Questions for those with boat-tails
 

I just wanted to ask some questions regarding boat-tails on a car.

I remember some discussion about how that since the tail end of your car is now longer, yet the wheelbase remains unchanged, your fulcrum point will cause your rear end to swing out when you make turns, hitting other cars and taking out small children in your path.

How bad of a problem is this in reality ?
When you merge into traffic, is it more difficult to maneuver ?

Do you find that you have a hard time finding a parking spot, or even pulling into normal size parking spots due to the awkward wheelbase situation ?

Do you have to think out where you are going to park before hand ?

What about backing into a parking spot, or the question everyone seems to joke about - parallel parking ?

What other problems have you encountered ?

When backing up, I have to pay more attention.

Parking, I usually pull nose first into the stall, so there is no change there. But backing in is very easy to do, especially when there is just grass behind the car.

I do not usually parallel park with this car, so no difference there.

Side winds have not changed the handling at all, that I can tell. The car still pushes the nose in high winds, and that is exactly the same as before.

Not exactly what you asked about, but really like the addition, as it makes the intent of the car very obvious to other drivers.

Jim.

Same here, mostly. I still do fit in a normal parking space, just. As with Jim's, mine tapers in on the sides so swing when turning isn't a real problem, one does get used to the extra length fairly easily. I have parallel parked a few times, once in front of the VT State DMV in Montpelier( no pressure there) and all was fine. If you've ever driven a pick up with the tail gate down and/or lumber hanging out the rear, it's like that. I've never felt that my tail was a safety issue except for the gawkers that fly by at 80+mph who act like they just saw Elvis. You do have to get used to driving with new strategies, but didn't we all do that after coming here? I sure did:turtle::D.

I've had a boattail installed on my car since 2006 and have driven close to 200,000 miles with it on the car.

Parallel parking and backing up are no problem since the enlarged interior of my car extends way back into the boattail. The rear of the interior is less than 2 feet from the tip of the boattail so I can use glances into the back of the interior compared to what I see out of the rear window to keep my distance perception when backing up.

My boattail narrows from side to side as well as from top to bottom so "wagging the tail" in a sharp turn isn't a problem.

My car, with boattail, is the same length as a Ford Explorer, so any parking spot large enough to handle a large SUV will fit my car.

In normal driving, I can drive as though the boattail wasn't there. Its a bit more sensitive to crosswinds than it used to be, but I've driven other vehicles that were much worse in a crosswind.

Just wanted to add something here : I hope my questions don't sound like I'm being disrespectful.
Now that my car is running again, I'm actually thinking of copying you guys.

I don't foresee myself actually doing it though.

Glad to see your civic is up and running again

I found 4 or 5 images on google images of the tuft tests you did a few years ago. Seems to me there was a few more that I lost. Do you still have any of those? Great stuff for anyone with a civic hatch like me

I did that test with around 10 seconds worth of video. The video is nearly useless because of all of the shaking . I'll PM you some time this week if I can find it.

I intended to test a cardboard Kammback , but rain was on the way, so I just left a piece of it to see the flow in that area.

It started to rain seconds after the pictures were taken.

With my tail I will say the same as the others, you get use to it in days and its not an issue. for me the added visibility in the back makes backing up easier ( I can see the end of the car now). Parking is a non issue, I grew up on a 15 passenger van. This is a piece of cake compared with that.

Jim, Do you have pictures of your Honda Insight?

See the first page and some of the last pages on this thread :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...-13533-40.html

Build pics are somewhere inbetween ;)