When we heard that Cleetus McFarland was going to take Leroy the Savage and put him in the A2 Wind Tunnel in Mooresville North Carolina, we laughed out loud. There is nothing about the car, save for the windshield angle, that is anymore aerodynamic than a cardboard box. With that said, the guys were able to use some Gorilla tape and cardboard to make it better, and the process is pretty cool to watch. They also stood in the wind tunnel, holding onto the car, with wind speeds of 85 mph which looks crazy! Oh, and they put a stock C5 Z06 in the wind tunnel to compare it to Leroy. Wanna know what the results were?
Watch.
oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my … click. Sounds like a 9th grade girl from the 80’s.
I can appreciate the work and enthusiasm, but that’s what I miss about magazines. Skip to the test results and the charts. Needed to be able to find the science. I’m not willing to work that hard to find the results.
Lots of good info here. One thing that isn’t shown here, is that all this aero work is steady state, with no time factor. If you are drag racing, the vehicle is brought to speed in an extremely short time, then brought back down. Therefore, much air does not have time to build pressure, accumulate or laminate. It also doesn’t factor in how much the added weight of any aero aids hold the acceleration back. This is why Top Fuel cars don’t aero well, every pound added isn’t beneficial enough. Now, if you held the fueler at its terminal speed, the aero need would be huge. There’s just not enough time at speed for the air to do its thing.
It amused me that Leroy at it’s worst, has better aero that a Checker Marathon (cd of .88)