CAI mpg increase.
#11
12-29-2011, 11:03 PM
Quote
I was reading over your post again and something hit me. I guess I should have specified what exactly I put on my car. When you said, quote "The limitation is not the size of the are filter, but the restrictions with in the air filter system." un quote. It hit me, your exactly right. Anyway, I did not go out and buy a complete CAI system. All I did was take the stock filter and air box off, and add a 3 inch outlet cone filter. I left the stock snorkle on to funnel fresh air to the filter. So by doing that I made the air intake for efficient, than stock.
Unquote.
That at face value makes some sense then. My FI conversion on to what was a carbureted I6 left me with pretty much the same quandry, the lack of a fresh air source (with out making major modifiations which at the time were beyond my capability) was some what solved by re-routing the fresh air duct. The fresh air duct was coupled to the Carburetor Air Cleaner and installing the FI pretty much was handled by routing an aluminim tube with the Cone shaped filter. I re-routed the ducting and put a partial deflector pointed at the filter. I never did really like that approach and am thinking that now I have a welder, to make up an enclosure so only fresh air gets to the filter.
I am not sure it will do anything measurable but it will make me happy. Winters in Arizona can be equated to summers in places like up-state N.Y. and we have about 1/3 of the year with triple digit heat. I'd like to get something other than under hood air to it. But until recently have not figured out how. So the project has taken a back seat.
And seemed to remain there for quite awhile due a basic operational flaw with the Fuel Injection which turned out to be the Torque Converter. Go figure on that.
Right now I am about ready to install a Mercury Marine engine with a 700R4 into a 1976 Hornet Sportabout. I also am going to build a 4bbl carbureted I6 with a World Class T5 from a Turbo-4 T-bird to go into a Street Rod Roadster T-bucket. I have enough things to keep me busy.
Happy New Years.
I was reading over your post again and something hit me. I guess I should have specified what exactly I put on my car. When you said, quote "The limitation is not the size of the are filter, but the restrictions with in the air filter system." un quote. It hit me, your exactly right. Anyway, I did not go out and buy a complete CAI system. All I did was take the stock filter and air box off, and add a 3 inch outlet cone filter. I left the stock snorkle on to funnel fresh air to the filter. So by doing that I made the air intake for efficient, than stock.
Unquote.
That at face value makes some sense then. My FI conversion on to what was a carbureted I6 left me with pretty much the same quandry, the lack of a fresh air source (with out making major modifiations which at the time were beyond my capability) was some what solved by re-routing the fresh air duct. The fresh air duct was coupled to the Carburetor Air Cleaner and installing the FI pretty much was handled by routing an aluminim tube with the Cone shaped filter. I re-routed the ducting and put a partial deflector pointed at the filter. I never did really like that approach and am thinking that now I have a welder, to make up an enclosure so only fresh air gets to the filter.
I am not sure it will do anything measurable but it will make me happy. Winters in Arizona can be equated to summers in places like up-state N.Y. and we have about 1/3 of the year with triple digit heat. I'd like to get something other than under hood air to it. But until recently have not figured out how. So the project has taken a back seat.
And seemed to remain there for quite awhile due a basic operational flaw with the Fuel Injection which turned out to be the Torque Converter. Go figure on that.
Right now I am about ready to install a Mercury Marine engine with a 700R4 into a 1976 Hornet Sportabout. I also am going to build a 4bbl carbureted I6 with a World Class T5 from a Turbo-4 T-bird to go into a Street Rod Roadster T-bucket. I have enough things to keep me busy.
Happy New Years.
#13
01-02-2012, 01:49 PM
Well I don't know. But on my 1.8 in my Astra I did. I don't know what else to say. Maybe it's because I drive 60 miles a day with 95 percent of that on the highway. All Im telling you is what the math came out to be.
#14
01-03-2012, 07:26 AM
I guess that is why on many of these items the advertising claims on them very carefully read;
Up to
Which is never interpreted to read;
In actuality, less than.
