2005 modifications... Work in progress..

what's the website you went to order the h&r lowering springs? do you happen to have the number to autocity? i want to order a set. thanks!

 

Thanks buddy. What's your number? I may meet up with you guys briefly tom morn at Capital Seafood, live right there, but I gotta work at 11am. - Walter, 949-878-8714

 

Hmmm how to explain why it works. okay here goes, with the factory resonator installed, the only place the air can travel from is through the restrictive OEM snorkel piece that pulls air from the engine compartment. The OEM intake piping connects with the resonator through a large opening, aka a hole. With the resonator removed there is a large opening (hole) at the end of the OEM intake tube which is less restrictive, air can travel more easily through the 2.5" hole rather than the smaller snorkel. Since air will travel the path of least resistance the air will pull cooler air from the open area in front of the passenger tire.

Stock air intake systems are designed primarily to turn the volume down on engine noise. Their power-robbing construction is composed of numerous twists and turns that do muffle sound but at the cost of restricting airflow and reducing your engine’s power potential. In contrast, performance-grade air intakes are engineered to remove these encumbrances, providing an overall efficiency to your internal combustion engine by drawing in cool air and facilitating an increase in the amount of oxygen used for combustion. The concept is deceptively simple: the more air your engine receives, the higher the output, and that’s exactly how it works.

Try running while breathing through a straw, how about just try to breathe through a straw. Is it easier to breath through the straw? or with your mouth open?
Same concept when it comes to your engine.

There is is debate if this theory is true with Atkinson cycle engines. Look we could spend all night debating the theory's, fluid dynamics, atkinson cycle vs. otto cycle... etc.

The mod takes less than 15 minutes to do, so if you don't like the result it's easily reattached. Get out your 1/4 drive sockets, get your hands dirty and try it. - trust me you won't regret it.

P.S. Gun owning Prius driver, I want to apologize for bringing this debate to your post and to thread jack. I was really just trying to recommend simple additional mods to you that I've found to be useful and make the car a bit more fun. I didn't know how uptight all of these people were going to be... or how resistant to change or how afraid they would be to try new things... this is the freaking Mod's section we're suppose to experiment and try new things to be innovative, fun, and tinker with our cars... I didn't know I would need a team of scientists, fluid dynamics engineers, physicists, and rocket scientists to justify removing three bolts...

 

Thanks for the link! that's a great price.

 

Ya I am not the thought/idea Nazi or anything but cold air intake on some engine design I am okay with and like I posted early on a non hybrid setup would be okay for some performance...
But in this case I see no logic or proven reason to do so..................

 

You must not do a lot of highway driving.
In MD there are extremely short acceleration lanes, so you have to be able to accelerate quickly – otherwise you’ll get rear-ended. Regardless who’s at fault I sure as hell don’t want to get smacked.

The speed limit on the highway is 55/65 but the average car is traveling at 75/85+
In order to merge properly the car needs to accelerate quickly.

Accident avoidance is my logic.

 

After months of trying my homemade CAI, I've switched back to the stock tube with the resonator removed.

Let me know how the tornado works. Hey why not try-it and see if it works right?

Removing the resonator was by far the best improvement I've found for sluggish acceleration.

1. Remove your passenger headlight and expose the black OEM piping that leads to the filter.​

2. Remove the black OEM piping.​

3. Underneath that you will see a large white box. This is the resonator.​

4. There are 3) 10mm nuts/bolts that hold the resonator in place. Two at the top that are easily accessible. The third, you will need a flashlight (to see the bolt) and a 6" or 10" extension (or extremely small hands and long arms - I used a 6" added to a 3" extension when I removed mine.) You need the extensions to get the lower bolt which is underneath the resonator, you have to go at it from the ground by the bumper cover, reaching across the open space to gain access to the bolt. (you'll know what I mean once you get the bumper cover loose to remove the headlight - you can easily see the resonator.)​

5. Once the third bolt is removed, the big white box (resonator) can be taken out of the car.​

6. put back the three nuts/bolts or place them in a zip-lock bag and tape the zip-lock bag to the resonator (this way it is easily reinstalled if and when you choose to sell the car - car's get better trade-in value with an OEM/stock set up so I always save my stock parts.)​

7. Reinstall the black OEM intake piping.​

8. Reinstall the passenger headlight​

9. Drive the car and enjoy the increased air flow!​

​

 

Hey Gun Owning Prius Driver, do you plan on installing the tornato just above the MAF inside the airbox, or on the outside where the stock OEM intake piping connects with the airbox?

I've been thinking about the tornado too...
I was looking the innerworkings of the airbox. The airbox requires the air to pass through the opening at the side, across a short empty space/void (with aerodynamic directional groves), up through the charcoal-filter, then down through the airfilter, which leads to the MAF and throttle body.

If it's installed outside the airbox, you might lose any vortex action as soon as the air hits the innerworkings of the airbox.

Just above the MAF the vortex might feed air into the throttle body...
but could be disturbed by the MAF sensor... Who know's, but for $20, that's less than a tank full of gas so why not!

Try it and let me know if it works for you and where you installed it.
Of course the more pics the better! Happy modding!

Thought I'd share this picture:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Toyota_Prius_cutmodel.JPG

 

That's even more reason to spend your money wisely, rather than throw money at products with questionable results.

You don't have to go to an open track session to test your mods. Check out an autocross event... they're quite cheap (much less than this hokey MAF sensor) and they'll give you a chance to squeal some tires in a parking lot... I bet they'd even let you run an impromptu skid pad.

What would I do with that data?

The data isn't any good without calibration... you're looking for minute differences in handling, but could you even tell the difference between a Subaru WRX and an STI? Are you even testing under the right conditions (comparing apples to apples)? And lastly, statistics mean the difference between garbage and reliable... did you just do one run down the road, or have you tested over several laps?

To a scientist, data trumps all... so of course we're serious about how data is collected. This is why I can't trust someone's butt. It fails nearly every mark of a proper test.

Sorry to be the buzz-kill, but the Internet is serious business...

 

i'm not gonna bust on someone for buying products which i suspect aren't good, let them spend their money.

autocross wouldn't be a good test because each lap you should improve your time even with no mods. the dragstrip is gonna be the best cheap test. but forget squealing tires in a prius-- as soon as you break traction w/ throttle by wire it backs off until the tires hook again. so even at the drags it would be more about the driver's skill than the car, unless you had identical sticky tires for each car.

frankly, i wouldn't drive a subaru to a dog fight. maybe to the crusher... but my butt dyno tells me the aftermarket rear sway bar i installed did make a noticable difference in body roll. i don't need any scientific method to feel the difference, and i don't care about data or how many degrees less roll, i'm happy it helped keep the body from flopping around so much. that stock rear sway bar is junk.

so then you are a scientist? most of us ain't, so cut us a little slack for being unscientific.
hopefully we'll have a race soon to see if there is any benefit to these mods. no it won't be scientific, but if we can get a camera chase car we'll have some kinda data... it should be fun too.

 

Ah good point. I keep forgetting Eibach stopped making them for the GenII.

The person who bought my GenII is going to take the Eibach springs off so I should have a set for sale within the next few months.

 

Dibs!!!! lol - shoot...now if i could only find a way to make them fit my G2T...

 

too bad you're in Cali, that would be one hell of a commute for a race...

Hey I heard that there was a new game coming out! - Need for speed, Midnight club Prius! - Just kidding...
Nothing good happens after 2am hahahah, yeah too bad we can't race - ahem conduct an experiment and see who's car is faster. The stock car, the resonator removed, or the resonator removed with the high-flow MAF...