Cooling Drag

[skygazer6033]

ehwatt --- Even earlier than that! Lear 25's. VG's were bonded on. Years ago a Lear 25 lost control and crashed on approach. NTSB found out at a previous refueling stop a fueler had dragged a fuel hose across the wing and cleaned all the vortex generators off. When slowed and configured for the approach the pilot only had about 10 to 20% roll authority. Bad news. Those little aluminum angles can be far more important than their appearance would suggest.

 

[AriLea]

Silas Sunday to the rescue! This is exactly the type of hood venting I was thinking about. Well forward of the windshield (no cowl induction), and with the ridge on the hood just in front of it [hard to see in the pic], it's pretty much guaranteed to be a low pressure area. Might even get a little windshield de-icing action out of the deal!
View attachment 2661

This is definitely the beginning of an Elio-Modders club! This already exists for the Geo-Metro and others. I imagine you could cut the actual drag on Elio with extreme body mods in half. A new Elio would be cheaper than most used cars for such adventures.
As for weight, maybe cut by 30%? Then of course re-gearing and specialized tuning.. . .

 

[2.ooohhh]

I seriously doubt that. I laugh when some young guy goes out and spends huge $$ for a carbon fiber hood for a subcompact car. Your average subcompact's hood weighs less than 8 pounds. I had to replace my hood on a Mark 4 Jetta, and it was around 7 lbs, with the liner installed. Aftermarket "carbon fiber" hoods are the cosmetically pretty variety with a lot of resin for high shine and nice appearance and are almost ALWAYS heavier than the stock unit.

Real carbon fiber is pretty ugly; if you see "CF" parts on motorcycles, cars, etcetera, it is the pretty kind and not really that light.

"real carbon fiber" can be beautiful and VERY light but most kids tuning family sedans couldn't stomach the cost. I helped install some beautiful light carbon diffusers on a f458 recently and EVERY single piece was lighter then the fiber reinforced plastic or aluminum it replaced.

Also you seem to have left a digit out of the weight of a stock mkiv VW hood. I parted a friend's daughter's wrecked golf out and it's hood was around 35lbs before we packaged it for shipping.