Does the Turbonator Work
New! The ad for the "Mini-Super Charger" in the April 1960 Hot Rod Magazine (pg 92) claims that for only $9.95 it gives you "20% more miles per gallon, Faster Acceleration and Better Performance" by creating a 'whirlwind force' in your intake manifold! Over the years, there have been thousands of devices manufactured and sold, advertised as the solution to some engineering problem or opportunity. Thanks to technology, it is relatively simple to install these devices and perform controlled A vs B testing and analysis. It is normally found that the claims of smoothing flow, disrupting flow, spinning flow, etc in the intake manifold area yield no real-world improvement if performance or fuel economy. Apparently this was true of the Mini-Super Charger in 1960, as I have not seen them used since.
High performance engines for a number of years sported "Ported and Polished" intake manifolds with the common understanding that the smoothness of the walls and coincident smoothness of the air flow was a virtue in terms of creating horsepower. Technology of testing and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis now show that what was once common knowledge is not necessarily true at all. Turbulent boundary layers do a better job in many applications than laminar flow, so some surface roughness to trip the boundary layer can be good.
There are devices sold which promise improvements as a result of aligning the air flow. There are also devices manufactured which make claim to similar improvements as a result of spinning the air flow and creating a tornado-like vortex in the same engine area (like the Mini-Super Charger of 1960). Can both claims be true? Or could neither.
Properly done, increasing air flow by using low flow-resistant air filters (more air allows more fuel equals more power), and using intake tubes with less restriction and fewer bends can be shown to enable increased power output, and these modifications are based on actual real technology. Introducing untested and uncertified components can also affect emissions, so depending on where you live and what laws apply in your state, you could encounter issues. Additionally, some of the oil sprays used to make some high-performance filters work have also been shown to coat intake airflow sensors and cause problems.
I humbly suggest that if an inexpensive device such as the many that are offered in the aftermarket were to actually improve power, fuel economy or emissions performance; the auto manufacturers and the government would be applying that technology to cars being sold today. Do people really think that all automotive engineers are either involved in some huge conspiracy to prevent everyone from having better cars; do people think that the engineers are too ignorant to try things; or could it be that when these devices are exposed to reality through proper application of the engineering experimental method that the results are not as claimed? You can probably guess how I voted.
