Well, you will know by now, the Lone Ranger is always experimenting on how to make things better… It is my Nature, not just the Mad Scientist at
Bushtracker, I have over 50 years of experimenting.. Ha! Cut to the quick, I noticed my air gauge on the air cleaner pegged to dirty filter, “Change Filter” range… Push on the little end and psssss it goes back to clean air filter unrestricted range. Mine was always pegged??? The filter looked clean? Changed out filter, nope, then to another brand, still there. Played with snorkel, removed head off top, looked for problems. Ford Forums?, bad air gauge?, lots of blind alleys…??? Then I started branching out a bit to check out other Customer’s Fords with other brands of snorkel…. Ooooops!! It was present there too.. Ford, Safari, unbranded Snorkel, made no difference. No one had seemed to notice..
Now what does that mean? Well if an engine is struggling to get air, it can mean lower fuel economy. I ran roughly through my first tank, over 500 km at night, same route, up to horse training in the mountains where I am getting ready for the Nationals, filled up, and ran again after the “Mod”, on two different tests and the fuel economy went up by 17.99% WHAT, NO WAY! Ranger you are crazy! But yes, the results are real!!
Now for any Skeptics, here is the Science involved: (Controls on Experiment) to prove my test: I ran the same route up to a lit arena training ground in the mountains, about an hour each way, every night as I am training two young horses seven days a week in Preparation to Compete for the National Titles. (I might not win, but I won’t lose for lack of trying). I did the same driving, same loading on the truck, (carrying about a tonne, roll bars, canopy roof in alloy checker plate, 125 watt solar, third battery, long range tanks, 80 litre fridge, water, 15,000 winch, tools, toys, on and on; about a tonne. Driving was done at the same time at night, leaving at 3:30-4 PM arriving back 8-8:30, same weather, same traffic. Half was at 110kph-120 kph, half is at 60 to 80kph so variable speeds. Figures- 586 km /104 litres=5.64 km/ltr and second set on same refilled tank was 748km/111.84 litres = 6.69 km per litre after the “Mod”. The speedo is out by 4% low, as I am running oversized tyres so adjusted for the tyres rotation of extra mileage that is 6.96 km per litre (x Factor of 2.83= 19.7 miles per Metric gallon or 15.45 miles per U.S. gallon), or 14.37 litres per hundred km. Heck my Troop Carriers only got that, (7km per litre) and their mileage goes WAY down from towing while the Ford goes down less towing as the big diesel is not working as hard. You should get even better results as I was driving HARD and in a HURRY to get home, fed, and enough sleep to train horses the next night to… (Yea, Yea, the Ranger is crazy)
NOTE ON FUEL ECONOMY FIGURES: You should get 10% better for fuel economy, as I was competitively driving, 110-120 on highway, and hard driving at the lower speeds with acceleration, bombing along just over limits (Got pulled over once on a warning two nights ago, no ticket): In a bit of an aggressive driving format to get home ASAP so I could get some sleep. That means with Conservative Driving you all should get about 10% better fuel economy than my control figures… But anyway, back to how I calculated the percentage increase of fuel economy in my Modification…
So how much improvement? How figured: 6.69 km/l – 5.67 km/l = 1.02 km/l improvement. Now percentage terms of improvement on original 5.67 is figured this way.. 1.02 over 5.67 is equivalent to x% over 100%, (Multiply both sides of equation by 100 to get "x" by itself and you get 102 divided by 5.67 = x% improvement…. This figure is 17.99% WOW IS THE WORD….!!!
What did I do? Well I discovered a design flaw, not with the snorkel itself, but with the entry point high in the air filter box. The filter box is deeper on the inboard side, but shallows up on the fender side where the snorkel is brought through the fender. The filter is designed to filter from below, with hanging layers of filter element, hanging down say about 80mm. The problem is that the hang down part is blocking off the air entry point so the engine is sucking air from the end of the filter, with only a smaller percentage of the air going down in the box and up through the filter element. We are inadvertently air starving the engine, with an entry point location flaw for the snorkel just because the filter element has too much resistance at that point pulling air end on through the filter lengthwise… Not Fords fault.. Also I suspect the snorkel head and maybe the body is too small to pass enough air, at least where it goes through the fender, but possibly the whole way. EVEN THE FRONT AIR INTAKE WITHOUT THE SNORKEL IS PROBABLY A BIT TOO SMALL, as on the Ford Forums they report a performance increase with the “Zoodad Mod” named after the Inventer, of extending the air intake out in front of the radiator to RAM air into the box.. I guess my mod is the “Ranger Mod” Ha… I believe this fuel savings can be had a little even without a snorkel if you cut through the front and extended the air intake to in front of the radiator with a large rubber tube to ram the air in per the “Zoodad Mod”… Any way, back to the BIG FIX:
#1 THE FIX: TEMPORARY, but it works. On the deep end of the air filter housing box is a metal plate bolted through the air box. You have to take off the battery box top, to access those bolts. You remove this plate, which opens up the air filter box to the original air dam collector that goes to the front of the truck. Put back the one lone bolt on the bottom that holds the air filter housing down to the fender and don’t worry about the other holes as there are small water drain holes in the bottom anyway. Save the plate, when going through deep water, you can always put it back on, estimated time 10 minutes. Result, no air restriction, no movement on the air box gauge, and better fuel economy!!! It is “Positive Ventilation” powering the air pressure from both ends of the box, better than the original from the front alone as it does not gather much air like the hood on the snorkel. This is an immediate fix while I work on a better one.
THE FIX: PERMANENT, but far better filter. I am going to get the Ford AIS/Donaldson Filter system for my truck. It is far better filtration, much larger filter box deeper in size, far less restricted. That larger box will allow some rerouting to get air to the bottom of the filter. Cost in Australia is about $400 from Western Filters in Sydney including your first Donalson Filter which is about $90 on its own.. Or cheaper possibly but a little hassle getting it from America as I was referred to it by the Powerstroke
Forum. I have not done it yet, so wait for my results on the possible rerouting of the air to the filter when I have time to do it… It may be a double tap with an additional hose hooked up from the snorkel body to the filter housing. By all reports it is a far better filtration system for what is potentially a million km engine. The larger box will allow some flexibility in air entry although it will take it getting in my hands to figure that one out. Another “Ranger Mod”.
OR: A bigger head unit to ram more air into the snorkel could work. However this would only work at higher speeds, and I suspect it could still be air starved when you romp on it at lower speeds…. I would opt for the immediate fix of #1, pending the Lone Rangers further experimentation on the AIS filtration system larger filter box and double air entry from the Snorkel…
In summary, both ends positively ramming air into the filtration box, is a major improvement, 17.99% is HUGE.
You can thank me at the Copeton Rally with a glass of wine… Oh what the heck, I will supply some wines for a Tasting Session if I can make it there..
Regards from the Lone Ranger, working with horses, for legged, or under the bonnet… Ha!
