Interesting Aerodynamic Cars (Mike Vetter's ETV, also Avion)

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by basjoos

There are two conveyer rollers that the tires push against to open the cover during a sharp turn.

Is there any sign of wear on the tyres due to them pushing on the rollers and against the springs ?

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Sure, we were discussing the Alpha Romeo specifically, and no matter where the ICE is, you have to work out the cooling system to be as low drag as possible.

Sure, but there's no reason to repeat its design flaws and shortcomings

That's a huge engine in a small car, so it wasn't really meant to be ecological nor economical.

Teleported to today, and transformed to an eco-vehicle, the engine would be much smaller, be in a different position either freeing up internal space or allowing a smaller and lighter vehicle,

With an EV, the motor(s) are far more compact than with an ICE, and they require far less (if any?) cooling, so there are many packaging and aerodynamic options.

Those recent <1L ICEs are pretty small though.

All electric motors we have at work are cooled by either air or water, and they would overheat when cooling fails - during heat waves, we have to put water on some of the pump motors to keep them from overheating.
So yeah, better expect to need some cooling.

On EVs, high performance batteries also need temperature control , again adding to the complexity.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by basjoos

The front wheel well covers are........

Simple, I love simple.

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by Varn

I read through the wiki and this alpha has an interesting history.

Sorry to nit-pick, but it's actually Alfa. It started as an acronym--ALFA (Anonyma Lombarda Fabrica Automobili, roughly "Company in Lombardy for Making Cars) and evolved to just the name Alfa.

-soD

[basjoos]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Is there any sign of wear on the tyres due to them pushing on the rollers and against the springs ?

Little to no wear on the tyres. The roller system has been tested in over 180,000 miles of driving.

[kach22i]

Interesting Project - Page 2 - Pelican Parts Technical BBS

It started with a vintage Formula Vee Chassis. The chassis can run VW or Porsche 4 cylinder engines...

More here:
Frankfurt Flyer Pt:8
Frankfurt Flyer Part: 8 The Roll Out | Collecting | The Motoring Journal

[orbywan]

[QUOTE=basjoos;313927]The front wheel well covers are hinged at the top with a spring at each lower corner to hold the cover closed. There are two conveyer rollers that the tires push against to open the cover during a sharp turn... [QUOTE]

Hi basjoos, impressive project. Any idea how much of a gain enclosing the front wheels made on this project? Thanks. The aerocivic I mean.

[NachtRitter]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Why bother with all this complexity, wasted space and too much weight aft , when the VW Up! or Toyota / Scion iQ shows you could just as well mount a small engine forward in very little space ?

Mid-engine doesn't necessarily mean too much weight aft. I asked in reference to the Alfa because I like the shape of the 163, and I've always liked the dynamics of a (properly balanced) mid-engined car ... Also like the idea of using a diesel as the engine (ya, I know you're not particularly fond of them, but I really like mine a lot!)

[basjoos]

Originally Posted by orbywan

Hi basjoos, impressive project. Any idea how much of a gain enclosing the front wheels made on this project? Thanks. The aerocivic I mean.

I didn't have a fuel consumption device (Supermid) installed on my car at the time I installed most of my aeromods, so I had to use tank fillup calculations and change in coasting performance to evaluate my mods. The front wheel covers made a noticeable improvement in the coasting performance, but I also installed full rear wheel covers while going through that tank so I wasn't able to correlate it to a numbers improvement in mileage. The front wheel covers help by smoothing the air flow going down the side of the car. Watch a car driving on a wet road and you can see the turbulent spray come boiling out of the front wheel well openings. The covers eliminate that.

[aerohead]

For the 1984 Ford Probe IV concept car,a 9% drag reduction was claimed for the inner-fender/flexible urethane skirt combination used by Ford/Ghia.
This might be considered a drag reduction maximum for front wheel enclosure.Don't know.There's so little empirical data for such things.
It's a sure bet though,that the rectilinear flow on AeroCivic is going to produce about the best sink flow we could imagine.Not only is all the pick and shovel streamlining accomplished,basjoos has worked down into the macro-flow environment.
And it tells at the gas pump.
It's the gold standard so far as I've seen!