Volvo 850 coroplast wonder
 

I picked up an 8x4 foot panel of coroplast at my local plastic supply store to fix up some of the more problematic areas of our volvo 850 wagon 5 speed. This car left the factory with an ok .32 Cd which is surprising considering the boxy styling. Still much better than the .36 for the Volvo 960 and .38 for the volvo 740 and 240 wagons. The whole job took about 3 hours of labor, a couple of bags of zip ties, 3 bolts from home depot and one ruined pair of pants. Total cost was $25. I'm sure it could be done much more cheaply if I went dumpster diving behind Kinkos or Home Depot.

Left front before
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/...008f0523_o.jpg
After
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3242/...18e450a3_o.jpg

Right front before
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3131/...1a0c98d5_o.jpg
After
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3288/...fd776eb1_o.jpg

Center front section
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/...93d911f1_o.jpg

Rear before
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3192/...30702181_o.jpg
After
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3245/...9260eb75_o.jpg
My all time best tank without the undertray was 32mpg using a lot of effort to coast and control speed. So far with the undertray we've only done one 40 mile highway trip with cruise control set at 65mph. The trip computer showed 33.5mpg. We'll see how it pans out on our 1700 road trip to Seattle next week.

cheers
Justin

Nice work.

Wait, wheres your muffler?

Muffler is ahead of the rear suspension under the rear seat. You can see it in the last pic.

tjts1 -

Wow! [Insert Clapping Smiley Here].

CarloSW2

Volvo for life! Good job on that.

tjts1 rides again!
Really nice work!
Good to see ya.
I never did any of my postulated aero work under my Volvo brick.
I've been car pooling though, which has cut my gas consumption nearly in half!

looks really nice! hooray for coroplast!

Thanks Bruce! I'm debating a grill block for the road trip but i'm not sure how much would be safe or ideal. I blocked off the top half of the grill on our last trip to Seattle but that was in the winter. I was tempted to block off the entire grill and let the engine breath through the bumper opening but I'm not sure thats a good idea in the summer with the AC on. Any ideas?
http://www.swedespeed.com/gallery/ge...scaled_600.jpg

Only one way to find out: keep adding tape and watching the coolant temp until you scare yourself. Then take a bit of tape off. :p

Seriously - I think you'll be surprised how much you can cover. Listen for the electric fan as well though, if you get it running a lot more, the added electrical load may negate the better aero.