Modding the girlfriend's '12 Sentra

[Sven7]

After my 45+ MPG trip to MN and back, my girlfriend got a little jealous and asked if I would mod her car. Turns out she was not joking! It's a 2012 Nissan Sentra CVT that gets high 30's to low 40's on the freeway from what I've seen.

The budget: $0. (I assume I'm welcome to put money toward it though )

First order of business was to block the upper grille. It appears these cars do not come with transmission coolers, and the only thing up there seems to be the radiator, so on it went. Made from black coroplast.

Before:





After:





I was thinking about taking the passenger mirror off, but it doesn't even fold back, and obviously mirror deletes are not available for this as they are for Civics, so we'll see. I added a blind spot mirror to her driver's side because visibility is terrible. I think that with the right interior mirror setup I would be able to remove the passenger mirror and fab a block-off plate where it meets the cheater panel. Any ideas?

The spoiler on the back, in my estimation, probably helps airflow; it seems to extend backward as much or more than it does upward, and is not extremely wide. I don't think a boat tail or kammback is in the cards due to driver preference and time constraints, so we'll (I'll) be looking for more simple, stealthy solutions.

Rear wheel skirts would be a challenge because the fender lips are rolled from the factory and there are no bolts to which I can attach hardware. It's just smooth undercoating in there. Ideas?

I'm going to do some investigation on air dam options, because that might be possible and worthwhile.

It feels good to get to modding again. Mod All The Cars! A neighbor has expressed interest in modding his Exploder, and he happened to walk by while I was doing the grille block. We'll see what happens there.

Cheers!

[Baltothewolf]

Originally Posted by Sven7

After my 45+ MPG trip to MN and back, my girlfriend got a little jealous and asked if I would mod her car. Turns out she was not joking! It's a 2012 Nissan Sentra CVT that gets high 30's to low 40's on the freeway from what I've seen.

The budget: $0. (I assume I'm welcome to put money toward it though )

First order of business was to block the upper grille. It appears these cars do not come with transmission coolers, and the only thing up there seems to be the radiator, so on it went. Made from black coroplast.

Before:





After:





I was thinking about taking the passenger mirror off, but it doesn't even fold back, and obviously mirror deletes are not available for this as they are for Civics, so we'll see. I added a blind spot mirror to her driver's side because visibility is terrible. I think that with the right interior mirror setup I would be able to remove the passenger mirror and fab a block-off plate where it meets the cheater panel. Any ideas?

The spoiler on the back, in my estimation, probably helps airflow; it seems to extend backward as much or more than it does upward, and is not extremely wide. I don't think a boat tail or kammback is in the cards due to driver preference and time constraints, so we'll (I'll) be looking for more simple, stealthy solutions.

Rear wheel skirts would be a challenge because the fender lips are rolled from the factory and there are no bolts to which I can attach hardware. It's just smooth undercoating in there. Ideas?

I'm going to do some investigation on air dam options, because that might be possible and worthwhile.

It feels good to get to modding again. Mod All The Cars! A neighbor has expressed interest in modding his Exploder, and he happened to walk by while I was doing the grille block. We'll see what happens there.

Cheers!

If I was you, I would get smooth wheel covers. From what I have seen they always give a noticeable improvement. An air dam seems pretty easy to, I'll be doing one on my civic sometime this week.

Also, I would express to the interested neighbor that an air dam would not only look 'cool' on his Explorer but it would probably give an mpg or 2 as well.

[dirtydave]

pictures are broken?

[Sven7]

Oh yes, wheel covers. I forgot about those. They will be considered, but I have no experience building "nice" ones or ones for wheels without lips. These alloys have a flush lip, so a cover will have to sit over the wheel, not in it.

Pics work fine for me. Try my user album?

[backpacker3]

The pictures aren't broken for me but they won't display. There isn't the little box with the ? inside but it's like they're trying to load and then not showing up on the page. I'm sure it looks good though.

[Sven7]

Pics are fixed. She says the car is working beautifully! We'll see how it goes in the longer term.

[dirtydave]

Looks good!