Project: The AeroFocus

[Weather Spotter]

ok, great job on the car!

[HydroJim]

It's kind of hard to tell what's what without a good long stare, but all I have left with metal work is to add some lateral bracing and attach the bottom bars to the back sheet


This photo is deceiving, because it doesn't show how much I reduced the wake .I still have to cut the back sheet to shape but I'm guessing I reduced the wake by at least 50%. I may make an attachment piece to add a foot or 2 for long road trips


another angle of the bracing to help people see what's going on.


If you want any particular shots let me know.

[Weather Spotter]

if you can back out of the garage a full side profile on level ground would be great!

[HydroJim]

weatherspotter- I'll probably get to that tomorrow. Once I finish off the bracing and get everything into place, I'll back it out and see how I followed the template. I believe i'm below the template by about 5 inches at the back because I didn't account for sagging when I got rid of my supports. but based on my measurements I never exceeded 16 degrees so I think I'll be ok.

[HydroJim]

Do you guys think I should round the bottom corners or just leave it as a 90 like it currently is? I plan on having rear wheel boat tailing too if that changes the answer.



For the record, the car is roughly 45"x56"(2520 square inches) at the back and the new rear end is 20"x45"(900 square inches) so I've essentially reduced my wake by 60%. Can any of the gurus on here guess what my drag reduction will be?

[Weather Spotter]

rounding the edges might help a bit, mine are squared off as its easier to build.

[HydroJim]

I went ahead and rounded the edges a bit. The tail itself is centered, but for some reason the left side sticks out a good 2 inches further back compared to the right side. I'm not sure how that happened, but there isn't much I can do short of cutting all the metal and putting it back together which is way too much work to fix a little crookedness.

[HydroJim]

Finished installing the tail lights. I still have to install the 4th brake light(Gotta be safe), and do the wiring. But, I got the hard part done. By the way, never install these kinds of lights without the right size hole saw. It's a nightmare of filing the metal down. I still have some sharp corners to smooth down on the perimeter of the back sheet, but it's getting there.



I can't wait to wire the lights in and start putting the coroplast skin on.

Also, weatherspotter's promised side view. It's a bit disappointing, but it's been raining all day and it's the best shot I could get in the garage. Based by my measurements though, I fall roughly 3 inches shot of the template which I assume is due to sagging when I removed the boat tail's supports.



The top bars have a slight S bend in them due to flexing, but when I put the coroplast on I'll try to straighten that part out

[Weather Spotter]

The lights look great!

I would fix the metal beofre you sheet it, the plastic will only make it worse,

from the angles it looks like it is high in the open box area (teal pads on the back wall) then it slopes a bit to fast to the tail. smoothing this out will make a much better tail.

Rain Rain Rain, we have flooding and 4-6 inches of rain in the last few days.

[arcosine]

I like the lights and the shape, not sure about the structure.