Tornado Fuel Saver!?!

[Guest Commuter]

There is no fuel flowing through the plastic tank as you have subsequently surmised.

 

Essentially, one puts a Tee into a vacuum line, usually the one leading to the PCV valve. The small leg of the Tee has a 0.005" orifice in it. You are creating a very small air leak. The vacuum draws air through the anti-freeze solution in the plastic bottle. One will see about 2 or 3 tiny bubbles per second. These bubbles supposedly carry micro amounts of platinum (and other catalytic metals) into the air stream which in turn goes into the engine and combustion chamber.

 

My experience? Well... no where near the 15 to 30% increase in fuel economy they state. I did get a slight improvement, around 3 or 4% I'd say. Even at this, it basically paid for itself and this was before the gas prices soared up. The car did have a little more zip to it. Just perceptible, nothing more. About the same influence that I got from putting in the K&N panel filter. I did pass the Drive Green (emissions) test with flying colors, but the car was only 3.5 yo then.

 

I did not bother to buy more of the platinum solution once I had consumed it (about a year with my driving). If it was half the price, I probably would.

 

There was an article recently in the local paper that the Canadian arm of this company is being investigated since people aren't achieving the claims posted. Go figure.

 

That's my experience for what it's worth. Once again, I think a product like this would have more influence on older vehicles and/or poorly maintained vehicles.

 

I just might try the Super FuelMax. I found a good price. Low enough for me to risk it and it does have a money back guarantee. What the heck, it will be much less work to install than the PVI was.

 

Commuter

[Guest Legacy777]

Hey Cincy, glad to hear someone else is as obsessive/compulsive as me. I've been recording mileage/fuel data on my car ever since I got it in 95. Every fill up I record mileage and fuel amount. I don't keep the info after I fill up a sheet, but just like to check the mileage. You can actually tell alot from it, how you drove on a particular tank of gas, city, highway mileage, if something is wrong, or if you add a mod on it.

 

 

As for the magnet thing. This has a couple of principles behind it. The principle is/has also been used in water. Except the water one I have seen is an electro magnet setup. It's this box, it has two sets of wires coming out the top and bottom, you strap this thing to a cold water pipe near the inlet in your house, you tightly wrap the wire around the pipe at the top and bottom and secure it. Essentially you are creating an electro magnet, for those of you that want to play Take some wire and a nail, wrap the wire around nail, then apply a current to the wire, 9 volt battery should work, then try to pick up another nail or something. What you will find is that you have yourself a small electro magnet. On the atomic level, what is happening when the current is going through the wire it attracts or does something to the electrons in the iron atoms, it aligns the atoms/molecules in a certain way to create the magnetism. The more current and more iron atoms you have the stronger the magnetic force will be.

 

As for the fuel and water thing. The idea is that the magnetic force aligns the atoms in the water/fuel. The water thing was suppose to help hard water or extra minerals or something like that, my uncle has one. I'll have to call him and ask him specifically what it's for.

 

The fuel one is suppose to make the molecules in the gas atomize or combust or do some **** like that. Something to the claim how the straighten or swirled air combusts better.

 

I believe this is one of those cases where in theory/on paper, it works and is a good idea, but in practicallity and real world tests, it is not as good as it is on paper.

[Guest submannz]

Submanz: Question for ya. Ok you said manufactureres do not like putting stuff before the MAF sensor because it addes turbulance. Ok let's say you add like a wind vane in there, circular, sorta like tornado, except straight vanes. From some of my fluids classes I would think this would help straighten air, make it less turbulant, am I thinking wrong about this? Or is there something else I'm missing, like introducing an object into air streem causes turbulance? Let's assume the fins are of smooth areo foil design, would that make any difference?

 

Adding anything in the airflow will create turbulence, which is why I only use perfomance computers that can run without the airflow meter.

 

All this talk you are reading is mainly referring to carburetted cars this system will probably make a difference then, but fuel injected, nah just a load of crap.

 

The other thing to think about, is what happens in the inlet manifold? All the air being vortexed by the system, will get straightened again from the butterfly in the throttle body, then it enters are huge expansion chainber in the inlet manifold which will remove the vortex effect even more. On an EFI car the atomisation of the air fuel happens in the head of the engine, not in the intake system.

