What is this air intake part and what does it do?

[Dragonhealer]

No. I fact I think the difference in torque is hard to even measure with the butt dyno.

I'm inclined to agree, I can't tell the difference with "butt dyno", and as torque is what accelerates the car
You should only be affected for max acceleration or on an up hill run. As to milage, too many factors to predict, try it and let us know what you find!

Though I can promise you Mazda engineers did not put that on there for it's looks

[navdoc101]

LOL
Its called a Helmholtz resonance chamber & it has negligible effect on our motors.
I use a Aspire intake tube Because it is round all the way up & has no resonance chamber.
My car runs quite well for a B3.

[meyek91974]

calsci.com explains resonant air boxes pretty well in automotive applications. Additionally Helmholtz Resonators and airboxes are discussed in basics on Wikipedia. Now, Wikipedia is NOT a resource to rely upon but reference sources are.

In basics, with acceleration and deceleration the air inlet pressures are affected with changing pressure of opening and closing of the chamber on combustion or exhaust and the effect is inlet noise; the roar in an air intake. The purpose of the resonator by size and shape is to create opposing pitches to quieter the sound. The target pitch is in mid-power range where there's a balance of higher acceleration or deceleration when torque is at middle power band/range.

So, I drive easy and slow and I am taking it off. I will update ya to tell of the difference that I notice.

Oh, Dragonhealer, was the loss in torque in the middle of the rpm range in acceleration? Where was the torque loss?

[Dragonhealer]

Yes, from about 4500 to5700 rpm

[meyek91974]

As the Ford festiva doesn't have a tachometer, what are rpm ranges?
What's idle? Where would an 80% redline start and BOOM! no more engine be?
I drive conservative but still curious

[rmoltis]

Hate to rain on everyones parade.
Run your car on a Dyno, remove hose to ballance chamber, plug off hole in intake, retest.
Compare the two Dynographs to see where you lost torque, and how much !

I agree with dragon. I notice significant torque loss removing the hemHoltz resonator.
It is designed to efficiently fill the intake tube with smooth airflow. You remove it and it will cause turbulence/resistance. Which means less air enters the engine system. I modified a couple boxes and each time it loses very much torque. Tried even a cone filter. Nothing seems to beat the stock airbox.

At least until you modify your engine to ingest more air i.e. boring out cylinders, stroking, compression etc. Until that point there is no use for modifying it.

And yes I have dickmeyers header and fpr. It even does best with my stock airbox on.
I have the drop in K&N 33-2222. And it reduces the pressure drop as the intake air passes over the filter. This in itself frees up some power. It doesn't create it because it came from the factory with it. It just removes the loss leading to a power gain.

Stock airbox with K&N 33-2222 all the way guys!!

[firebush357]

From what I have read most people say that the K&N drop in filter is the way to go for power, and if you want a little deeper sound just drill some big holes in the bottom of the airbox.

[Dragonhealer]

As the Ford festiva doesn't have a tachometer, what are rpm ranges?
What's idle? Where would an 80% redline start and BOOM! no more engine be?
I drive conservative but still curious

The idle will be approximately 700rpm, (850 w/Auto in a gear). Should bump up some with the AC compressor engaged. 5th gear is about 25mph per 1000rpm with stock diameter tyres. Don't worry about redline, as the ECU will cut you out before you hurt a healthy engine (except on down shifts, no protection there!)
if you are running a different ECU, the stock B3 is getting unhappy over 6800rpm, don't go beyond 7200rpm
our full race engines (with custom parts) require bearing service at 6 month intervals as we shift at 8200rpm

[Dragonhealer]

+1 on K&N

[ryanprins13]

The idle will be approximately 700rpm, (850 w/Auto in a gear). Should bump up some with the AC compressor engaged. 5th gear is about 25mph per 1000rpm with stock diameter tyres. Don't worry about redline, as the ECU will cut you out before you hurt a healthy engine (except on down shifts, no protection there!)
if you are running a different ECU, the stock B3 is getting unhappy over 6800rpm, don't go beyond 7200rpm
our full race engines (with custom parts) require bearing service at 6 month intervals as we shift at 8200rpm

On a stock festiva where does the ecu cut the fuel or spark? I have a '93 and have an aftermarket tach which could be off, but i have never reached the cut off point. I normally shift at a max of 5500 now that i have the tach, but i think i went a lot higher than that before i had it. Since installing it I once accidentally reached about 7200rpm on the aftermarket tach and i believe i heard the valves floating or something similarly odd, but no cut-off...
It reads 3000rpm at 70mph with 145/80 12 tires, which i believe is right.

[Dragonhealer]

I don't know the answer to that. When we had the '91L from new, I found the rev limit once and at the time estimated it to be 6700rpm, hard to say, the limit was obvious as the thing cut fuel and spark completely and did not come back till the revs had droped about 500.
on yours, the tach reads high, or your speedo low, should be 3K rpm @ 75mph


PS, shifting at 5500 is just right on these cars when you need to embarras that 5.0 Mustang :O

[Sid_RallyX_82]

It is called a Resonance Chamber. Early EFI systems did not use the more sophisticated Mass Air Flow sensors we've all come to know and love. Ours use Vane Air Flow sensors, which measure how much a baffle is deflected by the passing air. Because of pulse resonance in the intake, much like the exhaust, the flow is not smooth. MAF systems are tuned to accommodate for this, but it would likely be impossible to program the computer to recognize how much air is actually entering by trying to correlate that to the pattern of how the paddle would vibrate in the unsteady current of air, so they put that in there to help muffle the pulses beyond it.

B3, 5sp manual, 155/80 tires. I have my idle set at 800 to help cover some of my smoky exhaust. I use my speedo for engine speed.
1st gear, 1k ~5mph, 6k ~30, but I shift at 25 because I can't rev it that high due to low compression and grinding 2nd.
2nd gear, 1k ~10mph, 6k ~60mph
3rd gear, 1k ~15mph, can't get past 70
4, 1k ~25mph, can't get past 80
5, 1k ~35mph, can make it to 110 (I think)
These are all just guesses. I haven't broken out the formulas or done any real math, so it's just my ¢2