Quote:
Originally Posted by Longshot270
Hajek Sets Three Production Truck Land Speed Records At Bonneville - Dragzine.com
Jack, I tend to wonder about the front dam. Every modified "production" vehicle to run at high speeds, including the F250 link I posted above and most NASCAR style race cars, put one on. The idea is to force air around the sides rather than beneath for greater handling at high speeds. NASCAR is an endurance race more than anything so every mile you can get without stopping puts you ahead. Top speed just makes the miles go by quicker. If the airdam styling had hurt mileage they would not have used them.
Artie, when you raise timing you increase mileage quite a bit. When I was running canned tunes, just a .5 degree increase gave me 1 mpg in the city.
The gotts mod increase higher flow rate efficiency (above 2100ish) but has no noticeable effect below that.
Also, I installed a vacuum guage a while back (something you may want to look into) and the cruise control will consistenly lower the vacuum a few (inches/Hg) as compared to my foot. You can get them online for around $15 and you just hook a hose up past the throttle body. My truck actually had an extra lead in the vacuum system that I plugged directly into.
I'm thinking 4wd regearing will never pay for itself.
Find that guy who turned his couger into a bugatti clone. He is pretty dang good with fiberglass and making good body stylings.
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Longshot, I think the front air dam is there more to reduce the "lift" that airflow produces on a fast moving vehicle, rather than as a "drag reducer". As you say, this improves handling at high speeds (an absolute necessity). Other methods involve wings and spoilers that force the vehicle down onto the road. Without these devices, the vehicle can become negatively stable at high speeds, resulting in total loss of control.
And, wings and spoilers also create drag. It's a price you have to pay for control.
Now, if you were able to create an air dam that looked a bit like the "cow catcher" on the old steam engines (only solid) then you might reduce drag a bit by moving the air aside in a less violent manner than the flat front of our trucks. We actually develop a "stagnation area" at the front where there is very little air movement. At the boundaries of this area, the air flow is very turbulent.
We also, of course, have a big stagnation area behind the truck, due to the "vertical" planes there. I think we could improve fuel economy by creating a bed cap that would taper from the cab down
past the current tailgate to a "point". Kind of a "teardrop" back end. It would look absolutely horrible, the truck would lose most of its utility, and it would be far too long to fit in any parking space.
- Jack