 

You all may well remember a system very similar that went on the end of the exhaust pipe to help economy never went any further than to make the company some quick money from suckers.

 

I do the same reset my trip meter with every fill up, so I know what the car has done fuel wise.

[Guest kevinsUBARU]

I love this topic...everyone is acting so educated and stuff:lol:

 

Alright, now I have something to add again. In the earlier Imprezas...like the 1993's, I know from looking friends engines that there is a L shaped dead end tube spuring off of the intake tube after the MAF. Does that serve the same purpose as the T?

[Guest Legacy777]

Kev, what's this T you speek of, I've seen that tube that goes off to the end on some of the intakes.

[Guest Commuter]

The "L-shaped" tube is a resonance tube. (Remember your high school physics and blowing across the top of bottles?) My 2.5L DOHC has one on the air intake just after the MAF and a second one attached to the 'chamber' which is ahead of the throttle body. This one is back against the firewall and not easily seen if you are not looking for it.

 

What does it do? Well... I can give a partial explanation. An engine's breathing is not smooth. The motion of the pistons creates a vacuum which draws the air in, but it is in pulses. I use to think that with the rpms an engine turns at, what does it matter... but I guess it does. The resonance tube is nothing more than a relatively dead air chamber. It will help to smooth out the pulses in the the air stream and provide better flow. As I said before, the air flow in an intake system, through the manifold etc is all very complex. There can be certain rpms which set up conditions that increase the resistance to air flow. A properly 'tuned' resonance tube can help to alleviate this. I think you'll find these on most cars these days. This also explains why dual intake tracts make a difference. The breathing characteristics are different at low rpms than at high rpms. Short tracts work well at high rpms, but not so good at low rpms. Longer tracts are actually better. (I do hope I haven't got that reversed...!!) The H6 employs this.

 

I just spent an hour this morning with a bit of stainless steel sheet metal and tin snips. I made up my own "tornado". I put it into the section of slightly tapered round tract just after the MAF and before the corregated section that connects to the chamber ahead of the throttle body. Note that this is where the first resonance tube attaches. It has crossed my mind that I might be upsetting something here as I just dicussed... but we will see. I have only 4 vanes with about a 90 degree twist. It's hard to tell from the pics on the web sites, but the manufactured units appear to be shorter and have more vanes with higher twist angles.

 

I went for a quick spin. No seeming negative effect. I have not reset the ECU as of yet. I will watch my mileage next week and report back.

 

I have had the same thoughts as posted above about what influence this 'air spinner' will have by the time the air stream reaches the injectors and intake valves. I can see the version of this product that fits to the inside of a donut type air cleaner on a carburated engine having better chance of success. In this case, the air is being spun just prior to the mixing with the fuel. Not the case at all with our EFI engines.

 

Lots of fun!

 

Commuter

[Guest EQUALIZERplus]

Subyspeed,

 

Tell me more about that pcv. Did you just replace the old one with another oem, or did you change the pcv to a different make?

 

Best regards,

 

eq

[Guest subyspeed]

yup, i replaced it. not sure if it was oem or not but it was identical to the oem one i took out. only cost me just under 2 bucks too.

[Guest subyspeed]

ok, here's the deal(this is from my experience only):

 

i have a '92 4wd subaru legacy turbo sedan. before the tornado fuel saver and after the new pcv valve i was getting 23mpg. after the tornado, still about 23-25mpg. NO hp increase at all. so, in my opinion, not at all worth the $80.93 they charged me for this piece of crap....

[Guest Commuter]

Subyspeed:

 

Glad to hear your report. I was wondering if you'd gotten it yet. Sorry the results are unnoticeable.

 

As for my homemade contraption... No effect that I can tell. Granted, it probably spins the air only 20% or less than what the Tornado does.

 

I put on a Super FuelMax about a week ago. The first 2 tankfuls look promising. (Well, no where near the 27%, but then I was not expecting that.) It seems to have bumped me up about one mpg, perhaps more. I'll know better in another week. Even one mpg will pay for the item in a reasonable time for me.

