Getting started with Aerodynamics

[novaderrik]

I never thought gm woulda actually made the grill that functional when the rest of the car was such a turd! Lol glad you corrected me there..



Lauren Engineering has some air dam extensions and a 5 inch stand up spoiler for the ss...

GM put a lot of time and effort into designing the aero package for the Monte SS race cars, and they probably had to justify that cost by making the street version match up with the race version.. also, the slight increase in aero efficiency had to raise the mpg numbers a bit and i'm sure they used the lessons learned from that program in the cars that came later- notice how grilles started getting smaller and smaller and even disappearing altogether on more and more of the GM product lineup as the 80's wound to a close and the 90's started up. even some other cars that had actual grilles had most of them blocked off- my 86 Caprice had about half of the visible grille opening blocked off from the factory with a black plastic filler piece behind the grille that you could only see if you looked at it closely, which is probably one of the reasons that 305 powered luxo cruiser would average 28mpg in normal daily driving.

as to what to actually do to the car to make it more aerodynamic- just look at the car and see where you want the air to go and where you don't want it to go. figure out what you can block off to manage the airflow thru the engine bay- one easy place to look is the radiator support. every G body after 81 or so has the same core support, and they have some HUGE holes behind the headlights that are easy to block with some aluminum. there might also bee some holes in the inner fenders that you can block off, too. all of that leads to less air getting rammed into the engine bay where it creates drag and lift. and don't limit yourself to looking at other Monte SS's or even G bodies- walk around a junkyard and look at the aero packages of every different vehicle you can. there's a lot to learn about air management from all those disposable late model econoboxes and even later model full size trucks.. hell, if you ever find yourself cruising down the interstate and come up alongside a newer Volvo semi you should give that a quick look. hell, look at the trailer it's pulling- it probably has side skirts on it.. those big rigs have got a LOT of aero management going on, and it can all be scaled down to your car.