groar's 1997 Megane Modding Thread
 

Hi,

My first post was my SG2 fiasco : (long) Scangauge II vs. old European diesel Renault...

Because I can't use a SG2, I'm beginning to ecomod my megane. The first step is the lower grill block. By now it's the first version with cardboard and tape, so here is "the lower grill block by a dummy ;)".

I cut of the cardboard and covered it with tape by beginning by borders, then I taped the grill block over the lower grill.

The radiator is tall and wide, it's the black box on the second picture. The red boxes are openings to the radiator. The green box is the opening to the turbo's radiator, I don't use the turbo a lot but the dashboard doesn't have a light in case of turbo dysfunction. The blue box was already closed, but was deeeep.

I ran 60 km (37.5 M) today at 70 km/h (43.5 mph). The engine heated more than usually, but less than when I run on the highway for a long trip. If it heat then I'll cut the lower right corner.

Because I only found this color of solid tape, the grill block is very "stealth"... I just have to find the situation where it will be so ;)

The megane has already a rather good Cx (0.32) but I wish to continue. Second step may be rear wheel skirts, but I will have to use other materials than cardboard...

Edit :

• cost = 2€ of tape and 0 of cardboard
• butt-o-meter : no difference in feeling after 120 km (75 miles)

Have fun,

Denis.

Great thread!

France has cars that I can only dream about and not purchase in the U.S. To mod one for even better FE is a great prospect.

Bonne chance, and keep us updated on the progress...

RH77

It rained a few nights ago... The left half is always hard while the right one is soft, it drunk water :( It seams tape can be used to "waterproof" cardboard, but it will not be easy and what about durability ?

I'm currently building the cardboard rear wheel skirts, while I found some material to build a transparent hard grill block... Stay tuned for a next message...

Edit : added picture of the cardboard lower grill block after rain.

Have fun,

Denis.

rear wheel skirt
 

Today I build one cardboard rear wheel skirt, taped it onto the car and drive-tested it :cool:

From the first picture you can see the wheel is outside the car, so I glued layers to the skirt, as seen on the third picture. From the second picture you can see the door is near the wheel, so I taped the skirt "inside the door".

For the skirt to be strong, I used a piece of bamboo I taped outside the lower end of the skirt.

You can see the final work on pictures 4 and 5.

I test-drived it during 28km (18 miles) at speeds between 70 & 110 km/h (43 & 68 mph). I didn't go so fast since weeks :eek: At the middle of the trip I stopped to look at the skirt but it didn't moved :cool: At home I just added a few pieces of tape to more secure the bamboo.

My butt-o-meter told me it felt better :thumbup: but I'm sure my brain dictated that as I felt so proud to have made something more complicated than a bulb change :p

I should finish and tape the second skirt tomorrow. I Hope it will not rain this week...

I also taped some cardboard on one front wheel hubcap (no picture) but I'm not so sure that it's really useful compare to my current hubcaps. What do you think about ?

Denis.

Great thread...

I suggest to perform some coast-down testing in an area that has little wind and little traffic to see if your mods are helping...

Someone in the forum posted a great Instructable with a spreadsheet to perform repeatable coasting tests and analyze your mods.

Keep testing and best of luck!

RH77

Cool, I like the way you blocked up the rear of the skirt to clear the tire. Looks like with that template, you can more easily build one from a weatherproof material. Can you get Coroplast easily? That should work well for your application. Looking good, keep it up.

Thanks :)

As the second piece of bamboo (used for the second skirt) wasn't as curved as the first one, I just added one layer.

I searched, but it seams the only way I can have coroplast is to steal it from construction sites (it's used to protect some materials).

I found synthetic glass. For the grill block it should be OK. For the skirts it may be more difficult as it may not be flexible enough. I'm realizing that its transparency may not be a good idea...

Finished the second skirt and taped it. The first one didn't moved today during my 60 km (38 miles) daily trip :thumbup: nor the carboard over the hubcap. I may cover the second front hubcap tomorrow and admire my work during the rest of the way, dancing the no-rain dance ;)
I may inflate my tires to 43 PSI (currently 34 and max sidewall at 51).

