Okay, AGAIN - The Tornado is NOT a scam...I've seen the results before, and besides, it makes perfect sense how it works. I just haven't tried it on a SHO yet. And most likely it won't work well or at all with the SHO because of the turns in the intake manifold.
The Concept is very simple and feasible though. It's actually the same concept that porting is, in a sense. You are modifying the interior of the intake manifold to cause the air rushing in to come in at a greater velocity causing more efficent flow and more power...fuel efficency and torque. That's generally the idea of both porting and the Tornado.
The only difference is this...porting changes the surface so it's either smoother or better contoured, or is bigger, and this in turn causes the air to have more velocity entering the engine, making it easier for the engine to draw in more air more efficiently.
With the tornado, the way they choose to get this velocity gain is by causing the air to spiral into the intake. The spiraling air has more velocity than the normal air flow through the intake. And the more direct the flow is (free of twists and turns in the intake), the more efficent this "tornado" will work for you. It's that simple. And it makes perfect since...and I've seen it work like this before on a Honda Prelude. It's not a hard concept to grasp.
Not even does it work in just the intake...it also works in the exhaust. If you install one of these toward the front of the exhaust system, it will cause the air passing through to spiral out the pipes. Now, if your pipes take a bunch of turns and bends, then it won't have near the effect...but it'll still lightly effect power. The reason is because it causes the exhaust to exit the exhaust pipes quicker because now they have more velocity. Pretty simple concept. And it works. We've tried these things on the exhaust and intake side and both have yielded positive results...BUT...this was on a 4 cylinder prelude engine, and he had a fairly direct intake where the spiral effect would have a very good chance of working well and doing the most good for the car. And his exhaust was fairly straight as well (we had the exhaust custom made to be less curvy)...and overall we saw a decent little power gain out of this car. I was actually impressed that this thing did something for the car. Now I'm making an effort to try this out on every new car I get, or see what it'll do for my friends cars.
I tell you what. Here's what I'll do. The Probe and SHO clubs in Dallas are going to a dyno day mid-march. I'll get one of these before then (if I can), and i'll dyno with and without it in the intake. Then I'll have another SHO do it as well...then I'll have a SHO with a blower do it...and then I'll have some of the Probe members use it as well. (all the intakes should be about the same size, so this should work with all of our cars) I'll see if I can post the dyno results for you guys and then we'll see, k?
Now, this still doesn't mean that it will do something for the SHO. It's very well possible it'll have NO effect on the SHO because the intake is so curvy. BUT, I think the Probe's intake track is much less curvy and much more direct, meaning that this tornado should work better on it. K? Is that fair enough? Then we'll see if this tornado is worth the money or not.
And no, originally I did not pay $65 for a Tornado. I paid like $25 or so for a Spiral Max. Spiral Max sells the same basic product with just a different design, that's all.
NOW - I have one more idea I MAY try. I was THINKING about getting a low restriction spiral to put in each intake runner to see if the spiralling air would have any effect on the engine...and of course, one at the MAF to spiral the air to the intake runners. If I see decent yields from this, I'll let you know...BUT, more than likely I won't get to do this cause it would be expensive. I'm going to email SpiralMax and Tornado and see if they will make what I need to try this out for free and let me try it out, then I'll send them the results...and tell them that I'll sell a ton of these kits to the SHO owners if they'll produce them for me. HEHEHEHE It's fun messing with companies and their money.
AutoXSHO - That's not true about the turbulence. The only place you need turbulence is right before the injectors. And you're not creating turbolence in the manifold by using the Tornado, you're simply causing the air to spiral into the manifold, and the spiral motion causes it to have more velocity on the way in, making it more efficient, like if you were to port your intake for better airflow. It's a simply law of physics...if something is spinning, it's velocity is higher and it will fall slower (in terms of a bullet). That's just how it is.
Now, as for the porting...unfortunately I don't have a die grinder, but I MIGHT be able to get my hands on one. I have never ported before, so no...don't have previous experience. What I was actually planning on doing was simply smoothing out the inside of the intake and the runners so it's smoother and maybe a little bigger. That way I'd get a little better air flow. And then possibly I thought about another method of making a VERY VERY light spiral groove around the inside of the intake that would cause the air to spiral just slightly...in turn causing the velocity to increase again. BUT, I haven't the slightest idea what I'm gonna' do yet. I think I will experiment with the intake porting though...it sounds like fun and I don't think I'll mess up anything. I will enlarge everything right up to the ports on the heads...that I'll leave, cause I don't wanna' mismatch the port sizes and cause some bad flow. If I do enlarge the ports on the manifold and they don't match the ports on the heads, I'll simply shave the head's ports ever-so-slightly that they match. Shouldn't be too terribly hard I don't think...but I don't wanna' do that if I don't have to.
That's all for now. Later guys.
------------------
- Brian C.
5576 Ragan Dr
The Colony, TX 75056
(972)625-2123
[email protected]
"We do not see things as they are...we see things as we are."
