Side skirts in Coroplast. Prius modding continues...

[orange4boy]

Great Job! If I were you, I would put holes in the bottom in order to let rain water drain out. I noticed that my Saturn's plastic running board is hollow like yours and has "unused holes", so I figured drainage was the reason.

1) Thanks

2) I did do that on the second one. I cut a 1 x 2 tab and pushed it through the bottom to form a little exit ramp, chamfered a bit off the end for the water. That way the spray from the wheels cannot enter as easily.

Darn, I should have left it whole so I could use them for extra flotation for my amphib-prius project.

[basjoos]

Looks good and is similar to those on my car. The one difference is that my side skirts don't have the bottom horizontal piece connecting the two vertical pieces of the side skirts so they can flex independently of each other when I go over a curb or bump high enough to bend the side skirts. I had considered going with the solid bottom, which is the better aerodynamic design, but figured it wouldn't likely hold up to getting bashed by repeated impacts with the road. It will be interesting to see how your side skirts hold up over time and if they do, I'll rebuild mine to include a bottom piece between the skirts.

I addressed the problem of the side skirts trapping and compressing air under the car by adding the rounded nose to lower my stagnation point and reduce the amount of air passing under the car.

[orange4boy]

I'm pretty confident mine should be ok impact wise. Most of my issues are with the ferry ramp which is a front airdam smasher. If the skirts start to get bashed then I can raise them by cutting some off the top and reinstalling them. The Prius has surprisingly stiff suspension.

I'm also planning to radius the bottom edge with foam or rubber.

I will have to see about the under car airflow issue. Restricting it with a deeper airdam will have to be my solution if that's needed. luckily the prius only has a slight overhang and a fairly smooth underbelly. Still needs a belly pan though.

I have seen some videos of a small splitter which is supposed to direct air over, but the smoke just got sucked under anyhow. Although that may have been because of an intended "vacuum" under the car.

I imagine having the boattail helps too because it lowers the pressure differential so there is less air getting "sucked" under.

I have some pics of my construction which I will post when I get a chance.

[daqcivic]

Excellent work. I've thought about something like that for a long time, but was never convinced of it's effectiveness over properly designed strakes fore and aft of the wheels. I would be VERY interested to see coast-down test results.