Techno Torque 2

[ppbon]

Originally Posted by Lil bastard

How are you determining that you have established laminar flow? At what velocities?

... is not the correct term, but rather "less turbulent flow".
I'll be posting a video later this week where you'll be able to see the increased efficiency of the TechnoTorque.
Also, the piece is designed for the lower RPMs, where additional torque is needed.
At high RPMs, let's say at 6000 RPM, a 2.5L engine will be sucking in 7,500 liters of air per minute so at this speed, efficiency is out the window. It really doesn't matter that much if the inside of the Tee is smooth or not.
But at idle (800 RPM) it's only sucking in 1,000 liters of air, or 7.5 times less air. Here the smoother the walls are the more efficient the flow will be from the low RPMs.
That's why we see an increase in Torque at lower RPMs and no change basically in the HP curve.
Happy Boxstering,
Pedro

[blue2000s]

Attached is a picture of a CFD (fluid dynamic modeling) model that I ran to illustrate what's actually going on in the "T". No offense to Pedro at all with the following description, I'd just like to help clear things up a bit.

The center of the air channel from the throttle body will enter the "T" and stagnate (stop) as it hits the back wall. This builds a "wedge" of high pressure air at the center of the "T". This essentially does automatically what the little plastic wedge of the technotorque does.

The shape of the wedge created by the air itself isn't necessarily ideal and will change with flow and time, so the shape of the technotorque may help to slightly improve flow, but without analysis and testing of several iterations (like CFD or a flow bench), it's lucky if it does. It can just as easily impede the airflow and hurt power.

I believe that the polishing of the runner probably has as much (if not more) to do with the power improvement than the wedge itself.

Now notice that the flow as it goes sideways entering the horizontal tube, flattens out. Leaving more than half the tube to useless recirculation. The flow at the "top" of the horizontal tube in the picture actually just flows in a big circle! We call that recirculation. This increases the air velocity, leading to pressure losses in the junction.

The big benefit to the IPD plenum isn't the wedge at the base of the "T", it's the fact that the vertical tube in my picture gradually gets wider before opening into the T and has nice, rounded edges as it transitions to the horizontal. This helps the air to make the 90 degree turn while better sicking to the walls of the tube. This makes MUCH better use of the horizontal tube volume and significantly lowers the overall pressure drop through the "T".

BTW - The plenum is the shape it is for manufacturing simplicity and cost. There isn't enough of a benefit to power or drive-ability to justify the extra cost of optimizing the part from a manufacturer's perspective. Porsche went as far as they saw prudent with cost for performance in mind. So don't think everything's perfect with this car, it's as good as Porsche decided to make it considering the costs of manufacture.

[Adam]

This product looks promising. Someone needs to buy it and do an independent dyno test!

[Kirk]

I buy the overall concept as a lot of people swear by the IPD/RSS/Mike's Turbo plenum that's the same type of design, just higher quality. A couple points of note though:

You've got a GTech windshield mounted device serving as hard data with such a slight difference between the curves.... Why on earth wasn't a real dyno used???

Port and polish.... come on! What exactly are you porting? The part in question is PLASTIC. How on earth are you going to really port that without making the plastic walls thinner and more brittle? Are you maybe knife edging the outlet side?

I've had the T after the throttle out on my '00 Boxster S. I must be really lucky as mine was already smooth inside from the factory.... perfectly smooth inside, no resin flash, no seams, no need for a polish. That's specifically why I had it apart, to look for a port and polish opportunity there and I saw little, if anything, you could gain without likewise porting the throttle body and also potentially compromising the integrity of the part. Because of the way the stock hoses and throttle connect I also saw no gain from knife edging the part. So I'm certainly curious as to what you've done!

Other than these points (and I am very skeptical by nature) I think the product has some real potential.

Kirk