Denis.

Thanks :)

I found enough time during last days to mod my megane, but I may not find enough time during next weeks to do serious tests :(

Good pages, as the referenced iwilltry.org link. I bookmarked them and I'll try to come back later on them.

Denis.

Subscribed to this thread.

A few meters of tapes to fill-up a few holes
 

Lately I read a lot of EM threads and associated articles and didn't upgraded my car except the nut and the tires that are now at 3.2 bars (46.4) while rated at 3.5 bars (50.8).

I basjoosed with some tape the spaces between the roof and the front and rear windshields (1st and 2nd pictures). I bought some transparent tape for greenhouses, ie waterproof and resisting to UV and temperature changes. As said in another thread : if it doesn't help, it shouldn't hurt ;)

It will be rainy and sunny this week so I'll see if this tape is OK or not. If it's OK I'll use it on the roof itself (3rd picture) and a few other places.

Denis.

It's raining coroplast :)
 

A few weeks ago an itinerant spectacle came in my town and their advertisements were installed everywhere in the city. As soon as the last show finished, they picked up their ads and went away.

A few weeks after I could see they forget several ads at a crossroad. I looked at them and they were made of coroplast :) A few days after I decided to pick them up... At first I took only 2 sheets : 160x60 cm (62x23 inches) each. Later I decided to pick them all and finally I got 10 sheets.

As they were used two by two around a post, they are rounded (see 1st picture). They have also some plastic to protect the sheet of paper on which is printed the schedule. It took me more than one hour to remove the plastics and staples one by one (around 40 by coroplast sheet...).

Finally I let it under the sun so the water from the last rain could evaporate (2nd picture).

I began to build the non-cardboard rear wheel skirts from these coroplast sheets. As the coroplast is thinner than the cardboard, I will have to rebuild a part of it as it's now too close to the wheel. Next episode for a next week-end...

Denis.

groar -


Oooh, I didn't know about this stuff. I usually use packaging tape. I am going to buy some.

CarloSW2

Just discovered this thread :
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...-mods-463.html

As said, don't forget to also clean your hands, or you'll have tons of fingerprints all under the seethrough tape. Also do it slowly or you'll end with tons of bubbles.

Denis.

groar -

I hadn't seen that thread either. This looks like a good way to make a stealthy door handle cover.

CarloSW2

New grill block : upper instead of lower
 

Few months ago, I had to remove the (cardboard) lower grill block because megane had a problem at the radiator. After the repair I did a coroplast upper grill block.

The 1st version of the new upper grill block prevented anybody to open the hood, so I had to make a 2nd version to permit to change the oil (changed last week from 5W40 to 5W30). The 1st version was conceived by 1 single part so the Renault emblem and the hole between it and the bumper were hidden. The 2nd one is simply the first one without the central part.

Here are 2 pictures of the 2nd version :

• from the front :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245437509

• from the side :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245437509

To make the engine hot quicker, or to keep the engine hot longer, the upper grill block seams to be as effective as the lower grill block.

Only recently I remarked that above 80 km/h I'm hearing the wiper blades. I remarked it by the fact the noise disappeared when I removed the wiper blades in the hope to have a better Cd. I think this can be explained by the fact that more air is pushed over the hood.

Denis.

Let me introduce you the uglyback...
 

A couple months ago I rebuild the rear wheel skirts, but this time I used coroplast. As they are identical to the carboard version, no picture are available except that they are present in the first 3 following pictures.

Finally I did an uglyback (I will not use a more usual term to not disturb the German aerodynamicist Wunibald Kamm).
Here are 3 pictures from the exterior :

• from the side :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245439821

• from the rear side :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245439821

• from the rear :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245439821

I don't know if I should close the triangle holes at both sides.

The 2 vertical parts at the rear are caught by the hatch, which participates to secure it with all the "power tape" used.

