New beetle tdi 5 speed

[razordave]

I bought an 01 beetle in Missouri and drove it back to Florida.

Built pizza pan wheel covers and tried to keep it under 90 most of the way.

Averaged 33 mpg until I hit Florida. Not bad considering I was rolling 80-90 most of the way.

I did the resistor mod for more fuel, makes the car drivable with the air con running.. i need to replace that with a potentiometer so I can leave it unmodified when I don't need the extra fuel.

Anyway, I bought and installed a hitch so this little rig will be replacing a pick up truck for pulling my homebuilt travel trailer.

Would someone please do the aero template over my photo? Thanks in advance,
Dave

[freebeard]

I did this in 2013.

[aerohead]

I'm looking at my analysis of the car.
The book,'THE NEW VW BEETLE', by Jonathan Wood, page 35, has a fine color photograph of your car inside VW's climatic wind tunnel, with smoke flow.
The afterbody reaches a tangent angle as steep as 44.5-degrees from the horizontal.
The flow is separating at a tangent angle of 24-degrees, almost-exactly half-way down the backlight.
Without the wing, you're at Cd 0.39.
If you follow Dr. Hermann Burst 'solution' for the equally nasty 1972, Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7, @ Cd 0.40, you'd follow the local streamline, as far as you were willing, filling all the void in between with body, to create a Kammback.
Carl Breer did this for the Chrysler Airflow and was able to reduce drag, from Cd 0.51, to Cd 0.244 ( essentially a 2012 Tesla Model S, but in 1934 )
All PGA golf balls experience flow separation at 23.5-degrees.
W.A. Mair recommended no more than a 22-degree afterbody tangent angle.
I'm conservative, and happy to limit my projects to 22-degrees.

[freebeard]

Maybe I can find that New Beetle .OBJ. I have much better software today and could incorporate aerohead's parameters.

[razordave]

I reconstructed my (what I'm calling a visor.) It may technically be a spoiler but IDK, don't sit right with me..

Remade with aluminum composite panel. I may make something to pop up when pulling my trailer and I may extend this further back but considering a hitch mounted box for some more structure.

Oh yeah, made it gold for better heat rejection, you get desperate here in the south Florida sun.

I'm gonna go check out the anal probe thread.

[razordave]

I spent a sizable part of my past two days seeking a hitch mounted cargo carrier for a 1.25" hitch.

That lead me to bicycle racks. Nothing really seemed to be exactly what I wanted vs what it would cost to procure.

Enter discarded satellite dish. I set that bracket to roughly 19 degrees but once I set it on the car, the twist was much more apparent. I may have to build another bracket.

My other thought is to utilize the dish itself as a rear bulkhead or maybe a cross member to affix the skin from the truck topper.

I also removed my rear seat as it's only ever me and the dog.

I may also ditch the muffler which could be weight reduction and performance. From what I've read, the turbo diesel becomes much more efficient when it can breathe.

Lastly but not least, I pulled the resistor to bring the fuel back to stock. I did a 24.5 mpg quarter tank and said enough is enough. I haven't brought the fuel below 1/2 tank yet. It makes me nervous to drive 300+ miles and trust that we haven't burnt half a tank yet

[jimchitas]

First of all nice job lad consider to add rear fender skirts to vw bettle to get better mileage but its also one of the moderns cars that can have fender skirts without looking weird when i was researching about vw bettle older generations some beetles were paired with them

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by razordave

I reconstructed my (what I'm calling a visor.) It may technically be a spoiler but IDK, don't sit right with me..

Remade with aluminum composite panel. I may make something to pop up when pulling my trailer and I may extend this further back but considering a hitch mounted box for some more structure.

Oh yeah, made it gold for better heat rejection, you get desperate here in the south Florida sun.

I'm gonna go check out the anal probe thread.

I looked at the 'visor' at as much magnification as I could get, and it appears that the forward leading edge is 'open' to the airstream. Is that correct?
If it were, then air from the rear would flow forwards inside the visor, towards the car's suction peak, near the windshield header.
Any modification like this would need to be completely airtight, except at the rear.

[freebeard]

Not to mention, it's more likely to tear right off. The leading edge could be a thin J-shape that slips onto the top edge of the hatch.

I found the file I mentioned at #4, but it's a format that won't open in my current software. I looked online but didn't find anything that was not no cost. But I am reminded to try again.

I may make something to pop up when pulling my trailer and I may extend this further back but considering a hitch mounted box for some more structure.

Consider Aerocivic. It had a Kamm-back on the hatch that fitted to a boat tail trunk extension.

[aerohead]

When Copy-Pro was in existence, Al could print them out of PhotoShop.
Even 'water-marked' images can serve us as long as the resolution will support photo-enlargement.
I typically work with an 11- by 17 inch paper format, with my 'silhouettes' at 83.5mm scale overall vehicle height on the light table.