d00012

Does anyone know if this thing is worth it? Around $50 and supposedly increases mpg by 2. Hell, in the economy now, who wouldn't want more mpg. Question is, does anyone know if these things really work? Or just another scam?


Here's a link:

http://www.autozone.com/selectedZip,.../selectZip.htm

firebird1992

scam u can use that 50 for gas gas and more gas

d00012

Haha! Yeah, I had no intention of buying one, was mostly curious.

chevyracingrox

if you wanna increase airflow, you make the air go faster, the shortest distance to the engine is a strait line. those tornado things do the opposite.

shakenbake

I'm surprised they still sell those what a scam they been around for ever and are on just about every car forum there is...

One of those new fangled cold air intakes will give you like 2mpg wont it?

pontiacguy1

I saw an article somewhere about 6 months ago at the height of the gas price spike about all of these so-called fuel saver add-ons. They would take a vehicle and do dyno tests on it before, then road tests before, and then do these same tests again after adding the widgit that was supposed to make power and save fuel.

They tested about 5 or 6 different types. In one case, there was absolutely no difference. Nothing. Nada. IN EVERY OTHER CASE, HP went DOWN and so did FUEL ECONOMY. IN some cases, as with the tornado thing, HP went down by about 10 or more on a V8 pickup truck. Mileage was also down about 1 1/2 MPG as well.

All of those things are just JUNK! LIke Shakenbake said, you are more likely to get a fuel increase and a HP increase from a cold air box.

d00012

I have no intention of wasting money on it. I remember an episode on Mythbusters where they do the same thing.

chevyracingrox

lol, maybe like .000001 mpg. I put one on my cavalier, and everyone else that i've heard of hasn't seen an increase in milage.

nd4spd42085

I've actually always been curious about them...

my friend put one of the large v8 air cleaner ones on his 53 truck and claims to have gained some mpg... but I'm not buying it (literally or figuratively). I've seen these tornado things in a few stores over the years and always thought in the back of my head that installing something that restricts airflow, even just a little, can't possibly be a good thing. Certainly not something I'd waste 50 dollars for...

8urv8

Those things SUCK *****!! I was stupid enough to go out and buy one. Take my word for it: DON"T BUY IT!

Killert

iTrader: (9)

If they worked so well wouldn't car company's put them in the cars from the factory?

nd4spd42085

uhhhh.... no

most car companies choose cost effective before functional and practical

especially GM

K-slice

iTrader: (2)

Yeah, the arguement that if they worked the'd come stock doesn't really work. There's alot of things car companies could do to give their cars more power/ mpg. ut they wont do them because it'll cost them another $.20 per car.

Killert

iTrader: (9)

Never really thought of that.

d00012

Yet they still insist on making people pay $20,000+ per car.

pontiacguy1

I completely DISAGREE with your statement. GM and other car companies have lived under CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards for years. These standards say that they have to average a certain MPG for each car they produce, and a certain MPG for each truck they produce (up to 8,800 lbs GVWR). So, if GM, Ford, or whoever, is going to sell one car that gets 15 MPG, they also have to sell one that gets 29 MPG to meet their 'average' fuel standards. It would help these companies out a lot in dealing with the federal government if they could increase the mileage of each car even one MPG.

Therefore, if there was something like this tornado thing, that they could have equipped our cars with from the factory that would have given it even one MPG better fuel economy, it would have had it!

GM, Ford, Chrysler, and all other car companies have Thousands of engineers that have access to the best labs and testing equipment out there for car engines and emissions. I am sure that they have tried lots of things like this before, and found out just like we have that they don't work.

Also, someone said that there are a lot of things that the car companies could do to make cars get better fuel mileage that they are not doing... TRUE! However, a lot of those things would cause their cars to violate AIR EMISSIONS standards set by the federal government, or DRIVE BY NOISE standards set by the federal govenment, or some other kinds of rules and regulations that either the government or the various states have imposed.

If we would lower one or two of our tailpipe emissions standards just a little bit, so that we were the same as europe, then cars sold domestically could get about 5% better fuel economy without any change in technology. The same GM or Ford car sold in europe gets better fuel economy because they can better tune the engine for fuel economy instead of having to tune the engine to meet emissions requirements.

