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Originally posted by Bradness:
I couldn't agree more with Tom. Phenolic spacers work until the motor is fully warmed up-then they're useless.
However, I'd like to comment on 2 other items of note: t-body spacers and the lousy method of joining the UIM to the LIM. I fabricated a set of locating bushings which remove all the slop in the factory bolt up for the UIM to LIM. They positively locate the UIM exit ports directly over the LIM entry ports. Do I have dyno tests to prove their effectiveness-NO. Common sense tells me they work.
I also have a custom fabricated .75 aluminum t-body spacer with an integral venturi/ram air/anti-reversion feature. As I had to install studs to attach it to the UIM, plus an extension bushing for the linkage bracket and a spacer at the throttle cable it was difficult to do a back to back when I last dyno'd. However, my non-SVT Duratec makes serious HP with all the stock electronics including the MAF, injectors, fuel rail, precats, LIM & Y pipe. I did do a back to back on the UIM and the 98 SVT is worth 4HP and 7 ft/lbs over my heavily modded/ported stocker.
If anyone is interested I'd be willing to fabricate more UIM to LIM alignment bushings. PM me.
A "spacer", in my opinion, does nothing. But if you are talking creating a connector that corrrects a poor alignment between the TB and manifold. I would believe there would be a small improvement, depending on how bad the original misaligbment was. But the commercial spacers sold talk about a threaded like wall that induces swirls which increases paower. This is the same hooey the tornadao claims. Anything that induces swirl has drag. More drag = less performance in general. Because of the shape and nature of our intakes, swirl induced in the airstream creates more drag and loss then any possible gains that swirl itself might add. Swirl is sometimes a performance increaser if it is in the right place. Our combustion chambers and valve inlets already add swirl where its needed, in the combustion chamber. Swirl at the TB doesn't make it to the combustion chamber as it is disrupted by the numerous bends and twists in out intake and then the trip through the valves. Swirl in our style intake does nothing for performance in a Port fuel injected engine with a good swirl design for the intake and combustion chamber. Now a carbureted car (ie: Wet manifold), with a long straight intake manifold, can benefit somewhat as the swirl helps mix the fuel air mixture going through the intake. This fact is distorted by the snake oil salesman to sell the process to an engine design that does not have a wet manifold nor a relatively straight one.
my 2 cents again anyway.
My name is Richard. I was a Contouraholic.
NOW: '02 Mazda B3000 Dual Sport, Black
BEFORE: '99 Contour SE Sport
Duratec ATX Spruce Green
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http://www.outlawengineering.com/index.htmlI have seen this website that sells them, but they don't have any for the Duratec yet. Some of the guys on the Ford Probe site said that they have them and that the performance gain isn't a dramatic change but they do notice a change in temperature & a slight performance improvement. I have been thinking about getting these for my Probe to see how much of a difference there is I just haven't got around to it yet.
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Site looks nice. Not one dyno plot. No tech data on measured heay reduction. Nothing but testimonials. I never believe anything that relies solely on testimonials. Gie me real data. A Dyno before gasket, a dyno after gasket. Intake air temps measured in the manifold. If any of you guys heard of Smokey Yunick, he turbo'd a chrysler/mitsu engine in an Horizon, but actually heated the intake air to over 400 degrees and dyno'd insane horsepower out of it. More than he would of with an intercooled setup. He did have other changes, but the Mech Engineers among us can see how (using heat balance) recovering the heat eneergy of the exhaust to preheat the intake air is more efficient then throwing the heat away. Scroll down past the links : Hot Vapor Cycle Engine He has a patent on it. While the industry didn't take to it, and the pollution requirements of today amkes it obsolete, it does put a wrinkle in the claim a cold intake gets the most HP.
My name is Richard. I was a Contouraholic.
