I had one of those tornado knockoffs laying around and figured, what the hell? My dad bought it a long time ago and never used it. So I figured I'd give it a shot seeing as there's people who think it's great, and those who think it's garbage. I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but I'm trying it anyway.

2005 3.0 auto Sport, paper intake filter, 93oct, 18 mpg average. We'll see what we get after these 5 gallons.

 

http://www.tornadoair.com/

 

Kinda along the same lines as a Throttle body spacer....Snake oil IMO

 

That's what I figure, but hey, why the eff not? I might get surprised. Took a cruise in it, and the butt-dyno feels a little power, but that could be falsely perceived. I'm looking purely for MPG here and not driving any different than normal.

 

I agree, it's worth a try..it might actually prove to increase your MPG by 1 or 2..who knows..

 

you know i noticed something odd... maybe someone can try this as well. I have left my car in "sport" mode for a week now and it seems like i get better mpg! don't understand how.. but i do.

 

Ok, I can try that. I've also got a K&N coming in a couple days. I can leave this tornado thing in if the MPGs change @ all, then try w/o it. Then I can try leaving it in Sport and see what that does.

@ least it's something to do lol.

 

i think yours is always in sport... hey Mazarin, are you coming to the East Coast Jaguar Meet 2008???

 

Nah, I'm in Chicago :P

As for sport mode, I've got a switch on the center console. It's off... for now >

 

jvegas, if you drive easy in the car, you may actually having the car shift too soon and it is never getting into the power band/efficiency band. BY leaving the sport mode on all the time, you are telling the car you want the shift points raised, therefore pulling you into the power band. As a general rule, I have found that most vehicles get their best mileage by looking at where the redline is for the motor and then depressing the gas pedal hard enough that as the engine reaches 50% of the redline, the tranny shifts (never moving your foot). So, with our cars, that would mean that you will want to have the tranny shift at just above 3,000 RPM. Try it for a bit. You might be surprised with the results.

Along this same lines, have any of you played with the intake/throttle body and cleaned up the rough edges to allow the air to flow easier through these parts? I know that most of the gain is going to be under wide open throttle, but if some gain can be had under even partial throttle, I'm game. I have all the tools to polish the inside of the intake. Kinda curious. Granted, if I can get a few extra ponies at WOT for the "fun times", then all that much better. I did this on my truck and it seemed to help some. Even managed to help with some of the low end too.

As for the tornado piece, I don't see it gaining you anything. the whole concept behind the piece is that it spins the air forcing it to mix with the gas more. That is all fine and dandy if you have a straight tube between where the tornado piece is and the cylinder. But, look at how many bends the intake makes between the throttle body and the motor. For every bend of 90 degrees, you loose like 80% of the spinning action. Guys with Ford trucks have actually dyno'ed their trucks with these pieces in and they actually lost power as measured by the dyno. It wasn't a large loss, but it actually hindered, not helped.

Chris "Thermo" Coleman and Nukie, the radioactive 97 X

 

I wouldn't beleive it if I didn't do it - but I actually GAINED more than a mile per gallon.

I'm astounded.

I'll leave this thing in for now. I got my K&N this week so I'll add that in too and see what I get from my next 5 gallons.

 

I thoght I was confused too, but I also had moderate boost in mpg, with sport mode on... good luck with the experiment, Bill

 

Sport mode? I have no switch for that - it's built in. Always on. Operated by my left foot and right arm!

 

Co-Sign

 

Ok, next 5 Gallons are done, and here's what I got:

Tornado knock off
K&N
Driving in Sport Mode
Adding air to tires(35 fronts, 40 rears)

I got 22.6 MPG

I'm going to try it again w/o the Tornado thing and see if it goes down.

 

Cool..good to see your results..

 

Maz, you may want to go with 40 psi in the fronts, 35 in the rear. The X-type carries more weight on the front tires than it does on the rears unless you are carrying a full car of people. But, if it is just you, the fronts need to be at a higher pressure than the rears. I run 40 psi in all of my tires.

Chris "Thermo" Coleman

 

You know, I think that's what I did and I just reversed it :P

 

I keep 38 PSI in all four