Our thirdgens were all saddled with emissions control equipment that costs MPG. Some of it is needed, and I'm not advocating going back to the days of smog hanging over cities, but what does the government really want??? Do they want us to save fuel, or do they want to have really low limits on tailpipe emissions?

It is true that GM has done some cruddy things in the past to cut costs and save money and labor, especially assembly line labor. However, things like this would NOT be part of that.

nd4spd42085

ok pontiacguy1, I hear what your saying...

"Therefore, if there was something like this tornado thing, that they could have equipped our cars with from the factory that would have given it even one MPG better fuel economy, it would have had it!"

I think that's naive (no offense meant)... that's like saying that we have the best the company could produce. Simply put, we have the cheapest possible camaros and firebirds we possibly could have in whatever year your firebird is... options excluded... the stock exhaust restricts flow, power and mpg... but GM chose it because it was cheapest for them to install on their cars while still offering a basis for which they found acceptable to the limits of the car.... why install an exhaust that costs 50 dollars per car when you can install another at 25 dollars per car, and still meet the standards GM legally has to? of course you could offer it as an option...

but consider this... Gm has been using the highest bidder method to create parts forever.... even now, today... they are in a boardroom trying to decide which is the cheapest way to get a fenderwell on a chevy silverado...

the heads on our engines are some of the worst flowing, at about 64cc... and the gaskets on them are plastic, intake plenum too... with vacuum lines that snap like overcooked french fries.... it's not the year, cause the vacuum lines on my 91 honda were still spongy and flexible before I sold it... and I had to mess with them more than once... and the 95 blazer I had used the same crappy "snap in 5 seconds" vacuum lines that the camaro has on it... and I snapped 3 of them changing a head gasket...

I love america, and I love GM... but these are facts

emissions are another factor.... but consider this... CAFE regs since 1984 were for the car to sit at no more than 60 mph for the highway test without the A/C on... so in all reality... when the CAFE regs were updated a couple years ago to what a car actually might go through, the same exact car on the same exact lot from a year before had 2-3 lower mpg on the sticker...
look at that previous test for yourself...
http://www.epa.gov/fueleconomy/420f06069.htm

making a low emissions motor with excellent mpg isn't hard... ask japan...

it's not like we aren't capable.... Gm has made some absolutely fan-tastic cars.... tell me why the same 3.1L motor setup for front wheel drive gets so much better fuel economy

aside from weight of the car, it's the fact that the FWD setup cost more in production with better parts and a better flowing design.... that coincides with your 15mpg/29mpg statement... since the camaros and firebirds were never intended for v6's and I believe that GM chose these motors because they are cheap to maintain and easy to work on... (MY BELIEF)

look at how they tried to go to plastic t-tops in the early 90's because it saved GM money... and they ended up replacing most of them because they leaked, and got all faded and scratched up and looked like crap after awhile... cost GM millions more because they were trying to be cheap...

How about the roller cam that is, in fact, used in the iron duke camaro and firebird inline 4's... yet the v6's, a motor that could benefit more from a roller cam, doesn't have it... again I say that the "labs" that create the blue prints for the cars/engines, juggle several things, and even though fuel economy and emissions can, and in many cases do, go hand in hand... that isn't what the focus is... and saving a penny in a motor design will get you an award, hand shake, and a pat on the back...

you are entitled to your opinion, but I feel strongly this way...

I hope that in the next few months GM and Chrysler do not merge, because it would be the end of a car company that I have grown up with...

but.... GM's optimal method of production, is STILL the method that minimizes cost... so an idea about a piece of plastic that makes the air swirl would get crumbled up and thrown off the desk of a GM exec... because it changes nothing significantly enough to warrant it, and will only increase production costs...

K-slice

iTrader: (2)

Both very good posts, bu tI think I agree with nd4spd more. Cost is the bottom line, but most of the time for good reason. No one wants a chevy that costs as much as a BMW, or a Honda that costs that much for that matter. In alot of ways GM had found a good balance between cost, preformance, and reliability (Cobalt or Cobalt SS anyone?) This however was no the case when all our cars were built.

The only other problem I have is the exhaust thing. While the stock exhaust is restrictive for the 305/350, it's fine on the V6. It's the mainifold and y pipe that are the problem, just bad engeneering.

