Throttlebody spacer

"Econoaid Throttle Body Spacer spins the incoming air as it passes through the throttle body and over the Econoaid blades. The turbulent air charge is carried through past intake valves for better atomization and more complete combustion."

Wow, turbulence is being used as a selling point these days? I guess folks are willing to believe anything as long as sufficiently long words are used in the description.

(Hint: turbulence is a bad thing in the flow path of the engine. Ideally, one would have perfect laminar flow. Any turbulence will reduce the amount of flow through the engine.)

Laminar flow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Had your 'throttle body spacer' been an insulator, it may well have helped an Otto Cycle engine. The Atkinson cycle in a Prius will not benefit as much, as hot cylinder air blows back into the intake every intake stroke.
JBR James Barone Racing Throttle Body Thermal Insulating Gasket TIG Mazdaspeed 3 6 MS3 MS6
AutoSpeed - Cool Stuff - Manifold Insulators
http://tech.mirage-performance.com/teflon-insulating-gasket.htm
Toronto Paseo Club - A Toyota Paseo, Tercel, Cynos & Starlet community forum.

 

In my opinion, this may help improve the mixing of air and fuel. Yes, we want laminar flow right to the point of where air and fuel mix. Notice the Wikipedia article says, "...laminar flow is characterized by fluid particles following smooth paths in layers, with each layer moving smoothly past the adjacent layers with little or no mixing." The opposite of laminar flow is turbulent flow; which is great for mixing. We want mixing; we want the mixture of air and gasoline vapor that goes into each piston. When you mix Kool-Aid and water, turbulence is your friend. It's also important to know, in the right conditions, turbulent flow can change to laminar and vice versa. Namely, the intake and compression stroke does create turbulence. Can the use of turbulent flow to vaporize fuel be improved upon in an ICE? Poge & Yunik did [In Poge's case the gasoline used then is different than today's].
Contrarily, I'd like to see evidence, or proof, that turbulent flow *decreases* the effectiveness of air and fuel mixing in intakes. This is important because only gasoline vapor (gaseous gasoline) burns; liquid does not. I'd also like to see evidence that your TB spacer helps increase mpg, acceleration, reduces NOx/CO2, or some other benefit.

I know from performance exhaust systems that both torque, horsepower, and fuel economy gains can be achieved by removing physical restrictions (especially in pre-OBD vehicles). And that porting & polishing heads creates gains too. So I assume this is generally the case on the intake side, but exhaust gases don't need to be mixed. ...Maybe there could be improvements for exhaust gas recirculation, for crankshaft gasses, or even in the catalytic converter...

I have a theory that controlled turbulent flow can be beneficial and perform like laminar flow wherein some layers are turbulent while others being laminar. I think this is what's happening in vortices. I wish I could find the example of a regular fluid funnel and the spiraled funnel. The spiraled funnel moved the same amount of water [down] faster than the regular funnel. I believe this is an essential aspect of forced induction. I also believe that specially designed attributes (for lack of a better word) can improve flow. Like watching water coming out of a garden hose and then sticking your thumb at the end of the hose to create a jet[stream] of water. I don't think that intake & exhaust flows are perfectly laminar because they're both pulsating. Isn't laminar flow continuous?

Notice that in this Skunk2 intake manifold that the intake runners go from a circular opening to an oval shape where the runners meet the [engine's] head. I think this is to create that "thumb" effect.


Maybe the TB spacer is helping, but it is probably not be enough to be noticeable. A lot of this is just over my head; that's why I leave most of this stuff to engineers. Now I want to make a "thumb", or have one made, for my tailpipe!