Piwoslaw's Peugeot 307sw modding thread

[vtec-e]

That is a lot of work. Well done. I'm surprised also that the difference wasn't greater with the mods on. I think a full bellypan could bring the whole package together, although probably not that much more.
In any case, the mods are on now so you might as well leave them there!

ollie

[cfg83]

Piwoslaw -

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

...

So removing the roof rails, folding one mirror, adding a grille block, Kammback and rear skirts improved FE by just under 7% @70km/h and under 8% @100km/h. This is less than I was hoping for (at least 10%). Maybe I'd get better numbers if the test track was flatter, with less traffic, and if the fuel instrumentation was more reliable. I also would have liked to make more passes, but traffic was increasing with every minute.

...

I think this is great. In a non-ideal test you reached 70% of your goal while achieving a cool aesthetic result.

CarloSW2

[Piwoslaw]

I went through the coastdown data and got some numbers. Since it turned out that the test track is sloped, I decided to process the 'E' and 'W' runs independently. I used the spreadsheet you can get from IWillTry.org to find the Cd and Crr coefficients. I modified the spreadsheet for 5 second intervals instead of 10sec.
No mods:

.	W	E	Both
Cd	0.333	0.335	0.334
Crr	0.0110	0.0180	0.0144

With mods:

.	W	E	Both
Cd	0.334	0.325	0.324
Crr	0.0100	0.0155	0.0130

In the 'W' runs it appears that Cd increased, but when including all runs it dropped from 0.334 to 0.324. That's not much The roof rails and mirror did change frontal area, though. I guess you can't really change much in a 1.5 ton cow with the FA of a barn. Maybe I'll find a better, flatter road with less traffic somewhere around here and repeat the tests.

Yesterday evening the Wife was looking at used VW Lupos, the 3L versions. I looked over her shoulder and got jealous. Those things are so small, and weigh only half as much as Svietlana. Well, we both know that there's no reason to have two cars when we don't use the one we have too often.

[Piwoslaw]

I've decide that the roof extension should be pulled up, so that the leading edge is flush with the trailing edge of the roof, instead of slightly lower, as in the picture in post #26. As vtec-e noticed, the "step down" at the joint had the advantage of leaving the center stop light visible. On the other hand, I am afraid that it may have caused airflow to detach. This would leave the center brake light useless, which I wasn't too happy with. The solution was to buy an attachable third stop light and mount it at the bottom of the rear window.



This makes me happy again Now, the new stop light has something like 25-30 LED's and uses maybe 4-5W, while the OEM light had four 5W bulbs, giving 20W. Not that the difference would be noticeable, but why should it flash on when it can't be seen? So I put a connector socket on both stop lights and I can just switch between them if need be. The connectors are hidden under the hatch's plastic lining.

[99LeCouch]

Excellent work!

Love the simplicity of your Kammback! It looks like it belongs on your car.

[Cd]

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

Update
On Monday afternoon I went into town. Rubberneck galore!!!! At least three drivers took pictures with their phones while driving, one van stayed in the lane next to me for four kilometers, blocking everyone behind, with the passenger yelling at me "What is this supposed to be?" All of this at 80km/h. Whenever I stopped at a red, the cars in the neighboring lanes wouldn't pull up right next to me, but slightly behind. I was kind of expecting this, but I thought drivers would be at least slightly more responsible. I'm putting this in my signiture:

That monday excursion really stressed me out. I'm not a shy person, but I don't like being in the center of attention either. Especially if this attention can be potential hazard When I got to my destination I was really tensed up and had to walk around a park for 30 minutes to calm down.
After that I picked up the Wife and told her about my trip, and she says "Aw, come on. You've been reading that forum of your's too much and you're seeing things. Noone really cares." As she was saying this I was waiting at an intersection for a city bus to roll by. Just as she finished, the bus suddenly stopped in the middle of the intersection, the driver stared at Svietlana for 5-6 seconds, and continued on. Wife: "I take that back. Sorry."
Maybe it's good I didn't do a full boattail or the Air Force would escort me to the nearest landing strip. That's what you get for being the only rear-skirted and Kammbacked car within thousands of kilometers.

Thanks for posting pictures of your progress. Very nice looking body design. I really like your wheel covers, and the way they flow with the design.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that gets frustrated by rubberneckers - I would have thought that other parts of the world would be less rude when it comes to things like that though.

Funny that you mentioned the nun hat, since I saw that too ( even before you pointed it out.)

