Presenting myself, Smokeduv, to this forum

[Smokeduv]

First of all, sorry for my english... I'm from Mexico

Hi, I'm new in this forum and I thought it was incredible when I first saw it. As far as I see, here are some serious modders and that there are many many things that you can do to your car to improve the aero efficiency in pretty big numbers.

About my car, well, there's not a lot about it, it's a bit on the contrary side of the things shown here, as is an "sport" version, so it has grippier tyres and many things.

The car in question is a Fiat Grande Punto . It has a little 1.4L turbocharged engine but the most interesting thing (at least that's what I thought about it) is that, being an sport version of the normal car, it has many things that make it a bit better, aerodynamically speaking, than the normal car, as it doesn't have a raised wing rear spoiler, has side skirts, it's a bit low (so sometimes it's a bit difficult to drive here, and doesn't have much clearance for normal hydraulic jacks (2ton)).

One thing that surprised me is that the underside of the car is all blocked, so it has many plastic panels so the only thing that shows up is the exhaust.

I think that's all I can say about it that is not found easily on the internet.

I'll try to post some photos of it to see all the things that already has, as I haven't done much work on it to achieve better MPG.

About the forum: I think it's really really great, as I'm a big fan of DIY, so, there's plenty of information that will keep me busy.

Regards.

MAD

[Smokeduv]

BTW, my numbers:

37.6 MPG (US), 45.2 MPG (Imperial), 6.25 L/100 (Highway)
29.5 MPG (US), 35.4 MPG (Imperial), 8 L/100 (City)

My driving style is mixed, but I think I drive (or at least I try to) a little bit in the eco side in 80% or the time.

[mcrews]

Smoke,
welcome!
now that's a little turbo! 1.4liter.

You'll enjoy it here, lot's of info....alll the time!

[Sporty Modder]

Cant wait to see some pics, welcome. Your english is very good.

[Smokeduv]

It seems that I need 5 post before uploading some pictures, so I'll be talking a bit of what I want to do to improve mileage on the car.

First, I want to see if I can improve the underside. I know that it already has some plastic plates, but I don't know how much can be gained doing some channeling or smoothing the surface and installing a the tire spats.

Then, I want to make it a bit lower, not a lot, as there are not much clearance (I don't know how much, but it must be less than 5 inches, the iphone doesn't fit there), therefore, I can't lower it a lot or I'll be in trouble.

[Smokeduv]

I have a little problem for hypermiling and the problem is that I use my car in the city almost all the time, but I can do a bit less than 30 mpg as the usual number, but if there's a lot of traffic, i can go down to 26, sometimes even more. But if there's no traffic at all, I can squeeze 33.6 mpg, but that's almost like a dream, as it has been only 2-3 times in 3 years, because it's not fair to count only one day, these numbers are for a full time.

One thing I did was the gap sealing, I use some white electric tape (just to match colors) but as I haven't been able to test it, as there's not enough speed where the air has some influence. I will have to plan a trip to test it :P

[Smokeduv]

In the future I'll see if I can remove the side mirror, but I think I won't gain a lot, as the car already has some aerodynamic styling on them (at least it looks like, but I don't know if it really works that way) but I don't really want to remove it as i use it a lot. Maybe some cameras or something like that, but that would be a big project and a costly one.

[Smokeduv]

Ok then, 5 posts, so here I go

As requested, here are some pics of the car:

These photos are from when I first bought it.







And these ones are from the car in its current form:




Note that there are no DIY aero optimizations (yet), but the car has some, but I don't have pictures from the underside.

What would you recommend to improve the car without some extreme mods like a boat tail and things like that?

I forgot one thing that I want to do, and maybe it's the next one before all the most adventurous ones. I want to make the grill block, as it has two and they are fairly big

Sorry for the many posts in a little time.

[Kodak]

Hey, that's a nice looking car Smokeduv. Welcome to EM.

[Sporty Modder]

Nice looking car. It looks pretty areo to me. Love the red on white.