Has anyone heard of this...Air muffler removal?

[hat_man]

Hey all,

I was lurking a Ford Ranger forum and ran across this info. At the bottom of the article there is a list of "mods". The one I am asking about is the Air Muffler removal. Now I don't understand a lot of the technical stuff I read here, but I do get the idea that more air = more HP = more fuel. But does that also mean less MPG? If I have more HP to move the same weight then I could move it faster. But If I move the same weight with more HP at the same speed wouldn't the engine be working less hard and running more efficiently? I realize that there has to be a break over point somewhere. You can go out and do a whole bunch of "preformance" mods and expect to get incredible MPG. Just ain't gonna happen. But from reading some of the post on that forum it seems some folks have had sucess with this one. It seems to be completely reversable from the reading so I think I am going to try it. I was just wondering if anyone here had tried this and how it worked out for them. Once I get back to driving the same distances to work and back I'll try and get some FE numbers posted, but with a small leak in the filler neck in my tank they may not be very accurate not being able to top off the tank. Here's the link. If it isn't clickable then try a CCP into the address bar.

The Ford Ranger 4-Cylinder Lima Motors - The Ranger Station

Thanks

[Peter7307]

Hat man,
I have not come across this particular mod but there is a similar one very popular with road racer wanna bee's in Europe for the Opel Vectra.

This is called the "three pipe mod" and involves cutting the three resonator chambers from the air intake to achieve similar gains according to those opting to do it.

Sadly dyno tests found the torque , power and fuel economy all went DOWN and the noise went UP after this was carried out. The myth still remains however and the mod is still the hot item for Opel / Vauxhall conversation on those chatboards...along with neon lights under the car etc. etc.

Given the penny pinching nature of car builders it would not be there if it could be replaced by a straight piece of PVC tube from the Home Depot which delivers more power , economy torque AND a more impressive intake noise into the deal.

Your car and your call but I am dubious as you can probably tell.

Post here if you decide to do a test on it.

Peter.

[Ryland]

When I first bought my car it's air intake was missing because of front end damage to the car, so I bought everything I needed to replace it and gained about 3mpg and quited everything down, the only advantage I had not having it was that I could hear the engine better and could tell when I was giving it to much gas so it affected my driving in a way that improved my gas mileage, but installing a scangauge or a vacuum gauge is going to give you better results and more information.

[ghostwalker]

That was the first mod I ever did on a mustang 5.0. You would be hard pressed to find one that is still stock. If the ranger is the same basically it's to reduces intake noise or "woooshing". I thought it sounded better gutted it and it was worth a small bit of power. I didn't care about FE at the time so i have no idea how it affected it. Lol later I used the scoop I pulled out to make a ram air mounted under the facia with a length of dryer hose. I could feel a significant difference at highway speeds with that set up. Of course it also vacuumed up the occasional cigarette butt or piece of paper .-cheers GW

[usergone]

As far as performance mods, there are 2 types. The kind that allows you to burn more fuel, and those that make you waste less of it.

Burning more fuel gives you more power. Often this means NOX or a blower. However, anything but a turbo as a blower is not likely to show you gains in FE. There are also less drastic mods, like flow porting the head (well, maybe that is a little drastic), which make the air flow more easily through the engine. Headers are a very common item to get a few HP, cause they tend to restrict less.

Then you have your actual "efficiency" mods. Many are the same for us as they are for performance cars. Take weight for instance. Go to a drag strip and look at the inside of the cars. Not too much there. Extra mass in the car does nothing but take up precious energy to be accelerated with the rest of the car. Of course, there are also LRR tires, aerodynamics, lightweight oils, proper gear ratios, etc. Some of these are a little fuzzy as to which category they are in, but you get the point.

In theory, removing baffles will reduce the restriction on the intake, but actual testing beats theory any day of the week. I don't claim to know why a modified intake is less powerful and less efficient than stock. It won't even be flowing that much air when you're below 50% throttle and below 2000 RPMs, which means most of the time (I imagine).

And as far as performance mods killing MPG, you are right in some situations. If you have a 350 with a voodoo cam and a big supercharger poking through the hood, it probably has a really bad BSFC chart. But take a well flowing engine that has simply been tuned and streamlined, maybe with a turbo, and it won't necessarily be bad off the bat. I think that when you apply power is more important than how. If you are constantly flooring it and never coasting at all, you are also going to be using your brakes more, which is indicative of the dreaded "car doing work on the brakes" instead of "car doing very little work on the road and wind to stay in motion."

[moorecomp]

On my ZX2, this was a mod devolped a long time ago and called the "Keman" mod. I believe it was named after the individual who thought of it. I performed the mod and gained about 2 mpg's. I can't tell the increase in intake noise, mainly because I am never accelerating at WOT.