sticking nose out a little more

[Hateful]

I've built up the nose a little more to cut the air from the front end. It's made of foam rubber,duck tape and 2 litter coke bottles.

[DRW]

Is your car happy to see you?
Or is that just a soda bottle in the bumper?

Nice annex to the bumper. It looks like you're heading in the right direction.

Edit: I guess I shouldn't talk, my car has a bulge in the hood, factory installed!

[Snax]

THAT is an interesting modification, to say the least. It reminds me of the first Cherry Poppin' Daddies concert I went to where the lead singer rode an 8 foot long phallus around the stage bouncie ball style. :P

[Nerds laugh at me]

From what have read, pointy noses are not needed for good aero.
Just look at the Lexus LS 430, the new Cadillac models.
Several cars have absolute flat as a barn door front ends with gaping grilles, yet achieve .Cd readings below .25

Aerodynamics is a very tricky science. Sometimes things that you would swear would decrease drag, actually do the opposite. For instance the side mirrors on mid 90s Chevy Caprices actually REDUCE the drag !
A fellow here posted a link to some wind tunnel testing which showed how that even with huge wheel flares, a modified 240Z cut a lower .Cd than a stock Z.

[Nerds laugh at me]

If you really want to go wild with cutting the drag down, I'd suggest removing the side mirrors and installing small cameras. Several places carry them, but they are expensive ( $100 )

[Big Dave]

While you are sticking the nose out, have you thought about sticking the center out a little more than the sides? Make the thing more of a wedge when viewed from above the car. Note that NASCAR racers all use a rounded (viewed from above) front end.

[Snax]

I think the thing with a pointy/rounded front end has more to do with stability than drag. Specifically, a flat front end tends to form it's own pressure bubble ahead of it, making a virtual cone out of the passing air itself. However, when you throw in a crosswind, the stability of that bubble breaks down, whereas with a solid front protrusion, better stability is maintained in a crosswind and the air flow tends to be more fluid.

With this concept in mind, the size of the grille opening really is only marginally relevant to drag. What matters more is how much air can pass through it. In other words, a restricted exit is functionally almost the same as blocking the entry.

As a side note, there have been engineering studies that show that radiator ducting can actually provide forward thrust with a venturi style design. (I read one article about this in Racecar Engineering, but I can't remember the title or issue date.)

[GasSavers_BluEyes]

Well, guess we can see if it helps any.

I'm going to throw my hat in on the skeptical side. Don't think it will necessarily hurt, but I don't see where it helps. Jumbo jets have a blunt nose, so do raindrops. Fighter jets have a pointy nose only because of the dynamics of gas flow in supersonic flight, very weird things happen at those speeds, but I never exceed the speed of sound on my way to work so it isn't a problem.

[Hateful]

NASCAR designs for down force( I didn't qualify this week), raindrops are flattened out like pancakes as the fall in the non-cartoon world.Big grills are there to make cars "look" powerful by creating the illusion of massive need for air.All airplanes are rounded unless is a single propeller type. I haven't seen many flat nosed boats either. My results on this may be small but skeptics aren't known for great ideas either.

[Snax]

I agree that a solid rounded frontal area is better overall, but I think the benefit of it, like most aerodynamic mods, is speed dependent. I suspect that the real benefit of it in this case won't be seen except at highway speeds, vs. other mods like skirts and undertrays which clean up airflow at even modest speeds.