In-Bed Spoiler

just a thought

spoilers were developed to keep the back of the vehicle down

tires got forced down on the road surface - more friction

using a spoiler to lift the rear end of the truck only sets you up for a fishtailing effect

on pickups removing the tail gate which acts as a wind collector (sail) would get you better gas mileage, as would adding a simple topper

you would have to explain how the spoilers location and configuration gets you better mileage

as for wind tunnel check with the boys in Canada - across from Detroit they are usually have more openings the U.S. side

There is a difference between a spoiler and a wing. I think you are talking about a wing, which does increase drag and some friction, too.

A spoiler doesn't necessarily cause downforce, but redirects air to reduce coefficient of drag. Most cars incorporate spoilers into the front bumper design, so you really don't even think about it. Whereas a wing is pretty ostentatious and speaks for itself.

I am glad to see this kind of response.

This letter should cover the response to these replies.

I would like to keep all testing and work here in the United States.

"GOING GREEN" My Spoiler is designed to eliminate the turbulence created from the tail gate.

It is set inside the bed of pick-up trucks so the tail gate can remain up as and always has been for pick up trucks. The appearance of the PICK UP doesn't change.

The Geometry for the spoiler Has to be just right or it won't work. The spoiler lifts the air up and over the tail gate, creating the aerodynamics necessary to help increase gas mileage and help you leave a smaller carbon foot print in the atmosphere..

I have had one in my truck for the last 7 years and saved hundreds of dollars in fuel . New owners of my spoiler have told me they are getting as much as 5 MPG better since putting on the spoiler. Instead of 13 MPG they have told me they are getting 18 MPG! Not bad for a TRUCK.

I have the "Patent Pending" on this. I have built and sold several of these units. Everybody that has gotten one has enjoyed the savings from them.

The Spoiler is hinged so if you have to haul cargo it lays down flat in the bed , 1/4" up.

These are made in the "USA". It takes me five hours in my shop to build one, and THEY DO WORK!

Owner and CEO; In-bed Spoiler Co.

I am glad to see this kind of response.

"GOING GREEN" My Spoiler is designed to eliminate the turbulence created from the tail gate.

It is set inside the bed of pick-up trucks so the tail gate can remain up as and always has been for pick up trucks. The appearance of the PICK UP doesn't change.

The Geometry for the spoiler Has to be just right or it won't work. The spoiler lifts the air up and over the tail gate, creating the aerodynamics necessary to help increase gas mileage and help you leave a smaller carbon foot print in the atmosphere..

I have had one in my truck for the last 7 years and saved hundreds of dollars in fuel . New owners of my spoiler have told me they are getting as much as 5 MPG better since putting on the spoiler. Instead of 13 MPG they have told me they are getting 18 MPG! Not bad for a TRUCK.

I have the "Patent Pending" on this. I have built and sold several of these units. Everybody that has gotten one has enjoyed the savings from them.

The Spoiler is hinged so if you have to haul cargo it lays down flat in the bed , 1/4" up.

These are made in the "USA". It takes me five hours in my shop to build one, and THEY DO WORK!

Owner and CEO; In-bed Spoiler Co.

I am glad to see this kind of response.

This letter should cover the response to these replies.

I would like to keep all testing and work here in the United States.

"GOING GREEN" My Spoiler is designed to eliminate the turbulence created from the tail gate.

It is set inside the bed of pick-up trucks so the tail gate can remain up as and always has been for pick up trucks. The appearance of the PICK UP doesn't change.

The Geometry for the spoiler Has to be just right or it won't work. The spoiler lifts the air up and over the tail gate, creating the aerodynamics necessary to help increase gas mileage and help you leave a smaller carbon foot print in the atmosphere..

I have had one in my truck for the last 7 years and saved hundreds of dollars in fuel . New owners of my spoiler have told me they are getting as much as 5 MPG better since putting on the spoiler. Instead of 13 MPG they have told me they are getting 18 MPG! Not bad for a TRUCK.

I have the "Patent Pending" on this. I have built and sold several of these units. Everybody that has gotten one has enjoyed the savings from them.

The Spoiler is hinged so if you have to haul cargo it lays down flat in the bed , 1/4" up.

These are made in the "USA". It takes me five hours in my shop to build one, and THEY DO WORK!

Owner and CEO; In-bed Spoiler Co.

I know there is a large wind tunnel at Calspan, across from the Buffalo Airport on 4455 Genesee St, Cheektowaga, NY → (716) 630-2800. I assume you are lifting the rear, what are you doing to prevent potiential fishtailing?

Actual wind tunnel testing of a full size vehicle is a good (and very costly) way to fully understand the drag, up force, down force and flow lines of whats going on. The 10% to 30% claim seems a little hard to swallow. You might try some very well controlled mileage testing that you could do yourself. The route needs to be the same at the same speed with as similar acceleration and deceleration as possible. Also conditions like wind speed, direction, temperature, barometric pressure etc. must be as well matched as possible. After doing the standard loop multiple times with and without the spoiler, and with all the parameters recorded, you could get an accurate idea of the affect of the spoiler. Also the actual fuel usage needs to be accurately measured. This needs to be more accurate than "it took two gallons to fill it". Possibly you could instrument the vehicle with something that measures engine output torque or drive force to compare the with and without conditions.

Another possibility is to install a trip computer that is instrumented in such a way as to give accurate instantaneous mileage.

I am glad to see this kind of response.

This letter should cover the response to these replies.