Very good post though nd4spd. I agree.

pontiacguy1

but.... GM's optimal method of production, is STILL the method that minimizes cost... so an idea about a piece of plastic that makes the air swirl would get crumbled up and thrown off the desk of a GM exec... because it changes nothing significantly enough to warrant it, and will only increase production costs...[/QUOTE]

Well.... I happen to think that any device that gave the car any type of mileage advantage would definitely be included on the original... WHY?? It is a Stong Selling Point, even back when gas was cheap. Someone who is going to buy a base-model car would at least want to get the best mileage possible... Who doesn't? If my Firebird gets better mileage than your Prelude or Mustang, then that's good for the Firebird.

I know what you are saying.... GM did get really bad about letting bean counters design car parts for a long time there... But when it comes to a simple device that could be made for $.50 in mass production, that would give an increase of 1 MPG on every car... I still say that they would have found a way to have incorporated that design into the factory induction system, intake or something like that. If it worked, it would have been incorporated into the thermal plastic of the intake duct work and would have cost virtually nothing. If it really was helpful, they would have found a way to make the part cheaper and easier to install for them, and it would be there.

GM has to take costs into account, just like you said... How many of us would own Firebird or Camaros if their starting price was $40,000? There aren't nearly as many Corvette owners as there are F-body owners, and one of the biggest reasons has to be the price of the cars when new.

We have had a couple of Japanese cars in our family... in my opinion, they aren't nearly as good as they are hyped up to be. They were good cars, but not any more reliable than the GM vehicles we normally had. I'd say we have had very many good and reliable GM made vehicles. We've had 2 go over 300K miles, 5 over 250K miles, and 8 over 210K miles.

nd4spd42085

that's true enough... but if you were a gas conscious individual, why would you buy a firebird/camaro? even the newer stuff isn't THAT good on gas...
I don't know anything about mustangs, but a prelude of the same year gets double the mileage the camaro does... and in another thread it was already argued that the 305's and the v6's got similar mileage when driven easy... although I doubt that myself... either way even my accord averaged 22 miles per gallon... I don't ever expect to see that in my camaro, and I think that's reasonable, and the camaro is a year newer than the accord was

we will just have to agree to dissagree on the air swirling intake tubing mpg adder, really, we'll just have to leave it at that... I'll leave the fact that the intake doesn't have anything now, and starts with an air box vs a cone filter and the tubing is ribbed vs smooth

the reason they are cheaper is because of the cheaper materials, the firebird/camaro line has always been a sporty pony car, they have gotten better handling and faster ovder the years, but they aren't in corvette teritory for a reason... I'm not sure what your point is there... I wasn't saying that our cars are crappy... I love both my f-bodies, allot

I've personally seen a honda, a chevy, a pontiac, a nissan, and a oldmobile exceed 250k miles... and that on any vehicle earns my respect, but the imports were less problematic over time and required less hand holding... although parts cost twice as much...

a good motor will last a long time if it's taken care of, doesn't matter what the make is... I won't argue longevity, although to some respect I'm sure I could... I won't

Kevin84Z28

iTrader: (3)

I guess the "Tornado" fooled HotRod Magazine who when it first came out named it the #1 bolt on part of all time....

chevyracingrox

you gotta be kidding me? what a waste. i remember a poster saying something about this in a spark plug thread. it was something like "with these expensive spark plugs and a few of these tornados I should be well into the 10s and be getting 35 mpg." lol, I thought that was funny. the poster was being sarcastic of course. some of these gimmicks are unbelievable. magnetic fuel savers, tornados, multiple ground straps on plugs. crazy. my advice is to use what has been tested and proved time after time. Popular Mechanics did a review on these gimmic devices a couple years back. they found all of them to be a waste of money. I'll see if I can find a link.

Kevin84Z28

iTrader: (3)

I was exagerating, but HOTROD Magazine did speak highly of it, and the "TORNADO" advertising used to use HOTROD Mgazines logo and write-up as a selling point.

nd4spd42085

here's a few links I found

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_Fuel_Saver

http://www.fuelsaving.info/turbulence.htm

http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...test%20results

chevyracingrox

thats pretty sad. we all make mistakes though. I found that article by the way.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...32.html?page=2
be sure to read the entire article, its a good read.