The uglyback has been conceived to permit to open the hatch :http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245440361

First I drove in the neighborhood to verify that under 50 km/h (30 mph) the uglyback stayed in place. Then I drove a couple km in city and a couple hundred meters at 70 km/h (43 mph). I stopped and inspected it, but saw nothing alarming.
Then I drove several km in my usual way : P&G (engine on) at 70-80 km/h (43-50 mph) and inspected it again without seeing anything.
I finished the day by driving several dozen of km (20+ miles). Noticeably I went shopping to try to find a hubcap to replace the one I lost last week... but I was unsuccessful.

Quickly my butt-o-meter told me that the car was coasting longer, but I couldn't verify it really. As it was raining from time to time I had the wiper blades. Also as the rear view is partially blocked (more about that next week...) I unfolded the passenger mirror to comply to French law to have 2 unobstructed mirrors. In several parts of the road I drive daily, I was overspeed today where I'm not usually...

During the driving today, a lot of people were looking at the uglyback. I never had so much looks with the grill blocks or the rear wheel skirts. Some broke their neck while they were passing me. I even saw someone taking my car in picture with his phone while he was driving...

Since several weeks I want to have some road sign drawn on the car has some trucks have. Back home I made a few little drawing directly on the uglyback :http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245440361
The arrow should be white in a blue circle, but thought about it after the arrow was drawn in red.

Before mid-july megane will have to pass a technical inspection, so I'll have to remove the aero-helps. I hope I'll be able to use that occasion to make a A+/A/A-/B (from more to less aero-helps) coast down testing.

Denis.

Missed this thread before. Subscribed.

I like your rear skirts. Extending them to the front and back of the actual wheel well makes them look good.

Have you considered a trunk (hatch? boot?) lip spoiler? That edge is very rounded - probably not the best for aero.

This is what the Civic hybrid has:
http://www.australhonda.com.au/image...rid_thumb2.jpg

Misc last message.
 

Here are two others pictures :

• First the mod I did last week-end : a 1.5W / 12V solar panel directly connected to the battery :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245443040
I will not show or tell more about that, this mod is uglier than the uglyback...
Not only 1.5W is nothing compared the to car consumption, but also such amorphous panel looses a lot of power during 1st year and its performance decreases a lot when heat increases. As an eco-geek I couldn't stop from building that mod :cool:

• Then the board of the megane, only because some people may be curious :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245443040
(OK in fact it's because the idiot light is always off and I drove 45 miles more than during my previous longest tank ;) ).
Notes :

• The temperature is just under the 2nd mark. When the engine is hot it's at the 3rd mark. The picture was taken about 1/2 hour after I switched off the car and in such situation only 1-2 km is enough to make it hot again.
• The trip odometer, the lower one, resets to zero after 999.9 kms, so I'm at 1364.2 kms since last fill-up.
• The idiot light switches on at around 51 L when I fill up to the second click. Now I'm filling up at top and there is around 1 L between 2nd click and top, so I'm under 52 L (13.7 gal.) and over 61.7 mpg.

Denis.

WOW!!!
That is a great job, Denis :)
Let's hope you don't get ticketed for being a distraction/hazard on the road. Some policemen may not like sillymobiles. I personally don't think it's silly and I would like to see more cars like that on the roads. BTW, will those additions be painted? I think if they were a color similar to the car then they wouldn't be so noticeable.
I like how the circus character drawn on the underside is reflecting in the rear window :)
I wonder if the supports couldn't be taped edge-on? This would give you much better visability, so you wouldn't have to unfold the passenger side mirror.
Do you know for sure that the tech station won't like those mods, or are you just not wanting to take chances? If they are not against any laws then inspection shouldn't be a problem.

Pale, I was wondering how to extend my uglyback down to the rear end of the notch while keeping it usable. My goal is to have a hatchback à la Citroen C4 coupé :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...C4_blue_hr.jpg
But while my notchback has a Cd of 0.31, I know that the 5 doors version of my megane has a Cd of 0.32 :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ult_megane.jpg
Certainly because the angle is too important, more than the one of my uglyback. I have to confess that I didn't calculated/measured the angle of my uglyback, but when I saw the 5 doors version side by side to my notchback I said me that I couldn't make worse and simply extending the roof should be OK.

