put this in your pipe and smoke it.......possible gas saver.. what do you think?

[jeanna]

There have been many designs created and lately discarded that made cars more slippery to the air.

I agree there will be no free lunch, but sailboats do go fast with no motor, just aerodynamics.

So, the thing to design would IMHO be something that uses the air driven through already to come back and for the same mpg to pust the car along.

I am thinking of a cup  (a metal spinnaker) at the back of the car.

A thing that makes the air at the BACK of the car turn around and push the car. It would look familiar, but much more exaggerated.

Who is a metal fabricator?

Can you make one for a robotic car and measure battery usage oor something?

Go for it, vdubdipr, and let us know.


jeanna

[Creativity]

No don't go for it! we still need u alive more than dead.It is car handling hazard as stated above.boat goes faster because it is lifted from more dense water to the air,and friction of a boat moving under water (700 times more dense than air) is way bigger than the same boat fighting with an air drag.U have no chance of moving ur car to some less dense medium by lifting it

What u can do is to make a special spoiler that reduces the turbulence behing ur car it would surely help ur mileage.

Car mass  matter less when it is steady moving(only the rolling resistance and air resistance counts).Tires friction depends on car mass but it is the thing that keeps u on the road even in the turns,it is a grip.Would u like to trade a grip for mileage?Winter is a good example of what it means to have no grip.

During the acceleration is the moment ur car mass counts a lot.

acceleration is given by a formula:

a=F*m

where the force of ur engine is F and mass of ur car is m.So to accelerate a heavy car the same way u accelerate a light one ,u need to push it harder (so engine uses more fuel).

@jeanna
ur cup idea is exactly the way a parochute works...and we all know what is expected from parochute.(drag racing cars use it to brake from high speeds)

[jeanna]

@jeanna
ur cup idea is exactly the way a parochute works...and we all know what is expected from parochute.(drag racing cars use it to brake from high speeds)

Ok I meant the cup pointing the other way around.

I am not a car person, but I am a sailor. I understand what you said about the frix of the water. ok

but if a spoiler is that little bar across the back window of a car, then what I mean is to exaggerate that.. The top of the parachute pointing to the front of the car, not behind catching the wind.

I also think it ought to be such that the edges of the cup and sort of "axion" of the cup should  be directed down and forward a bit.

This is hard to describe. try this: Picture the skinny end of a tornado  pushing a car. create a vortex that moves you forward.

I also was thinking of a toy car, not a real one. cheaper parts and way safer.

I hope this clears it up a little. Sorry for any confusion.

jeanna

[Creativity]

na i found something:

http://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/corporate/about_us/technology/review/e/pdf/2004/16E_03.pdf

some research was done.It reduces the total drag of a car by 0.006 coeficient.It is ok number if they speak about what i think they speak typical car has  something like 0.27-0.39 if i remember it right.

Aja but they seems to forget about the side mirrors.This small vortex creators could be attached form under,side and above the mirrors to reduce the drag

another link on aerodynamics,looks interesting but i haven't read fully:

http://www.recumbents.com/car_aerodynamics/

it looks like the under the car there is a lot to improve the aerodynamics!
personnaly i like the removing of side mirrors and placing a camera's there,it will be probably in few years in standard cars.
In motorbikes without the side mirrors u can get as much as 15 km/h more of top speed (and it is in range of 300km/h) so i take it as an argument of substantial drag introduced by mirrors.

[vdubdipr]

yeah some good intel here ....but.... ahhh if your car, had some wings, it could fly, and so could a crotch rocket with a turbine, and retcractable rear wheel, hmmmm.
if the wing creating lift was adjustable then as the conditions change so would the foil to the operaters determining calculation.take it to the extreme _do heavy ass cars get better or worse gas mileage than light cars? do manufacturing plants make some cars light on purpose? do semi trucks use more gas than a 2 door import?  think less people would hydroplane in rain if the had more wieght "on demand"? can an airplane glide without a motor? is that called a glider?
@creativity...grip for mileage i would trade on a sunny day in a suv that weighs 3500 lbs over the same car wieghing hypotheticly 600lbs. mythbusters did get 8 miles a gallon by puting it in a draft
the foil could be built with perameters that limited capabilities to reasonable wieght loss per vehicle spec. by creating lift this could eliminate detramental effects of wind resistance / rolling resistance or account for a large percentage of it. this foil would only serve its purpuse on long freeway road trips.
@reson : resulting brakes would have intial drawbacks but after a speed is decelerated to when foil is not making alot of lift then its not an issue. id imagine a big difference between 40 and 60 mph. foil could have automatic computor controlls, once brake pedal is pushed to a certain point the foil could turn down and increase brake proformance. or turn down when it senses water. foil could even be used as a brake all by itself to save your pads...downshift the foil....not the car...... i think the most unpracticle idea is that there would be a sharp corner on the freeway.

so keep coming at me with some shit and ill flip it on you          cheese... picture that


a car would have to work less, requireing less power/ RPM to move it along if it was lighter.  any arguments with that?
someone can make an airplane wing that would make a car glide easy...

so IMHO saying something that makes sense after that acronym would lead me to belive im right.
think of how fast a 270 hp suv could get from 60 to 100 miles an hour if it only weighed 600 lbs the whole time, electronicly adjusting itself, even a bigger suv with like a 350 hp engine freeway acceleration if it weighed alot less. that shit would be tight
@ jenna im a sailer myself .."downtown girl, milwaukee wisconsin" 27 foot j boat. or the 17 ft, hobiecat and i always get free lunch cuz im pretty... i pull up the the clubs on my boat... the "slut shuffle" 15 foot fiberglass which im working on hydrofoils for, but i own my own flooring company and am always helping people in need so o dont have alot of free time between hydrogen experiments, so itll take some time.
and the only way id mount a steel spiniker or a jib,on my car is if i got hit in the head real hard by the boom and my brain indicater was damaged


you can make anything fly, by intellegent design. just how much is needed for a car is all we need to figure