has anyone trie the tornado for your air intake system?

and if so, has anyone noticed a difference in their performance or gas mileage

 

I just did a search on 'tornado' and found 22 topics, counting this one. It's been discussed already so dig around and make your own decision.

 

On your dry air TPI I have one word. Bwahahahahahahahahaha.

 

I dont know about performance or gas mileage, but it'll make your wallet lighter.

 

That's about all it's good for.

 

After the tornado is installed, you'll need to buy slicks, and upgrade your entire powertrain and chassis to handle all of the extra horses. If you ask me, it isn't worth it unless you want an all out drag car.

 

haha those things dont do ****

 

just adds a restriction in the intake stream

 

Just curious...has anyone here actually tried one? I mean, I highly doubt they'll do any good either...but has anyone actually tried one? One of these days, someone is going to come up with some cheap crappy-looking invention that will blow our minds, but won't even be recognized because everyone says it will suck.

Now, after all of that...I'm not volunteering

 

You know the whole energy is neither created nor destroyed thing? The tornado is going to convert some of the energy from the airstream into frictional heat, drag, etc. It can't make energy.

 

Like said up there, the TPI is a drya ir intake, the gas isnt mixed in until right above the valves, so the air gettin mixed around above that point wont help nuthin. Im not sayin anything for sure, but something like that might work with TBI, but still i dont know.

TPI id say shouldnt help anything

 

Its a waste of money for any vehicle, not just TPI.

 

we dynoed a truck before and after a tornado. it was a 00 chevy 5.3. it made NO extra hp. the owner wasnt convinced and payed to have his truck dynoed 6 more times! he wanted to try everything he could to justify spending money on this latest "wiz-bang" gadjet. it eventualy made 1.2hp and 0.8tq differnce. he was not happy and said our dyno was not properly calculated. i stated it was the same calculation during the 9 runs made and he just didnt want to hear it. moral of this story is some people have heads thicker than fred flintstones feet, and it just isnt worth all the bronto-burgers in bedrock to argue with an elephant that works part time as your shower.

 

those things work great,........... if you mount it on a shaft so it turns freely when the wind blows & then mount the shaft on your mail box, the birds hate it & you don't have bird crap all over the box anymore.

 

I asked this question before, then someone brought up a good point. In the advertisement, it says "0-25 increase in hp", or sumtin. keep in mind, there is still the "0", so if their product were to make ANY kind of performance improvement, wouldn't they advertise it as a "1-25 increase in hp"? Theres something to ponder.

 

that reminds me when they came out some guy bought one for his camaro (ls1) and we dynoed it before and if i remember when we dynoed it after it lost 10hp. the guy was blaming everyone from the electrical company to microsoft on why his tornado didnt make power and actually made his car slower. IMO the only tornado that makes power is one that has a belt turning it or exhaust pushing it.

 

The only bit of info that I can add is from some tech article about K&N filters... I read that the filter supposedly straightens and smoothes the airflow once it passes through the filter to promote better effeciency/power/etc... My question is, if a dyno proven power adder like K&N "straightens and smoothes" airfolw then why would you want to introduce turbulence immediately after with the "Tornado"? This is just another reason and my two cents why I agree that it probably doesn't work...

 

We all play in a hobby, where there is alot of misleading claims, from proms to tornados, from splitfire plugs to slick50. Also, airfilters do not make power. As long as the filter does its job, cleaning the air, and is of the correct size for the engine, Ill take paper over K&N anyday. And have a little somthing to rub in my fingers at the end of the day..Tom

 

I agree with you about the K&N airfilters versus paper. However K&N makes a lot of different sizes that are easy to adapt to a custom intake. Thats why I use one on my custom Cold Air Intake. Allen

 

_

 

Yes Allen, and when you factor in the reusable thing , they are saving you money. Im not saying they are too expensive, hell, I have one on my car too. They get you one way or another. ...Tom

 

first off, tornado air CAN improve fuel economy. Its a restriction in the intake. Less air, less fuel the computer adds. There you go, improved fuel economy.

Second it CAN make horsepower, better mixture of your fuel and air (same reason why people dont polish the walls of their heads to a high sheen, the tiny dimples disturbs the air)

WILL it make power, probably not. WILL it imporve economy, maybe. Does it make any noticeable differences at all. Probably not.

in the end its a great idea, that in practice isnt worth its weight in steel. Probably more power in weight savings then it give you (ie, .0001 %)

 

I remember watching a commercial for those once, where they put it into a FI buick or something, and it pulled like ten more hp.


Then again, products ALWAYS work well in their own commercials.. Maybe they fudged with the timing between runs or something..

 

I'll have to admit that I have a tornado in my car. I bought this about 4 years ago when I didn't know much about cars. Did it make a power difference? Not one that I could feel. Fuel economy improve? NOPE. Reading this reminds me that I have to take it out tomorrow and see if I can get something for it on eBay.

 

The stock programming in the ECM is going to keep the AF ratio at 14.7:1 and unless the engine becomes more efficient (which you can only do with a mechanical change such as heads or cam) or lean out the engine (by adjusting the AF ratio), you won't increase fuel economy.

There is another formual too.

If the AF ratio is the same and you have less air; you have less power. You will also be less efficient as the cylinder is filling less which usually hurts fuel economy. This is why people who add a supercharger often notice an increase in fuel economy (when they don't boot it). The supercharger increases cylinder filling and efficiencies (something the tornado doesn't do).

The Tornado is just more proof that P.T. Barnum was right.

 

Send me the money, I'll send you a sentance of advice that'll be better than the tornado.

 

The commercial I remeber seeing was a 94-96 Impala SS with an LT-1. It gave the car 10 more hp on their dyno.

 

Did you also notice in that comercial that it was a really old dyno that used a big needle mounted on the wall. Ohh and the other funny thing about that comercial was the fact that the first dyno run was at about 3000 rpm when they showed the HP reading and the second was at 4000 rpm.

 

I remember the needle on the wall. I thought that was very strange. Don't remember the RPM part though.

 

What you never saw, was the potato they had shoved up the intake on the "before run" and removed when they installed the "tornado" (which is Latin for sucker).

 

This thing has "RIP OFF" written all over it.

 

one commercial i saw they used it on an 94-96 impala ss. first run they did the hood wasnt popped and it was the ol skool dyno.

the second run they do pop the hood and whats under there? a K&N FIPK package

 

If you get 10 HP by installing one of those tornados, just think what you would get if you installed 10 of them is a row?

 

I read in an article that they are underfire from some government agency for false advertisement.