A good friend the other day took the opportunity to 'volunteer' my car to test a gadget he had fashioned out of aluminum and some rubber. A certain car club had one trader that made one out of some really cheap materials and promised the sky, moon and the earth with his RM150 miracle device. The funny thing is it probably was worth RM5 or less to make.
So involuntarily, I obliged since he had already fisted the damn contraption into my airbox. I'm not an advocate of contraptions that promises a thousand different things from more power to better fuel consumption. In my opinion if you want more power, slap in a forced induction kit. You want better fuel consumption put a brick behind the accelerator pedal. End of story.
So essentially I started this test with a biased opinion and wanted it to fail catastrophically. I was not dissapointed.
As you can see from the pictures, the contraption has 6 fins, is held in place with a rubber surround and is very similar to products like Surbo and intake air swirlers. It’s supposed to swirl the air into the intake manifold to force the air in at a higher velocity which results in better combustion.
But logic dictates - since the air intake is 90 degrees to the intake manifold to the engine block, the air flow is going to be disrupted in the manifold itself and probably cause a lot of havoc there. Not only that, because the gadget is in the pathway of the intake, the volume of air going into the intake is decreased. In my case greatly decreased.
I have to point out that my car has had extensive modifications done to it. Even though it’s a pathetic 3-speed auto, I get on average 15km/L fuel consumption for city driving and I eat several different car makes for breakfast (in most cases la) when I try.
So test day #1 : While idling at my friends shop in Bukit Jalil, I immediately noticed my car sputtering when idling with a cold engine. She (my cars female btw) sounded asthmatic and idling was really rough. It improved after the temperature gauge went up.
Acceleration was greatly decreased and you know how it feels when you’re constipated? That’s how the car felt when I was flooring it. What’s worse I got my ass handed to me by a Nissan Livina who thought it was funny to tailgate me.
Test day #2 : First tank of fuel almost completely gone after a whole days worth of driving everywhere and getting overtaken by almost any car that tried. Went in to the gas station and checked my mileage. 9KM/L! What the hell! I yanked that contraption out of the intake and silently cursed my friend for making me try this.
To be fair though, I was revving quite hard to get the car moving. This automatically equates to more fuel wasted to get the same amount of power I normally get without the device. I might have gotten better fuel consumption if I had been more conservative with the gas pedal.
Conclusion :
Cost of gadget : RM150 (or in my case.. on-loan)
Power produced with product : -5 / 10
Fuel consumption with product : 0 / 10 (subjective)
Getting your ass handed to you by a MPV on a straight road… priceless!
