Air Dam Advice

So I'm thinking of making an air dam for the Cutlass out of sheet aluminum to go with the Super Stock IIIs. I hope that it will make the car look cooler, and eke out an MPG or two on the highway. Inspiration below.

Some people have had success with inexpensive lawn edging from Home Depot / Lowes. If you didn't already have the materials, this might be easier to source.

Unless you can get it down to within 1-2" from the street (and lower the rest of the car), it likely won't do anything for mileage. If you're just doing it for the style, go for it! Garden edging is the favored DIY lip and is cheaper than aluminum, FWIW.

In reply to nderwater:

My concern is how to attach it to the bumper. I still have steel bumpers, and don't want to drill into the visible portion of the bumper.

In reply to G_Body_Man:

How were you planning to attach the aluminum? Also, I would go behind the bumpers and attach to the front apron/fenders for a cleaner look.

For attachment, use some aluminum angle and cut into sections that will fit the straight-ish sections of the bumper bottom edge. Attach to bumper with an edge hanging down. Then attach lawn edging to the front of the exposed flanges. That should make for easy replacement when the find the curb block in the parking lot.

In reply to stafford1500:

That sounds good.

I did some checking, it turns out 10' angle aluminum won't fit into our car. Would galvanized steel work?

G_Body_Man wrote: I did some checking, it turns out 10' angle aluminum won't fit into our car. Would galvanized steel work?

cut it in the parking lot to the rough size you need or strap it to the top.

Bring a hacksaw and cut it in half in the parking lot.

I'll take the hacksaw plan for $1200, Alex.

Roll down a window and stick a red flag on the end. I built my house using my Civic Si hatchback as a pickup.

Get the front lower with camaro 1LE springs. This will give you a slight rake to cut lift. Next, block off the grill and install a deflector on the core support instead of your air dam on the bumper. Finally, lose the mechanical fan and put in some electric ones from the junk yard running on a switch in the cabin or better yet a thermostat switch.

I kind of want to give off a mean, pro-touring vibe.

For my front air dam I am planning on using a piece off of a chevy truck that im cutting to size. Still haven't figured out mounting but thats an option.

No help, but I just saw a import job with a load of 12 foot lumber sticking out the sunroof. If you have the will..you'll find the way !

Dude, the Element looked surprisingly clean with the lawn edging air dam.

I once raced a stock motor MGA in our local series. It was similar to show room stock rules, but they did allow you to add an air dam. They had no rules about how low it could go (just how high it could bolt to the car - not above the hub centre line).

As Slick said, to get much benefit you need to get it close to the ground. I used light weight alloy sheeting for a vertical air dam that was withing about an inch of the ground at stationary ride height, and then added some flexible conveyor belt material - a rubberized canvas that would flex when it hit the ground. Pretty close to zero clearance, and it probably helped keep the track clean, but they decided it wasn't 'in the spirit of the rules' so made me remove it.

It was good for about 500 rpm extra at the braking point at the end of the quite long straight at Seattle's SIR (later renamed Pacific Raceways).

A 3/16" 4x8 sheet of plastic runs less than 50 bucks locally...I bought a sheet of that because it's easy to form with heat, and will be doing the same thing with my B body. I had a chevy astro dam on there for awhile with the fog lights, but the side sections weren't nearly long enough so it looked a little goofy. Amazingly, I got a measurable increase in fuel economy from that mod, I think because the front crossmember on the B is much lower than the nose of the car, and the air dam made them about equal.

even if it's not right down on the ground, the lawn edging can help add mpg's and even some stability... i gained a solid 2 mpg on a 4 cylinder powered 87 Celebrity with just a lawn edging air dam that was still about 4" off the ground. the car also felt more planted to the road.

saw the same result on a 97 Cavalier, except that air dam was made out of a chunk of an old Grand Am bumper..

one way to clean up the aero on that Cutlass a bit- and make it look a little cooler, to boot- would be to put a nose from an 86 or 87 Cutlass 2 door on it.. i'm pretty sure the body lines match up...