I would like to keep all testing and work here in the United States.

"GOING GREEN" My Spoiler is designed to eliminate the turbulence created from the tail gate.

It is set inside the bed of pick-up trucks so the tail gate can remain up as and always has been for pick up trucks. The appearance of the PICK UP doesn't change.

The Geometry for the spoiler Has to be just right or it won't work. The spoiler lifts the air up and over the tail gate, creating the aerodynamics necessary to help increase gas mileage and help you leave a smaller carbon foot print in the atmosphere..

I have had one in my truck for the last 7 years and saved hundreds of dollars in fuel . New owners of my spoiler have told me they are getting as much as 5 MPG better since putting on the spoiler. Instead of 13 MPG they have told me they are getting 18 MPG! Not bad for a TRUCK.

I have the "Patent Pending" on this. I have built and sold several of these units. Everybody that has gotten one has enjoyed the savings from them.

The Spoiler is hinged so if you have to haul cargo it lays down flat in the bed , 1/4" up.

These are made in the "USA". It takes me five hours in my shop to build one, and THEY DO WORK!

Owner and CEO; In-bed Spoiler Co.

Since Spoiler is improving his gas mileage, I suspect he is not trying to lift the back, but rather reduce the drag by directing air flow.

As has been mentioned taking down the tail gate, or putting a bed cover on accomplishes that as well. I have seen spoilers on the cabs of 18 wheelers, but the purpose there is to cut down the drag associated with the front of the trailer.

"I suspect he is not trying to lift the back, but rather reduce the drag by directing air flow." Good point, it was just one of those moments I was responding without a full thought...

A comment on driving pickups with the tailgate down...

Mythbusters concluded that lowering your tailgate actually reduces your fuel economy! I did not believe it either, but their setup was pretty well thought out and I think as good as you're going to get outside of a lab. Testing was done with calibrated flowmeters on the fuel lines and at precisely controlled speeds on the same stretch of road on the same day. Since flowmeters were used, instantaneous readings were possible, not just averages. The difference was well outside the range of statistical anomaly as well (8-10% increase over gate down, I believe). The concluding theory was that having the gate up allows a high pressure "bubble" to form behind the cab, effectively lowering drag as air flows over the top of the gate. With the gate down, venturi effects actually create a low-pressure area behind the cab that increases drag significantly (as the truck is constantly being "sucked" backwards). They also found tonneau covers reduced efficiency slightly and the greatest increase (12-14% over gate down) was from using an "air-gate", the fabric net replacement for a stock tail gate. I suspect weight reduction may have impacted that finding.

If the proposed spoiler is indeed enhancing the airflow and not reducing the down-force on the rear wheels, you may well be onto something. Do you have any artistic ability? Scale models in a home-made wind tunnel may help you work out some of the gross details without having to rent time in a commercial tunnel.

5-meter racing yachts (America's Cup) spend large sums of money on outlandish hull designs trying to achieve the very same effect. Good Luck!

I thought calspan moved up to the falls?

I left the Buffalo area a the end of 2000. According to the listing on their website, they still have a facility across from the airport.

Le me guess,

Does your spoiler look like a rectangular, 3'X3' mounted on your front bumper?

Just joking.

But seriously speaking: whatever your spoiler is, and it is at the end of the day an airfoil, if well designed will NOT add any extra weight on the rear axle but rather will keep it constant and as originally designed for that particular vehicle, regardless of speed. You can even improve (somewhat) on fuel consumption by being able to tilt control of your spoiler at various speeds according to total payload of your truck from negative to less negative and maybe somewhat positive AOT (angle of attack) at heavier loads. A simple LRI (lift reserve indicator) can be built or a rear axle load cell indicator, to keep your rear axle weight constant.

Wangito

pd: how can anyone be an in-bed spoiler? or spoil it in bed?

On a related note, if the pickup bed is full of spoiler, where do you put the cargo when you need to? If you are not going to carry cargo, then why not save a lot of gas by buying a car?

You don't get it. These are TOYS and there's a big banner at the entrance:

"Practical people--- Do not enter!."

Wangito.

Yeah, I live near Houston where half the vehicles on the road are pickups, trucks that never see cargo of any kind...

You see,

No one is going to do any wind tunnel tests nor design a different or new spoiler... the spoiler should only look good enough for early evening over a six pack discusion...

Not only most of them never see any cargo, 90% of them 4X4's will never see any off-road.

Wangito.

This fella would like his design tested too!

Spoiler:

If you can measure your spoiler and give someone precise dimensions to model your spoiler, you can use any of the available CFD (Computational Flow Dynamics) software packages or send the model to a company that specializes in aerodynamics and they will analyze it for you. It will be a helluva lot cheaper than testing the actual model in a wind tunnel and you can make small changes very quickly to the model and retest faster than you would by making a new spoiler.

UFG

I smell Snake Oil burning...

At what vehicle speed do you claim 10-30% improvement? Clearly stop and go city traffic would not work with a wing/spoiler/act of god to improve gas mileage. What is the size of the truck you tested it on? Why would anyone buy a spoiler to reduce drag by the truck bed when they could just as easily buy a tonneau cover?

When I was in college hanging out in the student auto shop (a great thing to have at an engineering school) we actually took a couple of wings some of the ricer kids wanted to put on the back of thier Honda civics and put them in the campus wind tunnel. We found that at speeds under 100 MPH all of the downforce generated by the wings was caused by the actual weight of the wing, not the deflection of air.