Archives




View Full Version : Insight Ride Height


hyperclimber
11-05-2008, 04:19 PM
Has anyone done any experiments or calculations as to what the drag coefficient would be at the stock height of the Insight versus raising or lowering?

I posed this question on my welcome post and think this would be a more appropriate place for it. http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17054

i have a general question, a while back i was looking through the forums and read a comment made about wind resistance relative to the height of the insight. at 3" stock it was such and such vs. 2" vs. 1". if someone could link it, i'd be greatly appreciated. It gave me an idea, as i do much off road travel due to my summer job as a climbing guide, and just for fun getting to climbs, it would be nice to have a higher clearance, yet for much highway travel, it would be nice to have a lower clearance to reduce drag. I know Mike had installed his air bags to help with the load in his insight, what if I went all air bags with a good enough control system to be able to "set" the clearance on the fly? has anyone ever thought of this or experimented with this?

99LeCouch
11-05-2008, 08:23 PM
Some vehicles get better economy lower down, some higher up.

"Generally" speaking, the larger you can get a front air dam to keep air away from the ungodly poor aerodynamics on most vehicles' undersides the better. The same thing works for lowering a car.

If you have a multi-link suspension setup with a separate shock and spring, adjustable air bags would be cake to rig up inside the springs. But there are likely front struts, which would be a lot harder to do. For those you could use spring extenders, but those would take time to insert and take out.



Copyright 2006 Clean MPG, LLC. All Rights Reserved.