Aerodynamic panels, questions/ideas for improving CD and mpg of 6g Options

[ricochet1490]

Has anyone ever heard of addition panels to improve the coefficient of drag (cd) of our cars? Sites like ecomodder have all the people making stupid looking stuff to gain mpg, but imo our cars look too good for that to happen. So I was thinking, what if we made panels that either A) looked good on the car, or B) couldn't be "readily seen" - aka made out of lexan or something.

Any Thoughts, ideas? I think if we could shape some clear panels to deflect air around our bucket head lights, and some to keep the air off the spoiler (but still using the spoiler for mounting/looks), we could probably gain at least a few mpg. It might be worth looking into if some cheap lexan could be found.

[ACCELICA]

I'm pretty active on ecomodder and definitely one of those freaks who drives around with plastic all over my car to get better MPG. But I agree the celiac is too pretty to do that to. I have a GT convertible that I keep covered and take out once a week for fun. My daily driver is a geo metro that looks like a spaceship but gets around 50mpg. It's weird to say but it's actually as much fun of a car in a totally different way. With the Celica all my mods are for style or performance, with the geo, all the mods cost next to nothing and they are only for function and economy. At any rate here are some things that might be interesting for this discussion.

The three mods I would recommend most for saving gas without sacrificing image are:
1) Grill Block or partial Grill Block. The front bumper openings are designed for the worst case scenario (towing uphill in the desert) but under less stressful situations you don't need nearly that much air going into your engine bay. Think of pushing an open cup through water, that's what your bumper mouth is doing to the air. You can block a good portion of the grill and it forces air around the car with much less drag. Best way to do it is is install some instrumentation to monitor your coolant temp (a scanguage II would work) then block some of the grill with cardboard. Keep driving normally and blocking more of the grill until you see the temp rising then back off a bit. This mod also functions to help your car get warmed up quicker and it is most efficient once warmed up. Once you find the right amount to block you can make something pretty like a colored plastic block with home depot mesh across the whole bumper gap to hid your partial block.
2) the belly pan. Our cars are smooth and pretty on the top and sides but under the car is all kinds of stuff for air to get snagged on. For the geo I just bought a 4x8 sheet of coreplast, trimmed it to shape and mounted it under the car. This can be very effective. The other way to get the same effect is install a front lip that extends as low as your lowest hanging suspension, spare tires, whatever hangs down.
As far as dimpling this... Air behaves weirdly and in many cases the air under the car gets pressurized because the bumper pushes a good portion of the air down and the rest goes over the car. when incoming air hits the pressurized air a lot of it swerves left or right toward the wheelwells. It's weird I've seen it in wind tunnel smoke tests. That makes me think that the dimples may not be as effective on a belly pan.
3) the BIGGEST change you can make is driving habits. The Scanguage is awesome, it plugs into the OBDII port and gives you instant readings for mpg rate as well as avg mpg for the trip. It's like a video game trying to set a high score and you can adjust your driving to get the most significant gains.

There's other things of course, the geo has a kill switch so I coast with the engine off a lot but our celicas would lose power steering and possibly brakes so that might not be a good idea. Pulse and glide is a counterintuitive driving method that can save you a ton of gas. It works like this:
Say you get 22 mpg going a steady 55
You could drive for 55 miles and get 22 mpg
now say you drive that same 55 miles constantly flooring it to 60 then putting it in neutral and coasting down to 50
Assume it takes the same amount of time to coast down as it does to accelerate (I'm sure our fast cars would actually coast longer than the acceleration, but for easy math lets say it's equal)
Now say you get only 10mpg when you're pedal to the metal, BUT coasting in neutral your car is at idle and probably gets 50mpg.
So in 55 miles you would spend 27.5 miles getting 10mpg and 27.5 miles getting 50MPG
Average those together and you get 30MPG
And because your average speed between 50 and 60 is 55 it takes you the same amount of time.
You win 8mpg!

The real numbers might be different but the concept actually works, its so weird but try it, you might be surprised.

btw what on earth is making you drive 1000 mi / week?