New belly pan

[Daox]

I agree with bike4miles, that is very clean and well done!

[4ringcircus]

Wow, that looks good. I love the belly pan idea because it is so subtle, no one know's you've done it. I think I will start a belly pan for my Ranger soon.

[puddleglum]

Thought I would give a long term update on this project. The pan made it through a Canadian winter in fairly good shape. I almost took out the front pan on a large lump of ice in a parking lot, but it was repairable without too much trouble. My front corner pans and front air dam are getting a little beat up. My wife has run them into the parking lot curbs several times now, and they haven't like it. I think that road noise has increased a little since I installed them as well.

As for mileage improvement, I am quite certain that the project was a success. I don't do a lot of driving on the highway, but when I do, mileage is consistently better than before. This summer is the first time I have done GPS corrections for speed and distance and found I have to reduce the mileage numbers by 1.8%. Even so, Scanguage has been showing 33mpg at 65mph on calm days and up to 35mph at 55mph. That's a good 2mpg better than what it was without it. I did build a rear pan as well before our vacation trip last week. It may have helped a little, but not enough to notice. I removed it when we got home though. I made it in a hurry and not very well but I still may revise it and try it again.

[puddleglum]

So, I have decided to revise my rear pan and see if I can make it a little more efficient. I have a couple of questions though. First, my rear bumper cover is quite rounded at the bottom. Might there be some benefit in extending the pan past the bottom edge of the bumper cover? I can easily go 3" without going past the bumper. Is that short distance likely to help enough to notice? Second, is it worthwhile building strakes on the outside edges? I was thinking of putting a couple in line with the inside edges of the tires.

[CigaR007]

Just finished looking through your photo album.. that's some impressive work !

[Sven7]

Very nice work.

I would say extending the belly pan out past the bumper couldn't hurt and it would eliminate the possibility of the airflow detaching sloppily on the bumper curvature.

[Reloadwin]

Looks Good keep it up.

[puddleglum]

So my rear pans are almost done, finally. I never seem to do anything the easy way so, as usual, they are pretty complicated and took a lot of time. Hopefully they help a little more than my first attempt. I needed to have access to my spare tire (mounts under the car) so I made a three piece rear pan. I also am concerned about covering the exhaust, but I'm hoping that the vent holes will allow enough cooling without ruining the airflow too much. Here are a few pics of the work in progress.
The three piece pan and a pan to cover the exhaust pipe behind the catalytic converter.
I decided to ad small strakes (is that the right word?) to try and direct the air better.

I had to fill and paint the back of the pans since they will show.

I have a 200 mile trip on the weekend, so it will be a good test run.

[mcrews]

very very nice.

Pack a box of 'fast fix' supplies.
Also, think about taking a couple of foot long 2x6. Thst way when you get up in the morning you can drive up on the real quick and take a quick look underneath w/ uot haveing to get the jack uot

[jime57]

Very nice work.