I had done alot of reading on this site from alot of different users saying the tornado is a piece of junk. And i must say i agree with most people. I was raised with big blocks. Old iron. And the general rule of thumb is that anything in the way of air moving into the motor can not possibly add horse power. Only rob airflow from the motor.

That being said. I was at my local autozone this morning. Just browsing around. And stumbled upon one of these tornados. 50 bucks. Read the box. Twice. They show an advertised gain on a 2002 5.4l F-150 from 12.1 to 16 MPG. I have always been intrigued how they can sell so many things, i.e. electronic turbo's, turbonators, tornado's, that advertise such a gain and could not possibly work. So. i bought one. Just to satisfy my own curiosity.

First off. My truck is a 97 screw with the 5.4l. 135000 miles. It has an edge evolution. True dual straight 2.5" pipes. A throttle body spacer. A cold air intake. High energy coils and plugs. It gets regular maintainance and all the work is done by a very thurough mechanic.

Keep in mind i bought this thing to finally put to rest my nagging curiosity at what exactly it is. and how exactly it is supposed to work. Not expecting anything out of it. I slapped it in and started driving.

The workmanship, is about what you would expect. Its not great. But i am confident it wont come apart in the intake and get sucked into the motor. The installation is very simple. squeeze it into your intake. And your done. Now. Let me start by saying there is no power increase whatsoever. But it didnt seem to take any power away either. throttle response is exactly the same. No change there. I ran through a tank of gas. Using my edge to monitor the mileage under different engine loads. Driving around town i used to get around 14 mpg. Highway was slightly less. about 13.5 (or 17 if i was going out east where everything is flat), under a constant 40-44 percent load doing around 72-75. I was unable to get an accurate hiway test due to the extremely high winds we were having (northern colorado its hard to get a non windy day) but, none the less, doing 75 in third gear with a constant 60-65 percent engine load it was getting around 12 mpg, which i was suprised at. Around town i was maintaining a pretty good 16mpg with varying engine loads and varying speeds.

All said and done. I had ran through about a full tank of gas. With a somewhat noticable mileage increase. Could be coincidence. Could be this odd little piece of, (maybe really cheap steel? Maybe aluminum?) that i stuck in my intake. I still dont think it will work. But. I must admit so far it seems to offer an increase in mileage. If anyone is actually interested i'll run it for a couple weeks and let everyone know what the results are.

Just my two cents. But in my opinion it does seem to offer some kind of mileage increase. Is it worth 50$? Or 70$? Probably not. But hopefully some interesting information.

 

I'm always interisted. My thought is like yours, why put crap in the way of the intake air? Also if it makes so much better MPG and is so cheap, why doesn't Ford just add this to thier trucks from the factory?

Mike

 

Have a friend take it out or leave it in for a few tanks of gas, have him record and we shall see. Blind study would actually be accurate.

 

Yes see how its doin in two weeks, thats pretty interesting i tried one and my mileage went from 13.3 on hiway to 11 so i tried reseting the computer still the same thing so i took it back and told auto zone it was junk but maybe you will have better luck thanks for the info

 

yep - I'm interested in anything that might add a little mileage. Good first report, I would love to hear your findings after a couple of weeks.

 

If it works and helps mpg, Ford wouldn't put it on at the factory because American Oil Companies would Yell their head off they wouldn't be able to screw you at the pumps as often, heh, heh

 

So your running a throttle body spacer AND a tornado?
Good luck!

 

Ford would put them in in an instant if they worked, CAFE is the only thing the manufacturers worry about. If I won the lottery or someone bought one I'd test it for 6 months. I record every tankful of gas and each tank is filled exactly the same, but I won't waste my hard earned cash on one to find out it is bogus.