Date:         Tue, 23 Mar 2004 09:26:45 -0700
Reply-To:     Ryan Miller <rmiller@AZTECA.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Ryan Miller <rmiller@AZTECA.COM>
Subject:      Re: Vanagon Drag Coefficient?
In-Reply-To:  <CHEMIOFEMIHINDCEBODPMEDIDHAA.steven@epochdesign.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I believe the new Mercedes sedans have golf ball "technology" on their
undercarriage. Seems like an easy and cheap way to adapt this to the vanagon
would be to park your van on a golfing range and just let people take shots
at it for a while then turn it around to get the other side. Soon your van
would be covered in hundreds of little dimples. You'd want to protect the
windows of course ;)

Ryan
82' westie

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Steven Dodson
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 9:18 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Vanagon Drag Coefficient?

We can't do much for the frontal area but I have played with ideas of how to
reduce the Cd. I've considered casting hundreds of urethane (glass-bubble
filled to be lightweight) semi-spheres (imagine a .25-375" section off the
edge of a 6-8" diameter sphere) and gluing them in a pattern on the rear
1/3rd of the vans sides and roof.
You'd have to play with sphere size and spacing but this would effectively
reduce the Cd of the van by breaking up the vortex in the rear.

This would work especially well for someone going with a polka-dot theme on
their van.

By the way, if a sphere is .2'ish then what is a golf ball? A golf ball has
a much lower Cd than a sphere of the same size. Yes? (BTW- I'm not a golfer,
just part Scott)

-Steven Dodson
Kneeland, CA
"Inga" the 87 Syncro