NOW: '02 Mazda B3000 Dual Sport, Black
BEFORE: '99 Contour SE Sport
Duratec ATX Spruce Green
PIAA 510's, Foglight MOD, K&N Drop-in
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Here is what I found on the site. The following dyno plot was taken from a 1994 Ford Probe GT with a 2.5L V-6 engine. The only modification done to the car between runs was the installation of ThermoBlok spacers. This plot shows an average gain of 5-7 horsepower and 9-11 ft-lbs of torque across the powerband. Each engine and combination of mods reacts slightly differently, but on average, Outlaw Engineering ThermoBlok spacers result in a 3-5% gain across the entire powerband with peaks as high as 10 horsepower and 12 ft-lbs of torque.   Temperature data was taken using a CPS T200 temperature sensor with a time constant on the order of 5 seconds. An A/D convertor was used for real time data-logging of the readings into a laptop. The vehicle was driven with a speed of 60 mph. Following the driving test, the engine was allowed to idle for a sufficient time to reach the steady state maximum temperature. Notice that the temperature difference between the intake manifold and the outside air is the same regardless of the ambient conditions. As you can see, the temperature of the intake manifold reached a steady state of approximately 35° F lower with the ThermoBlok insulators than without during 60 mph cruising. During the idle test, the non-insulated engine was nearly 60 °F hotter. This means that after idling in the staging lines waiting for a quarter mile run, your insulated engine would have an immediate advantage.
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Originally posted by dpa43:
Here is what I found on the site.
The following dyno plot was taken from a 1994 Ford Probe GT with a 2.5L V-6 engine. The only modification done to the car between runs was the installation of ThermoBlok spacers.
This plot shows an average gain of 5-7 horsepower and 9-11 ft-lbs of torque across the powerband. Each engine and combination of mods reacts slightly differently, but on average, Outlaw Engineering ThermoBlok spacers result in a 3-5% gain across the entire powerband with peaks as high as 10 horsepower and 12 ft-lbs of torque.
Temperature data was taken using a CPS T200 temperature sensor with a time constant on the order of 5 seconds. An A/D convertor was used for real time data-logging of the readings into a laptop. The vehicle was driven with a speed of 60 mph. Following the driving test, the engine was allowed to idle for a sufficient time to reach the steady state maximum temperature.
Notice that the temperature difference between the intake manifold and the outside air is the same regardless of the ambient conditions. As you can see, the temperature of the intake manifold reached a steady state of approximately 35° F lower with the ThermoBlok insulators than without during 60 mph cruising. During the idle test, the non-insulated engine was nearly 60 °F hotter.
This means that after idling in the staging lines waiting for a quarter mile run, your insulated engine would have an immediate advantage.
Well, that puts hope into my original post. I have worked on several mustangs, fuel injected with the same kinds of results. When i make the spacers, i will do a before and after dyno. I know there is alot of dought on this spacer, but these things do work. There was a 40 page debate on this particular discussion on one of the v6 mustang boards. Lots of negative feedback, but once the numbers were posted and over 30 dynographs produced....there was no more argument. All of you have made good points, but wait until the numbers are put on the table. I'm working on it.
Brian
1998 Contour SVT Born:5/22/97 Build #1199
"It's got mods...and it's black"
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This data is very strange! It is probably B*sh|t.
Is it just me, or did they not do any of these tests on the same day?
The temperature data shows the red line that was done with an ambient temperature of 50 F.
All other tests were done with the temperature from 58F to 75F.
The data on the graph is manifold temperature above ambient, so you are telling me that stock that engine reaches 50+138F just by idling? That is 188 F!!
Funny, in the middle of the texas summer My turbocharger outlet temp at ~88F ambient temp posted 191F maximum temperature at 5.75 lbs of boost!
How is this possible that they can reach temps that high with ambient temps of 50F?
My car here in the winter with ambient temps of 50F was only reaching temps of mid 90'sF after it had been warmed up. I just checked it 3 weeks ago to see how the intercooler might be working.
In arizona when I was using my obd scanner to check out the car, my idling temp after driving in 100F ambient was about 145F.
Now I grant you that this is intake air temperature that I measured and not the actual temperature of the intake manifold. However, the inital part of all the graphs starts off low and which I can only assume is the 60mph test, i.e. the coolest that the engine will get. In the ambient test they quit driving sooner and idled longer. In the spacer test they drove longer and the one graph never heated up? What is up with that, did they not stop the car for that test? It should have heated up a little bit in a similar fashion.
This data just doesn't make sense.
Heat transfer is exponential with regard to the temperature differences. If you have two heat sources that are widely spaced with regard to temp, heat will flow rapidly from high to low. In the presence of a heat sink they temp will remain steady as the heat flow through it.
Former owner of '99 CSVT - Silver #222/2760
356/334 wHP/TQ at 10psi on pump gas!
See My Mods
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Oh, and I can pretty much bet money that the dyno results are skewed also. Probably just the raw data is posted and they are probably done on different days.
