Swirly things

In a previous post someone mentioned those things that swirl the air in the intake as to compress the air. I think they are called Tornados or something. I have only breifly seen them on horsepower tv comercials late at night and dont really know much about them. If someone has any insight as to how affective these are it would be much appreciated. I know they are only like 30 clams. It might be worth it.

if you have anything less than 6 cylinders, dont' bother. those things work wonders for trucks and vans. not for our tiny 4 bangers.

ask some highschool kid to make you one in metal shop, don't spend money on worthless crap

HAHA

a friend of mine bought one and put it on his D15. the only other mod he has is a catback exhaust. he says he can feel it through the powerband, mostly above 3k. his car idles smoother, and he can rev up to 7 now as well, without the engine feeling weak. they might look like weak pieces of metal shit, but he says it's worth it.

he purchased it because he's basically buying many things for his engine at once. we are swapping a ZC into his '89 DX hatch next week, but we tried it on his D15 just to see what it could do.

i guess you shouldn't knock it til you try it.

hmmm.... it does sound convincing and make sense. but i got cold air intake, so i dont know if i could even put that thing on.

yeah, you could. they aren't a solid circle, so you compress it to get it to fit snugly into your intake. they make em in a buncha diameters, so you could measure your intake tubing, and then order one in the right diameter.

that's besides the point. the theory makes sense. i would get one, just to do it and test it. but other than that... it can't do anything negative, so...

Originally posted by flylwsi
yeah, you could. they aren't a solid circle, so you compress it to get it to fit snugly into your intake. they make em in a buncha diameters, so you could measure your intake tubing, and then order one in the right diameter.

that's besides the point. the theory makes sense. i would get one, just to do it and test it. but other than that... it can't do anything negative, so...

very very tru, i might order one myself, as soon as im sure which one to order.

i still dont believe they do anything, simply because they are not going to be able to affect air flow all the way to the cylinder. there are a lot of things in the way that will disrupt that swirl of air, making it pointless to put it in there. i cant imagine a tornado being able to be cut into 4 pieces, one for each cylinder, retaining too many properties of its former self. it doesnt compress the air, and it doenst create a cyclone all the way to the cylinder. its a waste of money, unless you like having a $30 soda can change the flow of air from a straight line to helical, for about a foot. since swirling the air in the cylinder is a good thing, the car manufacturers already do it as evident by the civic vx and its gas saving version of vtec. that uses the valves as a way to swirl the air and increase gas mileage. since vtec is much more expensive than the soda can, why wouldnt honda just use the soda can, if it produced the same results...?

dmanit, everyone makes good points, i dont know which way to go on this, however, it is guaranteed like it says in the comercials.

maybe the cyclonic action that condenses more air into the throttle body will push more air into the cylindars during the rotation?

as to why they don't use it from the factory.. maybe it has something to do with the reliability? the same friend that I was doing the swap with was talking to a guy up here from speedline in washington (nice little shop by the way), and he said it confuses the ECU or something like that. I'll get the details later.

as a followup on that swap, it turned out very nice. found out that we got a '92 ZC automatic, which, for all of you who don't know, is the second generation ZC and is nicer than a first gen manual. evidently the automatics have better pistons. he bolted his old 5 speed DX tranny up to it, but is looking for an SI tranny from a CRX. he also had to get a distributor from an '88 integra, as well as an exhaust valve sensor and many other parts.. it turned out really nice for the first swap we've ever done.

just wanted to brag.. not my engine, but some of it was my work. the results were worth the labor also, for anybody that was wondering.