cowl/air venting
 

I want to increase the amount of vent air coming into the car at highway speeds, with the goal of avoiding air conditioning use.

Does this harm or hurt FE?

the main thing that huts fe on ac is that it has to power the compresser so since it dosent have to do this it would prolly help compaired to ac

So how about if I "REALLY" increase it.... like running a duct from the bumper through the firewall (and get it vented out the back into the low pressure area behind the car)? Help or hurt FE?

oooh now your talking! I've been wanting to figure out a way to do this as well.

I have the same problem for intake air though. In the olden days, cowel air induction worked GREAT because it was much higher pressure. Nowadays there is only a very small pocket of stagnant air there that we're trying to get at, and it's just not working for me. I had a stoopid idea of putting a little scoop on the top of my cowl reaching into the attached flow area, hopefully that would ram plenty of air into my car, and with such a small frontal area, it shouldnt' contribute to drag. Taking air from the front of the car is another interesting idea as well. The only problems i could see would be heating of the air from going over the engine.

how bout the old style vents cars used to have under the dash. They got their air from the wheel wells. There is a pretty good bit of pressure in there and would blow a lot of air into the car at speeds. It would also help reduce drag.

Yesh, i was thinking that air from the wheel wells would have been a VERY messy operation.

In some states, well Oregon at least, you are not required to have a windshield. All you have to have is the wipers!

Take that out as well as the rear glass and you have increased your airflow substantially and reduced your frontal area by a third or more!

I can see it now as the newest trend on here: Detachable front and rear glass. Imagine it, Metros topping 100 mpg.

Seriously, you know you want to try it. ;)

The idea on steroids: dramatically increase air flow from the frontal pressure zones into the interior and blow it out the back using electric duct fans, improving overall aerodynamics and adding 5, 10, 20 lbs of thrust in the process (for hella long engine off glides)

That sucks when ever you go faster than 20 mph.......

That's why god invented coroplast!