Aero improvement, or roadhugging weight?

or go on ebay and look for a used (or new, sometimes on there) crawford or debotech caron aircleaner base
 
Well, after getting my butt kicked trying to weld the .025" stuff I admitted defeat and cut the fences off and made some duplicates in .063" stuff (same as the base). I've got it all tacked together and set it on the carb for a test fit. I'm also trying to figure out what to use to seal the slight gap between the fences and the hood. I put some pipe insulation on it to give me something to visualize.

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I should be able to get this finished pretty quickly now that the welding is (finally) going faster, and get back to the leftside bellypan. I need to make a notch in the trans crossmember to allow the pan to be level between the footwell and the pinion bracket crossmember.

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Made a little progress on the crossmember (without burning up the car, thankfully).

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I need to do a bunch of grinding to clean it up so I can weld it closed again. I'll be putting in an internal vertical wall to help compensate for the side wall height I cut off, and possibly some additional pieces welded on the remaining sides (f & r).
I stuck a piece of cardboard under the floor to check the fit of things. The cardboard is 13"x48". The aluminum piece I have left (after all the other projects) and will be using is 17"x48".

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This will extend back to the #3 crossmember (pinion bracket crossmember). Once I get some more material I'll extend it another 18" back to the strut rod. I also need some more material to clean up the area under the passenger area. Right now the muffler is under the passenger seat so that pan area will be different from the driver's side.
 
Made a little more progress. Got the crossmember welded back up. It ended up a little thinner than I first estimated so I had to change course. I was originally going to put a piece of plate (vertically) inside the crossmember to stiffen it up to recover some of the beam strength, but ended up putting in a length of square tubing welded between the exhaust pipe loop and the outer (horizontal) attaching bolt tube. I then welded 1/8" sheet to cover everything up.

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A little cutting on the aluminum sheet and it fits.

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I need to hit up the hardware store to get some self-tapping bolts to fasten the aluminum to the crossmember sides and to the #3 crossmember. A "freebie" attachment was the bolt (for the seatbelt?) that hangs under the seat (that's it towards the rear).

There's still more underfloor area that could use additional pan area, but I'm out of aluminum sheet at the moment. I hate like hell adding weight to the car, so I hope the reduced aero lift/drag benefits outweigh the added mass penalty.
 
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