From Hucho's book, the ways to improve the Cd of a notchback are to :

• lower the angle of the rear window with the horizon
• increase the length of the notch and
• increase the height of the notch.

This book shows the notchbacks of the v.II vs the v.III of the audi 100 : respectively 57.5° vs 64.25° (Cd -0.01), +75mm (Cd -0.01) and 50mm (Cd -0.017).
I interpret this as : "the more the airflow reattach to the notchback, the more the Cd decreases".
It seams I lowered so much the angle of the rear window with my uglyback that the airflow doesn't touch the notch anymore. To make the airflow reattach, I would need something like this :
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1245586357
Which would also permit to open the hatch.
Now the questions are :

• should I close it ?
• do I close it at the front and/or at the rear side ?
• if I don't close it then should I put 1 or more parallel spoilers inside it ?

I'm reaching the limits of my competence... didn't had a lot of opportunities to read Hucho's book :( and only consulted some chapters I needed.

Denis.

Piwo, about the technical inspection I don't want to have any risk of reject and my wife wouldn't be very happy...

It seams all my mods are legal. While I was testing the uglyback Friday, I drove by 2 policemen that where looking at the cars driving through a roundabout. One of them looked at the other one and the latter seamed to tell that there was nothing wrong.

Removing the mods would cost me only "power tape" which wouldn't be a really high price. It may permit me to improve something, but also to wash the car.

Denis.

Around here, there are no small number of inspection places that, if you don't pass, they will let you fix whatever didn't pass and come back within a certain amount of time (two weeks or a month) to get re-inspected for free. If you find somewhere like that to get your car inspected that would let you try it without removing the mods, and if it fails because of them just remove them and go back and pass.

Your ambition towards modding this car is admirable. Keep up the good work.

The only free thing I know is coroplast ;) but only in limited quantities :(

I removed everything Wednesday and the car passed the inspection the day after :cool:

For information, at the opacity test megane obtained a score under 0.6 without and with the turbo. For information a turbo car must have under 3.0, a non turbo car must have under 2.5 and any car newer than 2008 must have under 1.5.
In fact my mechanic cleaned the turbo before to send the car to the inspection, so the turbo score was only a few % over the non turbo score.
A few days before my wife's car passed the technical inspection too, and the opacity scores were worse : the turbo score was twice the non turbo score, but far from the limit.

Thanks :)

I should be able to put back the aerohelps on soon. Hope I'll have time to do a coast down testing, but I haven't found a long and flat road yet to do a 90 to 60 km/h (56 to 37 mph) coast down testing. May be should I attempt a 110 to 80 km/h (68 to 50 mph) one, even if I rarely drive at these speeds.

Hope my 1000 miles tank will give me wings to continue the improvements.

I'm also working on minimizing the load on the battery, by adding an old (50Ah) battery on board, plugged to a solar panel (bigger than the little one connected to the car's battery), to feed the (GPS) navigator and the rear view camera. This will also permit me to have my computer connected during several hours to do wardriving (its internal battery doesn't permit so) or simply to record GPS coordinates (thing about coast down testing per example).

About the rear view camera, I tested it and it works great, but the wide angle if it permits to see more things that an classical mirror, changes the distances by so much that I'll need a looong time to get used to it.

Denis.

What is the opacity test?

Yes, it's a good idea to do the coast-down test at as high a legal speed as you can: even if you don't drive at that speed, the higher speed helps to show small changes in air drag.

Nifty idea with the battery and solar panel, too. Hope it brings you net savings.

It took me much more time than I thought so I only coast down with the following configurations :

• A = standard config
• B = A + upper grill block
• C = B + removed wiper blades + folded passenger mirror
• D = C + rear wheel skirts

Sorry, no final A test...

I found a long enough road to do 110 - 70 km/h coast down testing, but the road wasn't flat enough and too much traffic so I had to remove :

• all the legs to East
• several points to West

Here are the results :
http://www.groar.org/EcoModder/CDT_Results_ABCD-o7.png

I have a lot of respect for all coast down testers (Darrin and all). After this experience I have even more respect. Before doing CDT with the uglyback, I'll try to find another road and a light-to-no traffic moment.

