Does the Intake Vortex Better Your Gas Mileage?

There are a lot of devices around that claim to easily improve gas mileage, horsepower and engine efficiency. The question is do any of them actually work, if so why? and if not, why not? After all you can’t save money on your gas needs when you are spending money on things that don’t actually work. The intake vortex has been around for many years now and there is a lot of disputing information on the internet regarding its effectiveness.  I intend to debunk all of the information out there in this article.

What is the Intake Vortex?

The intake vortex is a device that is placed with in your intake piping and is supposed to cause the air to swirl as it enters into your engine. The theory is that the swirling air mixes better with the fuel and at a higher velocity thus creating a more complete burn in the combustion chamber. This more complete burn would then lead to more power and a more efficient motor, so you would move the car at the same speed while using less gas (thus increasing your gas mileage).

Does it Actually Work?

If you look at physics you can see that although in some situation the theory of swirling air could potentially increase fuel economy, the truth is that it is more likely to reduce your fuel economy rather than increase it. Each engine is different and in order to actually be effective the device would have to be custom created for your particular engine. The size, length and shape of your whole intake track could be the difference between a device that increases gas mileage and one that actually decreases it.

This means the air filter, intake pipe, intake manifold, head ports, valves and combustion chamber would happen to be the exact requirements for this one-size-fits-all solution to actually work. What typically will happen is that it will decrease fuel economy.

Why Won’t it Work?

When you place something in the way of the intake track is going to take energy out of the air being sucked into the motor. By placing this restriction in the way of the air path you are actually slowing down the air that is trying to reach the motor, by slowing it down it will actually prevent the engine from making as much power thus reducing the gas mileage. Nothing placed in the way of the intake track could actually increase the energy in the air, it can only decrease it.

Conclusion

If it were that easy to increase the gas mileage and power with in an engine automotive manufactures would be adding them to cars from the factory. They spend millions of dollars trying to get every last ounce of power and efficiency, nothing that easy would be undiscovered at this point.