Sorry - I hate vulgarity - but it gets attention.

The Tornado "question" clogs up this Forum with enough regularity that we need to put its bogus science to bed once and for all.

1) Almost always, turbulent air flows less than "straight" air. Any 2nd year engineering student knows this. It is simple fluid dynamics.

2) Even if the Tornado's turbulence had some benefit, look at the distance most intake tracts have post-Tornado. Is the turbulence maintained? Not likely.

3) The intakes of modern cars are carefully engineered - intake swirl of the fuel-air charge has benefits in terms of combustion efficiency, but one cannot extrapolate that to the insipid, moronic claims of the Tornado ads.

4) I saw a test recently where it showed a 10% loss of peak horsepower with the Tornado; but no detriment to fuel economy. That should demonstrate once again that horsepower is more a top speed / high RPM issue unless you can make the power down low, where it is known as torque.

5) I have posted on the placebo effect many times, and that people here who claim they get 20% better fuel economy with premium and other such nonsense are modifying their driving patterns, making the results completely non-scientific (I feel like Randi the Magician, but he makes a lot fo science in debunking junk science and the poor or deceptive claims of hucksters looking for the endless stream of suckers).

The claims the Tornado owners make should be sobering to anyone who thinks there are the following:
Extraterrestrials visiting the Earth; Bigfoot; 100 mpg carburetor; million mile tires; and so forth.

Use your head - your Mom was right - if it sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.

Science Rules!!!

 

are u talking about the Turbonator?

 

^ Tornado/Turbonator. Same concept.

 

both wastes of money...lol

 

That thing is bogus crap, but I use the magnet on the fuel line, it does something
to the fuel and I get 20 more HP and much better MPG.

Brett

 

That's odd. I get 20 additional miles per gallon, but only a few more BHP. Oh wait, maybe I have the magnet reversed.

 

I saw the infomercial, in which an old lady said that she felt the increase in horsepower... , my wife can tell if I'm good in bed, a good father or a good provider but can't tell sh..hit about HP...now tell me how can someone say it on TV and not be coached about the topic...>..Turbonator = waste of $$

 

When I was more active in the 2G forum 2-3 years ago, some guy claiming to be the son of the developer of the Tornado was posting about its miraculous gains....and when people suggested he put it in his car, dyno it, and post the results, he got huffy about it. Suggested a fraud to me, and I'm amazed anyone would buy that piece of crap.

 

If you are talking about the tornado air product, it does help in the bottom end. I just put my TL on the dyno with it in there and then ran it without it. The runs without it in there produced a lower torque curve and less HP. The help with this unit is in the range from 1000-6000 RPM's. It is not a large gain, but there is a gain. The peak HP was 1HP better and the peak torque was 1 FT/lb better. But in the lower RMP range it was 3-5 HP better, and 2-4 ft/lb better. Now where it hurt was above the 6200 range. The air velocity became to great at that point and the T-air hurt power. But at that point you are already out of the power band.

I did this as a test to see what the difference would be. As for the gain in gas milelage, it does help, but in my case it was only 1MPG difference. Still, that is a positive gain.

 

show them dyno sheets...
till then, all ill say is

 

The Tornado, brought to you by the same "science" that unleashed the mileage magic of the fuel line magnet, which aligns those gasoline molecules, to extract the maximum energy from each gallon of fuel.

Let's hear a big round of applause for all those scientists who got their degree from the P.T. Barnum School of Science and Technologiwockle making our lives better each day!

 

First of all, take dyno numbers with a grain of salt. They are just that, numbers and we don't race dynos.

I've had lots of experience with my supercharged 4.6L '95 T-Bird on a dynojet. I've also seen many different vehicles on the dyno and they all react differently. I can tell you that just warming up fluids in the drivetrain effects power results on a dyno.

Also a DYNOJET dynomometer can sometimes give you false numbers even when calibrated and used correctly. Let me give you an example. A dynojet works on how quickly your vehicle accelerates the drum rollers in the floor. The engine rpm is monitored and time is recorded throughout the dyno pull. So weight of the vehicle is not taken into consideration nor is there a considerable amount of load on the drivetrain. Some high horsepower cars can even smoke the tires on the dyno rollers...I've seen that with my own eyes. These cars weigh 3,900 lbs and are strapped to the ground.

So lets say you have a cast iron flywheel, heavy cast aluminum rims with a decent size tire, a steel driveshaft and a large diameter torque converter (automatic transmission), say 12". Your car makes 225 HP and 250 TQ at the rear wheels.

Now you go and change to an aluminum flywheel/flexplate, lightweight alloy rims with a low profile tire, a metal matrix composite driveshaft and swap to a smaller 10" diameter torque converter. On the same dynojet on the same day you'd produce more power at the wheels then before. Did you make more power with these drivetrain modifications? NO! Did you accelerate the drivetrain faster? YES!

Would the car accelerate faster on the street? Yes. So why did this happen? The dynojet measured the acceleration rate of the drums and since the driveline efficiency went up (less rotational mass) your car appeared to be making more power. It really isn't making a single horsepower more or less than before.

The Mustang Dyno works differently. This type of dyno takes vehicle weight into consideration and places load on the drivetrain to simulate road friction. This type of dyno is useful when tuning a car at part throttle for drivability, not just at WOT. Fudge the weight of the vehicle and the numbers change...in reality the power has not.

Now let's talk about the automatic transmission. You have a torque converter which when it locks up and stays locked transmits more power to the drive wheels then an open or unlocked torque converter. If you think differently, you are wrong.

When a torque converter is unlocked and not multiplying torque, it's only about 90% efficient. Of course this all depends on the design of the converter). That means you are losing approx 10% of the engine power through the torque converter. Almost all production cars have torque converters that slip 500-1,000 rpm at WOT. They generate a lot of unwanted heat and start breaking down the oil to friction material interface. A larger diameter converter will almost always have more friction material to help it stay locked. However the larger the diameter, the quicker it starts to balloon or grow on it's axis while spinning. A smaller diameter converter will start to balloon later on in the rpm range since it has less rotational mass. The con to this is a smaller diameter converter will slip more and generate more heat.

When on a dyno, the torque converter must be locked up in order to get accurate and reliable results. With an auto TL, this means locked in 3rd gear (1.02:1 ratio)You'll sometimes see a car with an open converter show an incredible torque number at low speeds on a dyno graph. Like 700 lb.-ft. of torque at 1,900 rpm but from a stock Mustang GT. So how can you ensure the converter is locked up at WOT? You can't unless you have access to the computer software and command it to lock-up and stay locked.

Manual transmissions don't have to worry about this since they don't have torque converters.

Now as far as the Tornado product goes it's snake oil. I haven't found a single person who uses the tornado that can positively prove it added power/torque with a control experiment and added fuel economy while dropping 1/4 mile e.t.s. People talk all they want, nobody has a dyno chart or a time slip to show otherwise. Tornado = Splitfire spark plugs = Octane Boosters = Waste of your money

SOTP meter (seat of the pants) doesn't count either. I can't tell you how many times I've made a charge to my blown T-Bird that felt like it made the car faster, then taken it to the track to be rewarded with a slower e.t. than before.

A-Train