Engine Performance air intake

Performance air intake

I recently cleaned out the fuel injectors on my 01 Prizm and I got a massive 10 miles per gallon increase in gas milage (I only use Shell V-Power gasoline on it, 93 octane stuff..). I still can't believe it. Now that I got one end of the air-fuel dual, next step is to clean out the throtle body. I was thinking, while I do that, would it be a good idea to replace the air intake system with one of those performance intakes? How would that impact the engine and the new elevated gas milage? The prizm has 137000 miles on it. I just want to know if it would be wise to replace the air intake and if so, which one to go with??

go for a cold air intake if u want more power and live in a how area or a short ram is good enough

what brand should I go with? and what would go better on the 1.8L VVT-i 2001 Prizm (effect on the engine, installation etc.)? Ram or Cold?

Get the ELP CAI.

it will make your car louder, improve gas mileage slightly, may lose low end torque, make sure not to get water inside your intake or you will kill the engine. Again, if you do a search i believe most of these questions were answered.

your killen your engine w/ the 93 , it doesnt burn completely and leaves way more carbon buildup than the 87 the engine was designed to run.

did you check your o2 sensor . it would cause your check engine light to come on . runnin your engine rich will just mask the problem , not make it go away. yes it burns cleaner and ignites faster (which could cause other issus) and does help with gas mileadge. however , if your cylinders are not burning hot enough , your not burning all the fuel completely , leaving more carbon build up. also by not burning all the fuel entering your cylinder could cause your engine to end up runnin lean in the long run. which is bad. the exess carbon , will make that brand new cat junk , real quick. i would recommend runnin the 93 every now and then , maybe once a month w/ lucas fuel inj. cleaner. i would also check on an o2 sensor . i think if you rteplace the o2 sensor , you should be able to go back to the factory recommended fuel.

take it to a dealer and put it on a diagnostic machine. the 93 is really not good for the engine in the longrun. does anyone know if the 1.8 1zz has 2 o2 sensors like the 7afe?

Yes, 1zz have 2 O2 sensors, one on the header, one on the cat.

^^ ok

ed , have you checked both , or did your mechanic just check the one on the cat.?

Not so sure bout that. My mechanic has given up on the CE light and has asked me to take it to the dealership, saying they have a better diagnostic scanner. To him, the o2 sensors are fine, and he says it would pop a totally different code if it was the case. Anyways, I've taken an appointment at a local dealership and will update here on Monday, if I get an answer by then from them. Does anyone think I should move this discussion to a new thread??? I wanted advice on Air Intakes, got warned about hig octane stuff and now I have a CE light to get rid of.... if anyone thinks its necessary, I'll move this talk and leave a link to this thread in it.

na , i see you got another thread on an intake.

How much is it to fix all those things? sounds so $$$

You're damn right! They charged me 80 bucks just to look at it and also, they charged me 5 bux for some "Hazardeous Materials Disposal". Now thats some serious BULL. Anyways, the codes were P0455 and P0442 and the diagnosis was a blown evap canister. Total repair costs bout 760 bux. Now I know it aint right! Need advice how to deal with this junk. Is it possible to DIY?

Update on the car

I finally got an appointment at the dealership and after a preliminary scan with their scanner, it turns out that theres a couple of places faluting in the evap system. One circuit, a valve and someother things. The guy spoke too fast and gave me know paperwork yet. Will post as soon as I find out....

no , the short ram is better for low end , has less pipe to travel , quicker revs. the cold air is better for high rpms , b/c the engine already has the incoming air "charged" in a suction. and its cold. look at some dyno numbers on aem.com

isnt the evap canaster part of the a/c system? thats not gonna effect your grade of gas. pay the $80 for the diag. and tell them to stick the rest up there ass , you asked them to run codes not , mess with your a/c , thats why you got charged for the disposal of the freon , which they probably let go into the air anyway. sounds like the techs and the service writer are trying to pull a fast one on ya. does your a/c work ? does the check engine light come on when your compressor engages? something sounds screwy to me. dealerships are the shady'ist places . and thats sad.

I think there's a mix up here. The CAI gains you low end since at low RPMs cold air is immediately available. Colder air is of course allowing more O2 to mix with the fuel and therefore more low end power. However, as you reach higher RPMs, the engine requires more air which it can't get as efficiently due to the long pipe. The air has to travel a long ways to reach the motor.

The short ram is good for top end. Like you said, it has quicker revs which is contributed to the less restricted breathing at higher RPMs since the air has less tube to travel through. However it doesn't have cool air so it doesn't make as much low end power as a CAI.

The best systems I've seen are hybrid intakes. Its basically a CAI with 2 tubes, 2 filters, and a valve. One tube has a filter and it short and the other is long. At low RPMs, the valve stays open and allows cool air to enter the pipe. At higher RPMs, the valve closes and the filter closer to the throttle body allows immediate air to the motor. This system gives a more balanced power curve.

The evap canister is part of emissions. Fuel vapors from the fuel tank are allowed to flow through a vacuum cut valve into the evap charcoal canister to be stored and later purged.

They're doing their job but 700 bucks is way too much... But I wouldn't do it myself. You would need to get involved with fuel lines and such, not to mention another hazardous waste disposal problem.

Yeah, i figured it was serious enough that I shouldn't mess with it. Cost e about 420 with my trusted mechanic.

If the SRI does lose low end torque, does it mean that the loss is worse than the stock? Wiki article on SRI says "The high temperature of air near the engine can reduce performance in some cases, but this is often made up for by the increased volume of air."

I'm assuming this means that an SRI is still better than the stock intake.

Just my personal experience for SRI compare to stock.
In stop and go traffic, SRI sux big time, the low end is really bad since it sucks in all the hot air in the engine bay. But once you get the car runs to 30km/h and more, it's all good since it can sucks in more fresh air other than the hot air in engine bay.

Worse than stock? Anybody else with the same thoughts??

hassel the crap out of the seller or vibrant. and demand pictures of the product. i saw the ebay listing for the vibrant intakes, and they're descriptions are pretty generic. on top of that, auto parts warehouse is pretty tough to deal with when it comes to returns. you have to get RA numbers, and have good reason to return or else you're forced to exchange.

personally the last thing you want is to 1) relocate the battery/fuse boxes beause of the poor ergonomic design of the intake tube, 2) deal with the same thing i did and modify the MAS port. the ports are different between 98-00 and 01-02. be sure that they know there's a difference.

you're totally putting your money at risk here with vibrant. that's why i just did the elp intake and proceeded with doing the extra work.

If its in traffic then I would agree with rainbow star. Unless you do a lot of highway driving, I would stay with stock or get a CAI.