Time/Cost Effective Mods for a Colorado?
 

Hey all, I’ll be picking up a civic in good condition down south. My sister will be going regardless, so we will carpool in the truck she’s driving (I currently have no car). I have until this Saturday to get the truck tuned up, but I figured I might entertain some mods to help eke out some more MPG. What do you guys think are the best mods for the effort/cost involved? I will be using coroplast and similar materials and I can’t mess with the stock vehicle (no mirror deletes, no blocking the rear windshield, etc.). Luckily, we don’t need the box to be functional. Im thinking wheel covers, a makeshift tonneau cover with a bonneville style deck extension, and maybe some sort of roof spoiler at the rear. Im asking you guys as trucks are something I have no aero knowledge of. I have coroplast and sheets of acrylic as well as various other bits available.

The truck is a 2007 Chevy Colorado Extended Cab. Automatic trans. V6 iirc. This is a ~600km trip on open highway with little stops. The rest is some tricky city driving. She wants to do it all in one day. I’ll be driving the civic back, which I’m not too concerned about in terms of economy.

Tonneau, air dam and partial grille block for sure.

Nor I.

You might review the contributions from kach22i. ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/roof-spoiler-pick-up-truck-cab-phase-1

A few more links in my signature below FYI.

Conveyor belt material is the only lasting front chin spoiler material, all others are short lived.

You don't have to go as deep as I did on the chin spoiler, it helps a lot with handling in high winds. In fact most of the things done to my truck were to increase safety by increasing down-force, which can at times be at odds with lowering drag.

Bed cover is a big one.

Roof wing should be done near the end, it helps but you need a bunch of other things already in place in order to succeed.

Popular Science' GM pickup mods
 

If you can deal with the link complication, this image shows what GM recommended
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https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-a...pular-science-
Sorry, the address didn't work.

Thanks all. Good choices for sure. My plans will be altered a bit as my mom wants me to attach the bed cap she has. It’s got these weird ridges at the rear that would presumably make it worse than the naked box, so I’m going to see if it’s possible to reverse the cap and have the taller, ridged portion backwards, and then attach a rear kammback spoiler at the end with a 10 degree drop. Sorry, I don’t have a pic to explain. I will need the truck’s box to load up some shelves, but they are packed in flat boxes so I may not need the hinged window on the cap. Good news is that this is all going to be paved highway/city streets. That means I can use an air dam and side skirts! Should help a good amount.

This is all if I’m even gonna get away with this, lol. Not my truck and the owner doesn’t understand/care about these mods, so it’s starting with the usual plugs/filters/fluids tuneup and adding a Scangauge as well as a GPS. Hopefully duct tape doesn’t leave residue.

You can hope, or you could get aluminum tape instead. I find the residue less obnoxious.

Gorilla Tape isn't temporary! :)

Painter's tape isn't supposed to leave residue, but how quickly do you need to remove it?

Optimizing Aerodynamics of a Truck: Part 1

Optimizing Aerodynamics of a Truck: Part 2

Optimizing Aerodynamics of a Truck: Part 3

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Supports for testing tailgate spoiler at 4 angles later this week:

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