Mid roof sleeper on a van. Would a nose cone help?

CK 1st before spending any $ on flat roof fairing, it may be to hi, look in truck junkyards for all the fairing you will need till you go back to flatbed?

 

If you're only pulling that van i would go the nose cone route. Especially if you are going to bounce back and forth to your flat.

 

Wtf? You became a door slammer?! Just how much alcohol was involved in this decision?

 

I've got a mid roof 9400, and put a nose cone on my van. It seems more stable, and my numbers seem to show about a half mpg.

They make one specific for the mid roof trucks, which is what I got.

 

At $1000 and with today's fuel prices ($1.75), it would take 60,000 miles to pay for itself assuming a 0.5mpg gain (7-7.5mpg) -- a gain I don't believe is realistic long term (not that I doubt accidental trucker's experience, mpg numbers are just so noisy -- I got 1mpg better with side skirts for months before the long term average eventually settled around 1/2mpg).

Trailer tails have been tested to improve aerodynamics 4-7% (going from 7mpg to as much as 7.5mpg).

Side skirts have been tested to do almost as much (4-6%)

I've never seen a test showing a front fairing with more than a 2% improvement.


It is counterintuitive, but the front shape is much less important aerodynamically than the back.

 

Dy, consider that almost every van fleet that test these are using condo style trucks. A nose cone would have liked opportunity to improve aerodynamics because the truck is pushing the air away. On a flat top or mid roof there is much more surface area of the trailer front exposed, therefore more room for improvement.

Now if it was just for this winter I probably wouldn't bother. But if its for every winter, I absolutely would. But I'd also add side skirts and a tail.

Edit to add: considering bad monkey is a koolaid drinking Mercer driver, after a month that van will get parked and he will be hooked back up to his flat. So ya, he shouldn't bother.