So many items of the moment are sold because of Bling, hype or just plain old fashion hucksterism. My favorite going back in time was the surface fire spark plugs from the 1950's:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Picture:+%22Surface+Fire%22+spark+plugs&h l=en&sa=X&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=otdNDwqbR2ajJM :&imgrefurl=http://400greybike.com/forum/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D22%26t%3D3342&docid=njovXQ8-cSfOfM&imgurl=http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b171/Cammo78/NGKraceplug.jpg&w=640&h=480&ei=E_UCT96fKeaeiQLauMC qDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=319&vpy=121&dur=3047&hovh=1 94&hovw=259&tx=163&ty=113&sig=10401778687411168262 6&page=1&tbnh=169&tbnw=225&start=0&ndsp=14&ved=1t: 429,r:1,s:0&biw=1352&bih=535
They had no electrode spacing. The functioned from the center electrode to the side of the casing and assuming never fouled, they also never need adjusting.
Common physics pretty much says electicity will jump a gap of X distance at Y voltage and create a spark which is what it takes to fire off a fuel air mixture. Rembering that automotive engineering had taken a back seat to piston air plane technology as applied during WWII in order to make a piston engine run at altitude long enough to make a 1600 or so mile round trip at 40,000 feet or so, where -60 degrees was not unknown as average temperature and the life span of an air plane and it's crew were measured in months or less the objectives and thus some parts that actually met them were not known as being able to go reliablity 1700 miles. These were advertised to make your fuel more powerful than that used by locomotives.
Which gasoline is anyway to start with but who is keeping score.
Then there was the spark intensifier that was sold by the handful at carnivals which consisted of a plastic insert for the coil lead that induced a gap into the space between the coil and the lead going to the distributor. Which caused the coil to build to a higher voltage before it could jump the gap. (basic physics again) which if your spark plug were foulded, would indeed cause them to burn out the deposits and work rather than miss-fire. What was unsaid was the reduced life of the coil being stessed like that, cross firing of the generally poorer quality ignition wires of the time and that if everything was working fine in the first place, did nothing for you.
All of the money in the world poured into an electronic ignition vs the kettering or points and condensor of a standard ignition at the time did nothing to improve an already functioning engine.
What did change was the need to perform periodic maintainence due to wear of points and the short life of spark plugs. And it was smog requirements not performance that drove the introduction of high voltage elecronic factory ignitions. The factory had to warrentee the smog performance for 50,000 miles and the only way to insure that was to build a no maintainence ignition system that would run 50,000 miles with out some one needing to get into it.
I would like to have afforded dyno time on a couple of engines I built. Most of us do this on a budget and dyno time is not part of it. Bling sells, no matter what it is called during the ages.
I have a book I have enjoyed printed in 1907 which is one year before the kettering ignition was invented by the boys over at Dupont a division of GM at the time. I have used it to mathematically model a Nascar Daytona engine. An engine that today can cost upwards of $50,000 or better and run at 9000 rpm and develop upwards of 900 hp and run in that tune for say, about 1000 miles if you are lucky and take care of it right.
Many of us are driving cars that develope far less than that and run reliably 200,000 miles or better under almost pure neglect.
I got lucky and had some chassis dyno time with one engine I built and any of the popular tricks of the time having to do with intake air handlng had no measurable change in horse power developed at the rear wheels.
Drag strip performance has shown no change in exhaust system modifications such as different mufflers and high flow catalytic converters.
Which tells me that IF the factory design is pretty much free of restriction than there is little improvement that can be expected from an expensive exhaust system. I have gotten measurable improvements using an H pipe with a V8 dual exhaust system. I have not gotten measurable improvement from headers. I have gotten measurable improvement from V8 dual exhaust vs single exhaust.
My Saturn gets 33 mpg regularly on a trip to LA providing I use Cruise Control. It has a 10 gallon gas tank and that means I can get to a breakfast stop at about 270 miles out with out having to stop. I can not do it if I do not use Cruise.