Former owner of '99 CSVT - Silver #222/2760
356/334 wHP/TQ at 10psi on pump gas!
See My Mods
'05 Volvo S40 Turbo 5 AWD with 6spd, Passion Red
'06 Mazda5 Touring, 5spd,MTX, Black
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You think Mazda, who just got grief for the low hp rating on the RX-8, would of thought to put spacers in. I don't believe the their dyno results. I am being hard@ssed, but I would only believe an independent lab. I've seen dyno charts for the Tornado. BS alarm is going wild. You know, put the spacers on, believe they work, be happy. They don't hurt anyone and if it makes you feel good, it's o.k. Put the magnet on the fuel line to rearrange the molecules, a Tornado in the intake, a resistor on the IAT sensor. You'll gain about 30HP if the dyno plots for these things are real. Plus your mileage will go up 15-25%. Add the spacers and you haver a real time 40HP total gain with just a couple of bolt ins. Add in one of those bilge ventilation fans and you will add another 15HP. Wow, 55HP easily. You can laugh at all the people who wasted money on 3L engines, turbochargers, superchargers. Why spend $1000's for HP when for just 5.95 plus shipping and handling, you can have the same performance as the big boys. IMHO of course. 
My name is Richard. I was a Contouraholic.
NOW: '02 Mazda B3000 Dual Sport, Black
BEFORE: '99 Contour SE Sport
Duratec ATX Spruce Green
PIAA 510's, Foglight MOD, K&N Drop-in
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Some more off the Outlaw Eng. Site: Quote:
But I plan to bypass the coolant passage in my throttlebody?
Outlaw Engineering does not feel that bypassing the throttlebody coolant passage is a very elegant solution to throttlebody heat. This often leads to rough idle, increased fuel consumption and possibly higher emissions. Many TB's contain thermosensors that would never reach operating temperature. It is similar to running an old carbureted vehicle with the choke all the time. Also, there truly is the possibility of ice formation in the TB during the colder months without this system. With the addition of an insulator, the vehicle can operate as it was meant to and the intake will remain cooler.
Bold is mine.
The TB is heated by engine coolant to prevent ICE. So intake air is pretty cold leaving the TB.
My intake, when the engine is running, is never 135 degrees above ambient (AS on dyno chart). That would be 185 degrees on a 50 degree day, or 225 on an 80 degree day. I mentioned the refrigeration effect of reducing the pressure of the air. They talk about running cooler than ssay don't remove throttle body heating as the intake will ice up. So they are keeping it cool, but heating it. Why does the Car Mfg. heat the TB? So it doesn't ice up under NORMAL conditions. Sounds like a real heat problem huh?
We need a graemlin for "talking out both sides of mouth"
So, if you put spacers in, you should heat the TB. hahaha
My name is Richard. I was a Contouraholic.
NOW: '02 Mazda B3000 Dual Sport, Black
BEFORE: '99 Contour SE Sport
Duratec ATX Spruce Green
PIAA 510's, Foglight MOD, K&N Drop-in
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Originally posted by Contouraholic:
You think Mazda, who just got grief for the low hp rating on the RX-8, would of thought to put spacers in.
I don't believe the their dyno results. I am being hard@ssed, but I would only believe an independent lab.
Well, why did ford neglect to use a metal impeller water pump or use a DMD when they made the Contour? Why did Ford not put an x-pipe on the Cobra? Or Long tube headers? Or 3.73 rear ends? Cost. Alot of auto manufactures cut corners and sometimes we're left with the poor results of it. Unless you're spending thousands on a high end car, expect the aftermarket to take care of the things, that the auto manufactures left out. Like Ford and thier hp numbers, they always overate the actual output. Just like 90% of the aftermarket world. Why do you think there are "ricers" out there that think that a K&N adds 20 hp? That they can get 30 hp from a cold air intake thats not even a cold air unit (open filter in HOT engine compartment)? Half the time your posting about "painting things yellow", "its like a tornado", you sound like a ricer in reform. I'm with you on the TB spacer, as there is NO gain to be achieved. But your comparison of junk products to the Intake spacers is obsurd. This isn't some "rice" product, these have been around for years, long before the birth of the Honda Civic and a Ford Contour for that matter. The Intake spacers produce ligitamate numbers, but on the Contour, it is yet to be seen. It should be in no way related to the [censored] products you compare them to.
Brian
1998 Contour SVT Born:5/22/97 Build #1199
"It's got mods...and it's black"
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