Note #1 : with upper grill block I confirmed 2 differences over 75 km/h vs no upper grill block :

• I could feel air while the internal vents are opened and the ventilator is off
• I could hear noise from the wiper blades, noise disappearing in tests C & D

Note #2 :

• 110 km/h = 68.4 mph
• 100 km/h = 62.2 mph
• 90 km/h = 55.9 mph
• 80 km/h = 49.7 mph
• 70 km/h = 43.5 mph

Denis.

Looks to me like the rear wheel skirts give the biggest improvement.

Nice to see hard numbers showing improvement. Thanks for doing coast-down testing, it's motivation for others too.

groar -

Thanks for doing this. I'm too lazy to fight traffic to make this work. I keep imagining the perfect hill with the perfect slope with the super-long flat straight road at the bottom with NOBODY around for miles and miles and miles.

CarloSW2

Nice to see this data, Groar. Thanks for taking the time.

Wow, this is great data :)
Denis, could give an idea as to how long the stretch of road was, and how much time did the testing take? I'll be doing coast downs soon, so I'd like to know how early I'll have to get up.

Sorry for late reply : far too much free time nowadays...

The only ecological test mandatory during all technical tests. It measures the opacity of emissions. The unit is in m^-1, so the smaller the better, but I never found the exact description of this test.

I have to confess that I'm doing it for the high geek level of this mod which will permit me to say that I have a solar hybrid :cool:
The panel I have is only a 13W and as it's an amorphous panel it will quickly loose 20% of power and is very sensible to heat. If it can generate 40Wh/day it will be a lot and in winter it will be even worse. All this energy correspond to very few gas, even by considering the alternator efficiency is low.

The cost of the panel was rather low and I have a spare (old) car battery. Another reason is that I don't think the plug's fuse is strong enough for me to plug my computer : when I do wardriving it can last several hours but the computer battery can't. All year long I'll be able to use the battery to feed the (GPS) navigator and the rear view camera (I should be using as the internal mirror through the uglyback).

This is also what my butt-o-meter told me last summer with my cardboard skirts and why I wanted to build coroplast skirts since. It also took me 2 weeks to get used to the new behavior of the car when I installed them.

Since 2 years a road was being build to permit to avoid that several tens of thousand vehicles go through my city everyday. This road is opened since yesterday morning and it seams that several places have a constant slope. I'll try to verify that with my GPS receptor, but I'll have to go into holidays before ;)
Even if this new road has a perfect shape, I'll certainly avoid it for my daily commute as it's too fast and the old road is now a desert.

Denis.

I wanted to talk about every people spending a lot of time to make studies, measures and data analysis, coast down and any other test.

As I said, it took me a lot of time :

• 30 minutes to drive enough to heat the car. I drove 30 miles as the road I wanted to use was too hilly and I got the wrong road to go to the one I used.
• 15 minutes for each test
• between 5 and 20 minutes between tests : stop the GPS recording, change the configuration, take a few notes and restart the recording.
• 20 minutes to drive home.

The total was 2h30. I would have liked to test the uglyback, but I need half an hour to tape it and I had only 2h available. Oops, I spent more time than I had ;) It seams that in the precipitation I installed a skirt less tightly than the other one so I'll have to reinstall it. If I can do other tests soon then I'll make C & D test again before doing E (D + uglyback).

About the length of the road, I simply measured it by accelerating to 110km/h and coasting to 70km/h. I was happy as at 110km/h the aero effect is important so it should be able to show a smaller difference, while I'm mainly driving at 70-80 km/h. But during last tests the road was too short and I had to break before reaching the 70km/h.
From a quick calculation, the coast down used 1.3km (0.8mi) and the acceleration (from a stop) around 0.8km (0.5mi).

I used an USB GPS receiver plugged to a computer to record my coordinates (lat, lon & alt). The GPS receiver generates a coordinate every second and it timestamps each one at micro-second. With each coordinate is also indicated the speed and the heading.