My Mitsubishi Van averaged 29 mpg day in and day out for 270,000 miles. My Chrysler Town and Country gets 11mpg on a 10 stop per hour delivery route and 24mpg at 75 miles an hour on I40 between Flagstaff and Atlanta or somewhere in there fully loaded with both a/c running and on cruise.
Driving habits can affect fuel mileage.
Building on a budget I have found Bling rarely effects performance but looks good. My avatar is my Mercury Maring engine I am building. It is a budget engine. The only new visible item is nothing except the paint. I am running a new Iskenderian Cam shaft and lifters. I bought it out of a boat and knowing the engine it was a gamble that I made a good deal. I won. It looked like crap. It looks good now and is compatible to the use in the car it is going into shortly. My cash out lay on this engine totals to about $900.00 including buying the engine. Pretty much anything Blingy on it was purchased used and required hours of cosmetic reconstruction to look good again. And actually so was pretty much anything else. Pretty much the only thing used from the boat application was the long block less cam system and the motor mounts. Everything else purchased was used, junkyard, swap meet and horse traded or a gasket set, spark plugs and Iskenderian Cam.
Some modificatons are going to have to be taken at face value as to whether worked for a person or not. Or whether it is a reaction to buying Bling and being impressed with it.
A shiny tube with a cone filer does not impress me as to it's function if any will contribute to the operation of what ever it is on. However, that is not to say that it won't under given conditions. And some one is going to have a driving condition that it actually favors. I guess.
Or can. After all it is advertised as "Up To" which means some times it actually does what they say.
the rest of us have to make a value judgement as to whether it would work for our driving conditions.
Up to
Which is never interpreted to read;
In actuality, less than.
So many items of the moment are sold because of Bling, hype or just plain old fashion hucksterism. My favorite going back in time was the surface fire spark plugs from the 1950's:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Picture:+%22Surface+Fire%22+spark+plugs&h l=en&sa=X&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=otdNDwqbR2ajJM :&imgrefurl=http://400greybike.com/forum/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D22%26t%3D3342&docid=njovXQ8-cSfOfM&imgurl=http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b171/Cammo78/NGKraceplug.jpg&w=640&h=480&ei=E_UCT96fKeaeiQLauMC qDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=319&vpy=121&dur=3047&hovh=1 94&hovw=259&tx=163&ty=113&sig=10401778687411168262 6&page=1&tbnh=169&tbnw=225&start=0&ndsp=14&ved=1t: 429,r:1,s:0&biw=1352&bih=535
They had no electrode spacing. The functioned from the center electrode to the side of the casing and assuming never fouled, they also never need adjusting.
Common physics pretty much says electicity will jump a gap of X distance at Y voltage and create a spark which is what it takes to fire off a fuel air mixture. Rembering that automotive engineering had taken a back seat to piston air plane technology as applied during WWII in order to make a piston engine run at altitude long enough to make a 1600 or so mile round trip at 40,000 feet or so, where -60 degrees was not unknown as average temperature and the life span of an air plane and it's crew were measured in months or less the objectives and thus some parts that actually met them were not known as being able to go reliablity 1700 miles. These were advertised to make your fuel more powerful than that used by locomotives.
Which gasoline is anyway to start with but who is keeping score.
Then there was the spark intensifier that was sold by the handful at carnivals which consisted of a plastic insert for the coil lead that induced a gap into the space between the coil and the lead going to the distributor. Which caused the coil to build to a higher voltage before it could jump the gap. (basic physics again) which if your spark plug were foulded, would indeed cause them to burn out the deposits and work rather than miss-fire. What was unsaid was the reduced life of the coil being stessed like that, cross firing of the generally poorer quality ignition wires of the time and that if everything was working fine in the first place, did nothing for you.
All of the money in the world poured into an electronic ignition vs the kettering or points and condensor of a standard ignition at the time did nothing to improve an already functioning engine.
What did change was the need to perform periodic maintainence due to wear of points and the short life of spark plugs. And it was smog requirements not performance that drove the introduction of high voltage elecronic factory ignitions. The factory had to warrentee the smog performance for 50,000 miles and the only way to insure that was to build a no maintainence ignition system that would run 50,000 miles with out some one needing to get into it.