[Piwoslaw]

This weekend I finished my grille block. Wasn't as easy as just slapping something on as I had the following boundry conditions:

• Translucent, since my LED DRL's are mounted inside the grille,
• 2 openings, one for the radiator and one for the intercooler,
• Each opening operable by pushing a button.

I took Ollie's advice and used a central lock motor for each opening mechanism.



In the above picture you can see the ic on the left of the motors and the radiator fan on the right. Since the motors allow a back-forth movement of only 1cm, I decided to make 1cm wide slits that block or open when slid behind each other.



The total area of the openings seems small compared to the whole grille, but: (a) the grilles in the last few Peugeot models are grossly oversized, (b) I've never had a problem with my diesel even getting close to overheating, (c) I left enough room on the radiator side to double the slit area, (d) just over the front bumper are two openings which I didn't block.

I plan to open the ic side when temperatures rise, hopefully increasing the engine's efficiency, and use the radiator side only when that doesn't help. There is no wall behind the grille separating the intercooler from the radiator, so when the ic half is open some air will spill onto the rad.

The setup works, ie the slits open and close, but I haven't wired everything inside the cabin yet. Each mechanism will have a mom-off-mom rocker switch. Once everything is set up I'll see how opening/closing will effect temperatures. Saturday evening we drove around 100km with the grille block in closed position and the engine temp never got higher than 80*C. The outdoor temp was around 1-2*C.

While the front of car was in pieces, I got a wire into the radiator fan cable. That will light up a red blinking LED in the cabin when the fan goes on. Unfortunately, I'll hardly ever see it, since my driving style doesn't get the engine too warm... I'd also like to have indicator LED's to show whether the slits are physically open or closed, but I'm not too sure about putting microswitches down there in the wet and grime.

Now all I need is a fancy name, like "Semi-automatic bi-electromechanical dual temperature regulating something-or-other". I guess Electromechanical grille block gizmo is good enough

[Piwoslaw]

I was planning to do the grille block along with a belly pan, since the car would already be up in the air, but I had no time to prepare for the pan Once I got the car up, I did pay careful attention to how the bellypan will need to be made in the future (next spring, hopefully). I noticed two things:

1. The oem plastic pan under the engine hangs down quite low, in some place more than 5 cm lower than the screws the keep it on.



I always thought that this was to make room for the oil pan or some other low-hanging accessories, but after removing the pan I saw that there is nothing below the level of the pan's screws. This means I'll be able to make the new pan much flatter and "cleaner" aerodynamically.

2. The rear of the car is disgusting. Starting at the fuel tank, which droops down, it just gets worse. The suspension is way out there, behind the tank hangs the spare tire, with lots of nooks and crannies around it, and at the end is the bumper with a totally open front and bottom, acting like a parachute. I have no idea how to clean it all up. It would be much easier if I could cover the spare, but that's not really functional. Or maybe the airflow is already so turbulent by the time it gets to the back that it won't make any difference, and the easiest route would be to make a cover in front of the fuel tank, as in the 308?

[JasonG]

while other projects have prevented experimenting, I've been thinking of using shower pan liner rubber for a belly pan .
Easy to put on and flexes with lumps and suspension.
Just my $.02

[vtec-e]

If you're going to cover up the area around the rear bumper then you should make a cut out for the spare wheel. I see some handy little bolts holding the bottom of the bumper in place. These will hold the coroplast very securely. I'm sure there may be other bolts around the sides. Some threaded rod will allow you to bolt on your coroplast at any desired height.
Re; the front of the diesel tank, that is ugly alright. The 308's solution looked good and maybe you could do a variant of that along with a full belly pan? I see lots of bolts spot welded to the chassis that will be very handy to attach a belly pan. I see though, that the exhaust is hanging low so will touch your belly pan if you go the completely covered route like i did. In my case i just stuck on some reflective foil tape and i have no melting issues. At least at the speeds i drive at. I was in a hurry once and got a whiff of hot coroplast when i got out of the car!! Mmmmm toasty!!
But yours will need a cut-out as the exhaust will probably touch the belly pan. Some light aluminium strips bent into a curve (to go up and over the exhaust) will keep each side rigid where it is cut out. This will also let some cool air to the diesel tank.....
Then you can either cut out for the diesel tank itself or cover it entirely and continue all the way to the back, via the spare wheel. Maybe a removeable hatch for the spare wheel could work?

ollie