Of course I can't have the exact time at which I was exactly at 110, 100...70 km/h, so for each speed during each coast I estimated the moment by (simple linear) interpolation of time and speed between the last entry over the speed and the first entry under the speed.

Denis.

A quick update before leaving for nowhere land during 2 weeks.

Here are some pictures taken from the inside of the car when the uglyback was on :

• The direct view : http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...5&d=1247305008
• The view through the mirror : http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...6&d=1247305008

So you understand I brought the small "rear view camera set" shown in next message.

But the uglyback had a great pro : it prevents the sun to heat the car through the rear glass :cool:

Denis.

The rear view camera set
 

Here is the first test of the rear view camera :

• Installed under the upper part of the ugglyback : http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...7&d=1247306377
• while the monitor is installed on the rear mirror : http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...8&d=1247306377

Here is the second test of the cam :

• Installed on the passenger mirror : http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...9&d=1247306377
• while the monitor in installed vertically on the rear mirror : http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...0&d=1247306377

Two points :

• The angle is very wide. The pro is that you can see much more than with usual mirror. The cons is that you can't estimate the distances. In fact anything you can see well in the monitor is too closed to you.
• The brightness is automatic, which is great when you go under a bridge per example. But this will be impacted by the angle to which you put the camera. Downward and you get what I feel the best picture, but the angle makes the picture very complicated to analyze. More upward and the cars look a little bit closer to you (but always too far) but then the sky makes the road side of the picture too dark.

Even without the uglyback, I kept the cam to get used to it, but it will be difficult...

Yes I live near the pink city (Toulouse), but this isn't the reason why the trees are pink. I don't know if this is the low quality of the camera (I bought the lowest cost one while all the other one were 50% more expensive) or if it's because the first time I connected it its fuse died...

Denis.

The trees showing the wrong color is caused by the camera lens not having an IR(Infrared light) cut filter. They usually delete that so you can have some low light vision at night, and also allows for the use of IR illumination.

Love the uglyback!

Good job on all the testing!

groar -

Like the cameras. Getting steampunk-road warriror-ish. Makes me want to put magnets on computer chips and plaster them to my car's body :

http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images...tarWarsCar.jpg

CarloSW2

RIP uglyback... Here is the uglycover
 

Thanks for thanks :)

As after a few weeks the convex part of the uglyback went concave, I removed it. The fact the angle of vision was far too narrow IMHO, didn't saved it when I took the decision to remove it.

At beginning of year, I build a simple trunk extension (the lower part), quickly followed by a trunk cover (the upper part) as I previously described it in this thread.

• Here is the result from the rear :

http://www.groar.org/EcoModder/MeganeRear640.jpg

• The result from the side :

http://www.groar.org/EcoModder/MeganeSide640.jpg

• and when the trunk is open :

http://www.groar.org/EcoModder/MeganeSideOpen640.jpg

I have no test result to present :( except the fact my butt-o-meter tells me the car accelerate more easily ;)

As I have to keep the trunk functional, I have to keep the uglycover not too close to the rear windshield. I tested it at speeds up to 140km/h (87mph) and it resisted without moving too much due to air perturbations.

Denis.

And here are the uglyteethes...
 

• With the uglyback, I offered two uglyteethes to Megane with a little extension at the lower part of the lower grill block :

http://www.groar.org/EcoModder/MeganeFront640.jpg

• Today I retaped the uglyteeth to make the inner hole bigger to permit Megane to not heat with late spring temps :

http://www.groar.org/EcoModder/MeganeFrontNewA640.jpg
As you can see, at central hole and exterior sides of the lower grill block, the 2 teethes have been move toward exterior.
By looking at these pictures, I realize that the lower extension is now much higher than before :(

• And here is a a picture where the 2 right wheels are aligned :

http://www.groar.org/EcoModder/MeganeFrontNewB640.jpg

Have fun,

Denis.

Hi Groar, good to see you back:)
Is the trunk cover a new piece of coroplast or is the uglyback reincarnated?
Was there a noticible difference in coasting/handling right after removing the uglyback? Did the wheelskirts stay on all winter?