I remember reading on here somewhere that the Camaro was designed more for style than aerodynamics. What might possibly be done to the body of the Camaro to make it cut through the air better? I wonder which is better aerodynamically? the V6 or SS? And why?

 

The SS is slightly more aerodynamic. .35 , i think. I'm not exactly sure why. The spoiler? Is it any lower?
Yeah it was designed purely for style. It's got the same aero as a third gen. I'm suprised it's that good actually. Lots of cars have better aerodynamics than the 5thgen.

 

On the topic of aerodynamics, I took the car up to 160 last week Up around 150 the car started to float a little and continued to progress as I approached 160. I shut it down because I was not sure how bad it would get. I wonder what GM took the car to and how it performed for them. FYI, The car had three people and the trunk was loaded so I actually had it loaded down pretty good.

 

Wow that's just...
I would hope this was on the salt flats

 

Callaway is working on an aerobody for the 5th gen. Wait and see what innovations they come up with.

If the 5th gen is truly .35 for coefficient of drag, which I actually am skeptical about, then it is only .01 worse than the '93 Camaro (yes, which has a very bad for aerodynamics open headlight bucket area). .35 is pretty darn good, for more reference, that's the same as an early '80s Corvette, and they are obviously much less blunt shaped.

http://www.mayfco.com/chevy.htm

 

How the shape appears to the eye is more deceiving than most realize.

 

Yup, the previous generation Toyota Prius is ugly as hell, but its Cd is either .24 or .25 It's skinny little tires help a lot too. The new Camaro has very wide tires.

 

...And despite their shape the 4th gen F-bodies were not all that great. I think they were around .34/.35.

 

That's right. 3rd gens were around .36, 4th was .34, the 5th is .36 for the V6, .35 for the SS.

 

Their headlight buckets, grills, and rear bumpers weren't good for aerodynamics. According to Callaway's studies, a lot of air would get caught underneath the body near the subframe as well, which is why their design included vents through the fenders on the C8.

Still not so bad. Very good aerodynamic side-mirrors compared to other cars I'd imagine. A lot of other cars designed for much higher speeds has much higher drag than the 4th gen. The Ferrari F50 was around .37 I believe, though I'm sure it's drag was intentional for downforce. Being mid-engined, it would need downforce in the front to prevent from lifting at high speeds.

I would doubt it, but I wonder if the Camaro's front end gets light at speeds above 170? I'd imagine they are still fairly well planted thanks to being front engined.

The Camaro Trans-Am race cars were .27 if I remember correctly.

 

i miss the old Trans Am.
Thanks for the pics!

 

my reason for starting this thread was to try to get an idea of what GM might be able to do to create a Camaro XFE

 

I actually had a chance to talk to Tom Peters specifically about the wind tunnel. He told me they spent hours in there tuning every single radius on every single edge of the car. The rear spoiler especially, had every corner and radius tuned. So even though they stayed pretty true to the concept, it was optomized as much as possible.

-Geoff

 

XFE? X-tra Fuel Economy?

I had to google that to figure out what it was.

 

Yep. Very aware of their shortcomings. I was just trying to make the point that a shape that looks slick to the eye is not always slick to the wind.