Some mods and some observations

[stimpsonjcat]

OK, couple of things I did this evening.

Finished up my lower grill block-outs and added them on, as well as covers for the fog light locations (my versa has no lights there).



Sorry for the crappy pic but it was dusk when I did a test drive. No overheat problems, but that test will truly come tomorrow when I drive it in traffic and the heat of afternoon idiocy in my small town. I think I will probably go ahead and fill the two fog light sections over with bondo and paint flat black to match the other black painted sections of the front clip.

I have cut out upper grill covers, but again I hesitate to use them unless the hive mind says it is a must to get more aero benefit. If I do mount those I will probably cut out a larger opening for the lower block-out and at least a band across the top as I think that would yield the most cooling benefit.

I am also considering putting some of this across the existing 'dam'...what does the hive-mind think?
NISSAN EZ-LIP FRONT SPOILER CHIN VALENCE SENTRA ALTIMA | eBay



Next was some tell-tale testing of both the windshield wiper area and the mirror setup.

Here is a shot of the wiper area tells at 60mph:

There is very little activity on these in the center where the wipers are most pronounced. I am thinking this means the small deflector at the back of the hood does its job pretty well, so I see no need to muck with that area any.


Here is a shot of the tells at the mirror:

The top tell is totally spazzing out.
The next down is actually fairly stable.
The bottom two again are pretty active, but not as bad as the top tell.

I also tried this with the mirror folded, and it really didn't help things that much, but no pic.

This reinforces my plan to remove the factory mirrors and install smaller mirrors instead. Right now I have two of the concave mirror assemblies that are meant to mount to outboard mirrors I have seen folks use around here coming. Hey they're $4 a piece! I will not be using the concave mirrors I do not think, my plan it to cut off about 1/4 to 1/3 of the mirror assembly horizontally, and then make a bracket to mount the larger part in that orientation just forward of the door on the small window the Versa has. I will cut and mount a piece of standard flat mirror to the adjustable bar these come with, and possibly a small concave mirror if there is room. I'll try to cut these at an angle that yields the appropriate angle for the mirror to point where I want it to without causing door issues.


If that plan fails usefulness, I will order some motorcycle mirrors cfg83 turned me onto (Thanks Carlos!) from one of his threads in the same holes the factory mirrors used.


Next project will be to make some spats for the tires that attach to the more or less flat cowling under the engine compartment. I was just going to make some that angled out to about 80% of the width of the tires, but then I read the prius article from a while back on that 'other website' and now I am waffling between more or less vertical, but not large spats...and more wedge-like spats. I'll probably try the wedge design first, as it looks easy to make out of coroplast, and I have a enough of that left to play with. If I go with a more vertical solution closer to the tire I will use more rigid material.

Comments welcomed...can't offend me...I'm new here!