Looking for an "Aero Mod Materials" thread
 

Hi everyone. I'm currently looking for cheap, fairly lightweight material for wheel skirts and a front grill block/belly pan.
I've seen a few different ideas on here with materials for grill blocks, wheel skirts, belly pans, etc., and I wondered if there was a thread with all of them in the same place. If not, it might be a good time to start a thread with a list, as well as listing price , availability, and pros/cons about each.
As far as I know, people have used:
ABS
Coroplast
Sheet Metal (what gauge?/type of metal?)
Clear plastic - lexan, plexiglas?
Homemade fiberglass/bondo
Someone mentioned Window Screen in conjunction with one of these.
If you've used one of these or something else and have price info and pros/cons you could throw in, please do so!

Some people just use straight up packaging tape or duct tape. Not too pretty but it gets the job done.

Well then, why don't we start the list here?

Material: Packing tape
Cost: $9.28/6-pack [staples.com] (or "free" some from slavery at work)
Availability: fairly ubiquitous unless you live in a cave
Pros: CHEAP, quick to apply, CHEAP, easy to remove, CHEAP, great for testing, CHEAP
Cons: not the most durable or pretty

Material: Cardboard
Cost: FREE if you've ever seen a cardboard box. ever.
Availability: fairly ubiquitous unless you live in a cave
Pros: CHEAP, quick to form, CHEAP, easy to find, CHEAP, great for testing, CHEAP, works great in conjunction with Packing tape
Cons: not the most durable or pretty

:thumbup:

Socket, the list is looking pretty good so far! Nice format!

I just called on one of my supplies, so here goes:

Material: Galvanized Sheet Metal, 24 gauge
Cost: ~ $1 per square foot
Availability: Most Heating and Air Conditioning companies will sell it to you.
Pros: Strong, attaches to car easily with self-tapping sheet metal screws, durable, bends/folds in position well.
Cons: requires tin snips to cut ($10 at hardware store), and somewhat heavy at ~ 1 pound per square foot

Material: Coroplast
Cost: Free if you can find it recycled from a box or sign, or ~ $1 per square foot from a glass or sign store
Availability: Sign stores have it, and after election campaigns it's very abundant
Pros: Cheap, light, readily available.
Cons: (I think) will rip off if caught on something - softer than metal.

Additional pros:
- Easy to cut and trim, knife or scissors
- Strong enough to take a whack from a curb here and there (I know, my air dam showed me).

I believe that this is on-topic - I use magnetic sign material to 'mock up' mods, mounting the modded gadget to the mag material using duct tape, eventually replacing the test device with one fabbed from plastic (coroplast looks doable for many).

The magnetic mount can be easily dismounted without cosmetic damage to the body, and can then be reused for the next crazy idea.