Wheel turbulance Q for gurus.

[Bill in Houston]

Well, I still like it. :-)

[GasSavers_bobski]

Originally Posted by brucepick

You need to chase down the wheel skirts built by basjoos and CO Zx2. Both have full front wheel skirts.

Basjoos' front skirts are hinged with wide rollers underneath so when he turns, the tire presses on the rollers and lifts part of the skirt up out of the way.

CO ZX2's uses stretchable rubber for part of the front skirt. I don't completely understand how it works; I think maybe the rubber stretches to let the tire do its thing. I don't know how/why there's no rubbing to damage the rubber, maybe he'll post here.

Hmm... Maybe this could be a legitimate use for "spinner" wheels and hubcaps. Instead of letting the spinner portion free-wheel like it's designed to, run a few U-shaped braces around the tire and anchor them to the steering knuckle. That way the spinner will be suported by the wheel, but won't actually spin with it. From there, you could attach hard wheel skirts to the spinner that would cover most of the wheel well opening... Scrapers could be attached as well. The skirt - being attached to the steering knuckle and wheel - would change angle with the wheel instead of colliding with it when steering the car.
The front and rear clearance relative to the fender lip could be a fraction of an inch, but the top would either need more clearance or have to be made of some kind of semi-rigid material like thick rubber. The top edge of the skirt might collide with the fender during typical suspension travel, and almost certainly would due to suspension travel while turning, thus the need for a flexible material.