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Does this work? ? ? ?


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Guest otchie1
I remember reading an article about those things a few years ago. It said that the effect caused does increase air flow compared to a simple vacuum, however the fact that it needs the metal plates to create it, makes it non functional; the added resistance negates the benefit. If it came with a power source then it would work, oh wait, they make those...

Oddly enough high revving superbikes, where the time slot available to get air into the combustion chamber is measured in fractions of a gnat's undercarriage, haven't discovered the benefits of an extra choke flap permanently set at 1/4 on in the inlet tract.

I shall make haste to email Mssr Suzuki, Kawasaki, Honda & Yamahahahahaha to point out the glaring ommision of their multi-billion dollar R&D departments.

When Ferrair fit one to the F1 engines, then I might be persusaded.

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Guest otchie1
Talking of swirly things, if we look at the other end of the engine, do these Vortex zorst things work?

I'm not familiar with them but there are a few basic principles that should help in judging them.

1. Turbo engines absolutely HATE back presure - anything restricting exhaust flow is bad and anything restricting the pipe throat IS restricting the flow.

2. Engines, especially 2 strokes but to a point also 4 strokes including diesels, can be made more efficient by ensuring that the exhaust system manages the system pressure. Using expanding gas of this exhaust slug to create a low pressure zone can help the next exhaust slug along the down pipes until it expands and so helps the next one and so on. This is why expansion chambers exist and why they only work within a certain distance from the exhaust valve. Kaaden of MZ and V2 rocket fame worked this out in the 50s and would have won the 1961 125 GP series on a shoestring had his rider not been bought off by defection to Suzuki in the decadent West :o

I have vastly simplified this as it's based on real rocket science and has positive and negative pressure wave pulses interacting along the length of the exhaust at different stages in the engine cycle and at different rpms. Clearly Kaaden was a genius.

3. The only time I see them recommended is by low-post-count newbies on forums. The name seems to be permanently prefixed by 'revolutionary', 'amazing' or 'performance' - never a good sign. That extra thick engine repairing (snake) oil is marketed in a similar way.

Perhaps if it was fitted internally into a complete over bored exhaust then it might have some effect .....just stuck on the back of a standard system then I doubt it.

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Guest otchie1
I don't think they increase airflow (for starters it's a frickin' great obstruction in your intake) but some chap at a university did do a study years ago which originated this whole idea - basically if you put something before or after a carburettor that encourages a bit of swirl in the air, the fuel mixes with the air better and does give slightly improved efficiency, depending how poor the design of the carb setup is.

BUT there is loads of stuff in your intake tract that makes the air swirl about the place already, and adding any sort of obstruction is probably going to negate any advantage you gain.

And, of course, if it's a diesel or fuel injected petrol, the fuel is injected so close to the cylinder that any swirlyness caused by that device will be long forgotten by the time it gets to the injector. If it's a turbo, the thing's got its own built-in spinny swirly thing already :P

I don't remember seeing a study but the Perkins Prima was revolutionary when it junked the in-head swirl chamber in the 70s for a bowl-in-piston and helically shaped, inclined, inlet port. The BIG THING is that swirl must be happening in the combustion chamber with a fuel/air mixture. That was established by Ricardo (may his name be foreever worshiped :rolleyes: ) although the MASSIVE advances he made in diesel engine design were kinda hampered by the government of the day sticking huge mounts of tax on the fuel as it became more popular. This was back in the 30s.

Although he sounds Italian, Ricardo lived in Shoreham-by-Sea and their Head Office is still there today :-)

I dimly recall the American EPA poopooing the whole thing and even Popular Mechanics doing a dyno with the same naff naff results.

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My hero HaroldMacmillan.jpg

I once operated a single-cylinder variable compression Ricardo test engine with a glass port into the cylinder head. You couldn't only hear detonation, you could see it!

If you look at the plate on early diesel Land Rovers, they acknowledge the use of several Ricardo patents, I think for precombustion chamber design.

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