Throw away that Clogged Stocked Airintake

My Prius ICE runs below 2,000 RPM most of the time. It redlines at 5,000. I don't think it needs more air flow.

There are a lot of dirt on the stock air filter box. These dirts are from the road going through the grill. Stock filter box was designed to minimize these dirts. I love changing it every 30k miles.

Judging from the pictures, this implementation exposes the filter wide open. My guess is that you'll need to change or clean it more often. It is just more work if you ask me.

 

I'd be interested in seeing dyno results and some real MPG testing. Until then this is a beauty mod and not amount of gushing from the OP about how we are ignorant and he is right because he "builds" cars won't change my mind. I've customized and raced cars long enough to know that just because you THINK a mod will give you more power doesn't mean it will. This is especially true for low HP, small displacement import cars.

 

As I am the only one who looks under my bonnet and the performance of the original system is fine I shall be leaving the original system in place. I'll use a paper filter over some oily foam any day thanks, have a look at the air filters Cat use on earth moving equipment engines ... paper.

 

Keep in mind that there are those of us with plenty of experience in tuning small import engines and modifications in general. The gains from such a mod have nearly always been minimal to unquantifiable in some cases. Furthermore, when I see people claiming better performance with zero data to back it up I am usually skeptical, especially with small mods on small engines.

If the mod works then cool but don't come in here (the OP) telling people they are ignorant and not have any data to prove the claim.

 

The pity is that I see intake air temps of 130 F stock, so had they made a cold air manifold, rather than a chrome 180 pipe down next to the engine block, it is possible they would have something I would consider. It would take a lot of hand waving to convince me that this lowered intake air temps.

 

Three months and this thread staggers back to life.

Tom

 

I could normally see both sides to a argument, but this one really seems pretty cut and clear, even if this was a pure performance mod it would more then likely be a bad idea as your not introducing any cooler air to the engine to increase power, not to mention a little thing called heat soak with a metal tube like such.

Even at the simple side of K&N filters there is enough controversy etc around them to fill up a message board one of the most lovely K&N deals being voided warranties due to them usually associated with oils from the filters and MAF sensors.

I have access to a load bearing dyno anytime i want to use it but with all the variables that go into play when running a dyno small gains are almost impossible to prove.

But i have to admit it looks nice and i know your proud of your work.
Thanks for the pictures!

 

I've been reading through this thread, and I was surprised to see some people have forgotten that good manners are an important part of online discussion boards.

I was also curious why anyone would really want to modify the Prius gas engine. In my personal opinion, the goal of the Prius design is to maximize fuel economy anyway. I live in Florida, and I'm very pleased with the overall acceleration on the highway, even in the hottest weather. I sometimes wonder how practical it would be to remove the gas engine and make the Prius entirely electric, but I'm personally not planning to go down that path.

As I think several have already stated, cold air is more dense, yielding more power, assuming the engine/system the air is being forced into is designed or setup to convert the additional power appropriately so the vehicle can "move" faster. But to do this, you need to take into account the entire system, from start to finish if you are really going to realize any measurable gains.

 

It is the attitude mine is better than yours for some of the people,
which means my Prius is faster than yours, ha ha ha.

 

Hybrids are they way of the future and car guys will never dissapear. Thus why im working on turbocharging mine and setting up for auto-x.

 

Josh, almost a turbocharger, but with fewer issues I suspect, would be an electric centrifugal supercharger. (one half of a turbocharger hooked to an electric motor)
With a Prius's HV battery, a sensible motor could power the supercharger. Perhaps the same motor used to power the A/C compressor? Edit: no, sorry it is only 1/3 HP you need about 8 HP

thomas knight : turbo upgrades + superchargers
Controlled Power Technologies... VTES

The advantages would be Less hot air plumbing, No turbo cooldown conflicting with ICE shutdown, No oil plumbing, Reduced spool time, etc.

As the same engine block in an Echo makes 110 HP, you should have no reliability issues until then.

Toyota NZ engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Are the rods and pistons the same? If not, are they still up to the job?

 

The pistons may well not be, the compression ratio is different, so they have to have changed either the pistons or the heads. There are other changes to the heads anyway, so they COULD use the same pistons. I can think of no reason to change the rods. (the higher compression ratio should involve MORE metal in the piston, not less)

 

Wow you figure out something that toyota engineers for years could'not do

 

dammit. I can't see the pix.

 

cause the thread is 5 yrs old.....

 

I still want to see the damn pix. with all the cool WW2 footage on youtube, I should be able to see 5 year old prius pix.