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Old 06-13-2013, 03:34 PM   #11 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG View Post
Another option (until you get that gap-filler / bridge) is to affix a half-round shape (border) around the leading edges of the trailer. (EG. something like pool noodles, or PVC pipe cut in half lengthwise.) You'd gain a flow-friendly transition from the forward face of the trailer to the sides, and the shallow "pool" that would create on the face won't harm its effectiveness.
As an additional intermediary, you can add some vertical partial baffles as a vortex trap, to reduce cross winds. Similar to semi trailer application, though probably needs to be scaled to fit better.


Nice project!


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Old 06-13-2013, 11:04 PM   #12 (permalink)
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nice work.

Very clean. I like it
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Old 06-14-2013, 06:22 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Numbers on the way to Utah

Update from the road with nose of trailer dropped, no skirt yet:

Today's Trip distance: 466 miles (Boulder, CO to Park City, UT)
Average Speed: 58 mph (with speeds jumping to 65-70 mph occasionally)
Terrain: Good bit of climbing and descending.
AC On
Average MPG: 35.2 mpg

We're pretty happy with this result, I'd love to see 40 mpg after the skirt/gap filler. If we have enough energy tonight after this long drive, we'll be stitching up a skirt at the campsite tonight. We'll then test it tomorrow on our 750 mile trip to San Francisco.

Update soon.

Cheers,
Tommy
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Old 06-14-2013, 08:21 PM   #14 (permalink)
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from a friend who was out camping in UT, if you have alcohol at the campsite skirts will come to you. wait.. wrong skirts... nevermind.

watching how this turns out since I am hoping to do a trailer similar to what you have behind my Jetta TDi. I was thinking of rounding or angling the front corners more tho.

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Old 06-21-2013, 09:05 PM   #15 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TedV View Post
f
watching how this turns out since I am hoping to do a trailer similar to what you have behind my Jetta TDi. I was thinking of rounding or angling the front corners more tho.
The front edges should definitely be radiused if you're not going to go with some skirt, we just ran out of time for the skirt before we left.

Update: Still no skirt.

Today's Trip distance: 200 miles (Flagstaff, AZ to Thoreau, NM)
Average Speed: 55 mph
Terrain: Rolling
AC On
Net Elevation Change: -400 ft.
Average Elevation: ~6700 ft
Average MPG: 43.0 mpg!


Thrilled with the numbers today, we finally exceeded our goal of 40 mpg for this project.

We caught up with our package in Flagstaff that contains our Spandex, sewing machine, LaminX and velcro for making our skirt/gap filler.

If the skirt doesn't work out, we'll do some sort of pool noodle setup to radius the edges, I like that idea Metro!

If things go well stitching up our spandex skirt at the campsite tonight, we may leave our campsite with some type of gap filler tomorrow!

Cheers
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Old 06-22-2013, 07:38 PM   #16 (permalink)
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Successful Skirt

Last night was an interesting night.

We rolled into camp last night around 6, probably the most reasonable time we've hung up the keys for the day yet on our trip. We settled in at Bluewater Lake State Park campground, outside of Albuquerque, NM, a good sized lake held at bay by an even larger dam.

The place was a real party with RV's surrounding the lake, smoke rising off of charcoal grills, and some guitars pulling off some cool riffs. The cold water was calling as we were all parched from the dry desert air.

We took a dip, then started on the skirt. We powered our sewing machine with the 44 volt lithium battery on our Outrider 422 Alpha. Plenty of power to run a sewing machine for days. The 44V is inverted into 110V AC, then fed into the sewing machine.

The Pain of the project was the elasticity of the fabric, making it difficult to mock up and measure, combined with the extremely sticky adhesive on the industrial velcro, which did a great job of gumming up the needle and repeatedly breaking the upper thread. It was good practice of threading the machine for me, something that I probably did almost 50 times last night.

Our strategy with the fabric was to stretch it as tight as humanly possible in every direction, to minimize wrinkling, and maximize tension to reduce flapping in the wind. We'll just remove the skirt on exit ramps, and reapply it on entrance ramps, so as to not overstress the stitches on tight turns. This setup is primarily for our long tours anyways, and will have minimal benefit around town.

It was a three man job, Dan and Jesse stretching the fabric while I stitched in the velcro.

We used LaminX as a base coat on the car, and then attached the hooked velcro to the car on top of the LaminX, so the Velcro's adhesive doesn't damage the car's paint.

This system seems to work very well, as we can put a ton of tension on the fabric, and it stays firmly attached.

I triple stitched everything, and threw in the towel at 4AM with Jesse, leaving the finishing trimming and hemming the lower edges for the morning.

We got it all mounted up, and pulled tight, and there are really no wrinkles to speak of in the fabric. Flapping in the wind is minimal, much less than I expected, mostly because of the very high tension we put on the fabric.

Here are the shots with the skirt mounted:





I think it actually looks pretty neat. We're about 100 miles in for the day so far, and the numbers look very promising. I don't want to post them yet, as we were decending a bit. I'll post up the numbers at the end of our driving today, we should have a 300+ mile day to pull data, and we'll be using cruise control almost all day, so they should be pretty reliable numbers.

It looks like the skirt is going to make a significant difference.

Cheers,
Tommy
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Last edited by VRdublove; 06-22-2013 at 07:46 PM..
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Old 06-22-2013, 07:55 PM   #17 (permalink)
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Since the fabric is stretched super tight...do you have any problems when you make turns?
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Old 06-22-2013, 11:00 PM   #18 (permalink)
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Quote:
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Since the fabric is stretched super tight...do you have any problems when you make turns?
I think it's most likely that the velcro would detatch itself around a tight turn, but it's hard to say.

Pretty much all of our driving is I-40, for thousands of miles, so we're just detatching the skirt on the exit ramps, and reattaching it on the on ramps.

I'd rather avoid testing it so I don't have to pull out the sewing machine again, I want at least a week to go by before I have to run it again.

Here are the numbers from the driving so far today:

Today's Trip distance: 335 miles (Near Albuquerque, NM to near Amarillo, TX)
Average Speed: 55 mph (cruise typically set at 58)
Terrain: Rolling
AC On
Net Elevation Change: -2000 ft.
Average Elevation: ~4500 ft
Average MPG: 45.7 mpg (with skirt attached)

Definitely an improvement, we were seeing a solid 50 mpg for a good while today, then we pulled into a Albuquerque and did some idling and tooling around town. Had to have the AC running when parked because it's blazing hot.

Pretty incredible numbers considering we have three people in the car, 200 pounds of gear, and then about 1200 lbs gross trailer weight. All in all, I'd estimate our total payload at about 2000 lbs, we'll try to get on some scales. I'm super happy with the result!

We're planning on putting in 800+ miles tomorrow. I'll post an update tomorrow!

Cheers,
Tommy
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Old 07-17-2013, 04:28 PM   #19 (permalink)
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How about your fuel economy east of Albuquerque?
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Old 07-17-2013, 04:40 PM   #20 (permalink)
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Tommy, absolutely amazing. This is the kind of thing that advances the science. Keep it up!

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