on here have used coroplast for belly pans and they talk about how to deal with the hot spots under the car.
JJ

[UltArc]

https://www.google.com/#q=cloroplast

Chloroplast - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coroplast is a name brand, just like Lexan, and others. I think the generic name is "corrugated plastic," I've always referred to it as poly carbonate, I am not sure if that is the technical name- but chloroplast is a part of a plant lol

[E.Roy]

My guess on this is that the underbody becomes less important to be smooth if you put a lower air dam on the car to make air go around the car instead of forcing it underneath.

[jjackstone]

Coroplast is a name brand, just like Lexan, and others. I think the generic name is "corrugated plastic,

Correct.

I've always referred to it as poly carbonate

Polycarbonate is a material--generally a relatively hard plastic and most often clear.
The coroplast that most people on this forum refer to is normally made from polypropylene.
However after reading a bit more, I have found that corrugated plastic sheets can and are also made using polycarbonate.Yay, got to learn something today. My guess is that they would be a bit more expensive though as polycarbonate is not normally cheap. I believe polycarbonate has better UV resistance too although that might not matter beneath a car.
Thanks for teaching me something new UltraArc.
JJ

[cbaber]

Originally Posted by E.Roy

My guess on this is that the underbody becomes less important to be smooth if you put a lower air dam on the car to make air go around the car instead of forcing it underneath.

That is true, but the ideal solution is a smooth belly pan front to rear. An air dam increases the frontal area of the vehicle. If it does divert air away from under the car it can increase efficiency, but a full belly pan will be more efficient.

[Xist]

Once we get everyone to spell coroplast correctly, will we try to get them to pluralize appropriately?

[E.Roy]

Originally Posted by cbaber

That is true, but the ideal solution is a smooth belly pan front to rear. An air dam increases the frontal area of the vehicle. If it does divert air away from under the car it can increase efficiency, but a full belly pan will be more efficient.

Well said, I forgot about frontal area. Thank you for clarifying!

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by E.Roy

My guess on this is that the underbody becomes less important to be smooth if you put a lower air dam on the car to make air go around the car instead of forcing it underneath.

The idea is to combine both.

The air dam extending down to the lowest point on the chassis, which would determine the frontal area anyway, to divert as much air around the car as possible.

The belly pan mounted on the lowest point of the chassis smooths out whatever air still goes underneath the car.