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Aerodynamic Testing - My initial thoughts...


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What a couple of days...

 

Took my life in my own hands the last 5 minutes of the ride home, but that's for another thread...

 

What I can tell you guys is this:

 

It's a complete package that makes things "work". If you disrupt air at the back of the car, it will have an impact at the front. If you disrupt air at the front of the car, how it comes around the sides, top and bottom of the car at the back really has an impact.

 

I've taken over 1000 pics, an hour of video, and started a basic write-up for the magazine. However, I need to talk with the chaps at Nissan Sport. There was serious discussion among the members who attended about what we should release...

 

We had a list of parts, a lot of parts, and some of them were on various cars there. We tested the things that we knew you guys and gals wanted to see the most, and then we listened to our Aero Tunnel operator. The guy was a WEALTH of info. Bob Smith knows as much or more about aerodynamics than anyone I've ever had a serious chat with... The guy has been doing this stuff so long, we could tell him what we intended to do next, and he'd tell us, go ahead, and you'll get "XXX" reaction, and he was right every time. We started listening to him, because we wanted to maximize your money and our time.

 

Some of you won't be happy that we didn't do a few of the major mods. Sorry, but we listened to Bob, and had to make on the ground decisions and we did. Sue us.

 

This was EXTREMELY difficult to organize, and with the combinations, numbers of cars to get into and out of the tunnel, and the people there who helped, we made history. I'll post some pics later, and some of the data that can be extracted in laymans terms.

 

I'd like to thank BJ and John Tedder (jt1) for organizing this, and for Tom Barnet, Roddy Sugg, and Mark Ulrich for the organization of parts and parts combos. David Spilman loaned us a bone stock 74 Zcar to run a comparison against. This car was stock in every way, and I do mean every... Right down to the Nissan hubcaps and stock body trim. Austin Hoke and Tom Harris were on hand to help all day and busted their butts right along with the rest of us, and Mark Icard, showing up late in the day and jumped in head first, helping with bolting on, taping on, rolling cars in and out, and offering thoughtful suggestions on the whole event. It was hot, hard work, and not a single person was unpleasent to work with on this project.

 

I want you folks to understand a couple of things... We took our time, spent more money out of our pockets, took time off work (Some of our participants lost wages to make this happen) and in the case of David Spilman, Spent money out of their own pocket to have the car transported to us for the test. A LOT of effort went into pulling this off. Before anyone gets their panties too bunched, remember that there was a lot of effort that went into testing the THIRTY combinations of parts that were able to be tested in an 8 hour period. We made history on Monday, April 30th and I am so proud to have been there to witness it, and to be a part of such a great car community.

 

More later, but I can assure the HybridZ community that our efforts bore some great fruit, and we can now lay some of these myths to rest.

 

Mike

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I was very happy with how the whole thing came off. We had a plan, largely put together by Tom (Mayolives), and with only a few changes on the fly, it worked very well. Everybody pitched in loading/unloading/pushing cars, moving & strapping down in the tunnel, making mods, taking pictures, video, rounding up small things we needed, and nobody bitched, whined, complained, or got their panties in a wad about anything. It was truly a well organized well executed team effort by a good group of guys. Since I sold my vintage Z, David Spillman was providing a stock car for the effort, and when David had other commitments, he paid a fellow to haul the car (a beauty)to the wind tunnel, wait till we were done with it, and haul it back. We all took off from work, traveled, supplied parts, etc., but that was above the call of duty.

 

We had a long list of things to try, and ultimately ran out of tunnel time before getting them all done, but we weren't sure just how many "pulls" we would get to make in our alotted time, and we sure didn't want to show up without enough things to test. So, not all items got tested, but alot did, and it's a credit to the Hybrid Z community.

 

Also a big thanks to Bob at the A2 wind tunnel for helping us along, and to MSA and APR for loaning us parts to test.

 

Whew, I need a nap........

 

John

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My hat comes off to all involved in this test. I for one really appreciate the amount of work that you put into this to make it a reality. After reading what some people did it makes me with I could have donated more. I can't wait to see what was actually discovered on that monumental day. Rock on guys!

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I would like to thank everyone involved in this effort. Hats off to everyone who helped organize and run the test. I would have liked to have donated to the cause but donations were shut off when I finally had some extra cash. This is much need data for the Z community and I'm looking forward to the write up.

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Awesome! and I applaud your efforts in making history. You guys have made us all proud of this spectacular acomplishment. I can only say I didn't realize what exactly you guys were really doing and didn't really follow it, but now I know and I will definately donate to a second round of testing. This was an incredible feat and was only possible because off the fantastic members here who unselfishly constantly offer their knowledge, services, money and time to the benefit of the whole HybridZ community.

My Hat is off to all.

Thank you for making this the best Site on the net.

Greg

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this is to all who were involved with the hands on part-thank you. not to forget those who participated from afar [yours truly included] via our donations-also thank you. it was great to see this cohesive group pull together to pull this off and generate such a mass of great info which will [ultimately] benefit the entire z community.

 

here are some thoughts [my 2 cents worth] to ponder. does hbz now 'own' the information-as intellictual property? if so, will / can / should it be sold to other groups-such as; nissan sport, other z websites, z related parts vendors or will it be simply given away? does hbz offer a subscription giving access to the information? should the entirety of the results be released here first or held back so as not to dilute the nissan sport article?

 

again, just some thoughts i've had while reading through all the posts on the thread covering this awesome event!

 

i consider myself fortunate to have discovered hbz-in fact, i'd still be driving an inliner instead of my LS1z!

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David, Ultimately we'll post all the data HERE on our site. I need Dave Bexfield to call me and discuss the magazine article. I've been giving them a little time, becuase I know they did the MSA event last weekend, and I'm sure they're busy.

 

As to selling the data, Once we post it here on our site, it's gonna be free game for anyone to use the data... Selling it isn't an option at that point, because it enters the "free" domain.

 

Mike

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thanks mike. i saw you [in the other thread] mentioned a sub like what was done for pinks. perhaps a sub for the info would be something to consider and that access would be by subscription only.

 

can't wait to see the results. i'm waiting patiently! lol

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Mike, I did't THINK that you would go for anyone having rights to the data. I was worried when the article was mentioned. An article would be great! But not if they said that we couldn't post it here, after a few months or something to keep sales of the mag up.

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Let me clarify...

 

We will NOT be selling this data to anyone else. The HybridZ members donated a total of $3500 in funds to make this happen. The results of the test data belong to this board and it's membership.

 

We're really trying to put this data together in the most logical, best viewable, and most userfriendly way.

 

I've had a NUMBER of offline emails from some of the folks who attended... Let me be CRYSTAL CLEAR... THIS IS NOT gonna turn into another fiasco like the PINKS project. I've given specific guidance on when and where we'll release the data. If ANY of the data is released without coordination with John Tedder and Myself, I'll ban that member outright. I do NOT want to do this, as we've had every member of our team work hard to make this come true. But I've made clear that we have but one chance to get this right the first time... The FIRST time. Let's all be patient and lets let the team collect their data, formulate the plan, and make the RIGHT presentation to HybridZ as a coordinated group.

 

Thanks all for your understanding and cooperation...

 

Mike

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