 

I'm also hoping that it alleviates my car's slight tendency to carbon up. I have to use a bottle of cleaner or a tank of premium gas now and again. If this device lessens that need, again, it will pay for itself.

 

More to come.

 

Commuter

[Guest submannz]

If your engine is carboning up you should look at setting up water injection which will give much more economy and stop carboning up your plugs etc.

 

Dan

[Guest subyspeed]

what's the Super FuelMax? what exactly is "water injection"?

[Guest traskw]

Consumer Reports did testing on this product and found it to provide No performance gains.

[Guest SmashPDX]

Consumer Reports or no, Commuter is pretty knowledgeable in the engineering space. If he says he saw a difference, he saw one. Maybe he got lucky.

[Guest Commuter]

I don't know if the comment about Consumer Reports pertained the the Tornado (as per the subject line) or the FuelMax product.

 

One mpg (or so) is pretty hard to ascertain and it has only been a week. As I said, more to come. I run through 2 tankfuls of gas a week. My mileage usually doesn't vary by more than +/- 1 mpg. I'll know better in a week or two. As for the long term affect, well, I'll just have to wait and see.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence Russ. I don't doubt that there is something to the technology of the FuelMax. It's more a question as to whether it will have any meaning or impact on a well running late model car with fuel injection.

 

The price was low enough that I looked upon it as if I was buying a lottery ticket. You put out some cash with very little if any expectation of return.

 

I'll keep you posted.

 

Commuter

[Guest JRAYQUEZ]

Subyspeed-

 

After installing the Tornado thing on your car have you been driving like you normally do, or were you trying to force the hp gain that they promised ? I know when I installed my intake, which promised more hp and better gas mileage, the first week or so I was getting worse gas mileage because I was experimenting with the gain in hp rather than driving normal. Since then, I have noticed an increase in MPG when I drive conservatilvely and normal (as hard as it is to do!)

 

Also, I know I forgot to reset the computer the first few days, so until I did I never noticed any big difference in HP or gas mileage.

[Guest subyspeed]

no, i made sure that before i put it in i had a full tank of my usual gas(92) and i reset the computer(let it set for 1.5 hr before hooking the battery back up and letting it idle back to normal) and believe it or not i drove it pretty conservatively. i know how much gas my car sucks up when i rip around in it so i wanted to see what, if any, the actual gains were.

[Guest submannz]

You inject water through an injector into the inlet manifold which helps cool the engine etc.

 

www.better-mileage.com/water1.html

[Guest traskw]

Here is what Consumer Reports Says about the "Put a Tornado under your hood!" Tornado System, if this is the same system you are referring, though, I mean how many Tornado systems are out there? Oh wait, there is that exhaust too. Anyway, here is what they said:

 

***********************************************

"Put a Tornado under your hood!" exhorts the manufacturer of a $70 device that claims to improve your vehicle's power and mileage. The Tornado, a stainless-steel disc with stationary blades, fits inside the air-filter housing or air-intake hose. "Its air-flow dynamics create a swirling, fast-burn effect" and allows for more complete combustion, the ads say.

 

We tested the Tornado on a 1998 Volkswagen New Beetle and a 1999 Ford Ranger pickup. In our acceleration tests, the Ranger showed no improvement and the Beetle showed slightly worse performance with the Tornado. Fuel economy didn't improve in either vehicle.

***********************************************

 

If that voided my membership, I don't know.

 

WT

92 Legacy Wagon

97 Legacy Wagon

01 Legacy Sedan

[Guest Legacy777]

I have a question about the water injection, if the addition of water allows you to run leaner mixture, how do you get a self-adjusting-self learning ECU to run a leaner mixter then it's suppose to, without putting a fully customized ECU with new fuel maps in it?

[Guest gvmelbrty]

This Tornado device is nothing new. I fell for it in 1984-85 under the name of "Swarup." Same scam, different name. Two little tin rings w/ fins that I placed underneath the carb barrels of my '77 Bronco. Zero effect... except I was out $50.

 

-Tom