Short Skirts?
 

http://www.getmsm.com/ev/EV1/2003_0726_115526AA.JPG

I've noticed that some wheel skirts don't extend way down.
This one is above the center of the wheel.

Looking at my rear wheel-wells,
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...RV/flapDel.jpg
I see the wheel well looks really large. With a lot of space on top.
Seems like the whole car has been lifted a few inches too high.

So, I've been thinking about adding a short skirt to the rear wheel wells..
Maybe just cover up 1/2 the wheel well??

The main reason I would want to go with a mini-skirt is mechanical simplicity.
I would not have to build a metal frame to hold the coroplas away from the wheel.
Most likely just one steel rod across the bottom would be used to
keep the coroplas from flopping around in the wind.

So, should I give the mini-skirt a try? How much more effective would it
be if the skirt went to the bottom of the door??

I have a lot of room around the wheel inside the well. Wouldn't be better
if there was less air space around the wheel in there??

Thanks for any comments or suggestions.

Cheers,
Rich

PS:
Today, I taped over the holes on the rims. (7 out of 8 anyways).
Hoping to alleviate some of the rim drag.. Semi-racing disc.. ;)

Try it with a cardboard mock-up to see the real-world results if its worth it between none/partial/full. Theoretically, the more of the well covered, the less turbulence created but how much of a difference is made from a partial to full skirt -- hard to say without testing on your own vehicle.

(you're right -- it does seem higher than normal, or rather it seems that way -- maybe it was designed to accomodate larger wheels or chains?)


EDIT:
and the EV-1 (or at least that's what I think that first pic is) is much lower to the ground AND it has side fairings in front/behind the wheel to further minimize underturbulence around the wheel -- which may be why they didn't go with a full rear skirt (plus for convenience and ease of access).

Xringer -

Interesting. When I look at the EV1, I notice the side of the car "curve under" the car. I think that extending the wheel skirt down would have required them to bulge it out, which would have increased their frontal area.

I want to do something similar, partially for my own aesthetic reasons. Here's a mock-up :

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/5...skirt01kv5.jpg

I put an angle on it because that angle matches the bottom rear horizontal of the bumper.

CarloSW2

It looks like the mini-skirt on the first picture was just short enough to give access to the wheel in case of the need of a tire change, without removing the skirt.

Honda and Toyota have made mods on their hybrids that, perhaps, aren't as noticeable. They've simply reduced the size of the wheel well.

Automotive Related:

I like the look of the long skirts better. The short skirt I am sure is no less efficient than the longer ones.

Apparel Related:
I once tried a short skirt once while driving. I found it less comfortable than the mid calf length. Although cooler it kept bunching up behind my butt. Maybe a kilt would have been better. Damn...I meant to say it was a kilt! Yeah, I know what your thinkin, "cross dressin ecomoddin freak." The high heels weren't mine they were in the car when I bought it. LOL

Safety Tip, Apparel Related:
Never get out at the truck stop to fill up.

Over on the CRV forum, I've seen where guys have replaced the OEM tires with larger sizes.
A very popular way to waste fuel I guess.. :(

I'm not so sure about the "ease of access" on the EV-1. It seems to me
that you would still need to pop the skirt to change a tire..
Maybe they did it for looks.?.

If shorter, it would be less affective, but if the bulge was going to be large,
would it be a wash? One canceling out the other?

If the bulge wasn't going to be big on your car (and it wasn't too hard
to install), I would skip the aesthetics and go with full coverage..

I'm not sure how much good any size skirt is going to do on my CRV,
since the inside volume of the wheel well is so large..

I've never had the chance to examine any modern wheel skirt, but IIRC, about changing tires back around 1960, the wheel skirts always had to be removed before changing the tire. They were attached with clips and weren't hard to remove.

Oh yeah, a Kilt... Well, here you go.. 21st Century Kilts - Collections - PVC and Leather

:thumbup:

Hiya,

I think that skirts will function better is they cover as much of the wheel opening as possible. I tried some smaller skirts (because forming a curve in them was not possible) and now I have Coroplast skirts that "connect" the lowest part of the opening, and they are helping a bit more to improve the MPG.