I would like to have afforded dyno time on a couple of engines I built. Most of us do this on a budget and dyno time is not part of it. Bling sells, no matter what it is called during the ages.
I have a book I have enjoyed printed in 1907 which is one year before the kettering ignition was invented by the boys over at Dupont a division of GM at the time. I have used it to mathematically model a Nascar Daytona engine. An engine that today can cost upwards of $50,000 or better and run at 9000 rpm and develop upwards of 900 hp and run in that tune for say, about 1000 miles if you are lucky and take care of it right.
Many of us are driving cars that develope far less than that and run reliably 200,000 miles or better under almost pure neglect.
I got lucky and had some chassis dyno time with one engine I built and any of the popular tricks of the time having to do with intake air handlng had no measurable change in horse power developed at the rear wheels.
Drag strip performance has shown no change in exhaust system modifications such as different mufflers and high flow catalytic converters.
Which tells me that IF the factory design is pretty much free of restriction than there is little improvement that can be expected from an expensive exhaust system. I have gotten measurable improvements using an H pipe with a V8 dual exhaust system. I have not gotten measurable improvement from headers. I have gotten measurable improvement from V8 dual exhaust vs single exhaust.
My Saturn gets 33 mpg regularly on a trip to LA providing I use Cruise Control. It has a 10 gallon gas tank and that means I can get to a breakfast stop at about 270 miles out with out having to stop. I can not do it if I do not use Cruise.
My Mitsubishi Van averaged 29 mpg day in and day out for 270,000 miles. My Chrysler Town and Country gets 11mpg on a 10 stop per hour delivery route and 24mpg at 75 miles an hour on I40 between Flagstaff and Atlanta or somewhere in there fully loaded with both a/c running and on cruise.
Driving habits can affect fuel mileage.
Building on a budget I have found Bling rarely effects performance but looks good. My avatar is my Mercury Maring engine I am building. It is a budget engine. The only new visible item is nothing except the paint. I am running a new Iskenderian Cam shaft and lifters. I bought it out of a boat and knowing the engine it was a gamble that I made a good deal. I won. It looked like crap. It looks good now and is compatible to the use in the car it is going into shortly. My cash out lay on this engine totals to about $900.00 including buying the engine. Pretty much anything Blingy on it was purchased used and required hours of cosmetic reconstruction to look good again. And actually so was pretty much anything else. Pretty much the only thing used from the boat application was the long block less cam system and the motor mounts. Everything else purchased was used, junkyard, swap meet and horse traded or a gasket set, spark plugs and Iskenderian Cam.
Some modificatons are going to have to be taken at face value as to whether worked for a person or not. Or whether it is a reaction to buying Bling and being impressed with it.
A shiny tube with a cone filer does not impress me as to it's function if any will contribute to the operation of what ever it is on. However, that is not to say that it won't under given conditions. And some one is going to have a driving condition that it actually favors. I guess.
Or can. After all it is advertised as "Up To" which means some times it actually does what they say.
the rest of us have to make a value judgement as to whether it would work for our driving conditions.
Last edited by uncljohn; 01-03-2012 at 07:38 AM.
#15
01-11-2012, 10:30 AM
How dirty was the filter.........? Hard to believe the cold air set up was that restricted that converting to a hot shortram increaced the mileage.
Mind you I'm not saying your numbers are not good.....just seems so very odd that any car manufacture would leave that much gas mileage on the plate when thats a selling point for compact cars, not to mention they need cafe numbers as high as they can get them.
Mind you I'm not saying your numbers are not good.....just seems so very odd that any car manufacture would leave that much gas mileage on the plate when thats a selling point for compact cars, not to mention they need cafe numbers as high as they can get them.
Last edited by RjION; 01-12-2012 at 10:28 AM.
#17
02-08-2012, 08:24 AM
I'm still around. Sorry been kinda in my own world. I've been working a lot and also my moms in the hospital. So just have a lot going on. But I'm still here!
