Air Filters | Why they are important

I'm interested in more performance out of my cars, and I assume if you are reading this blog that is one of your interests also.

One of the ways to increase the stock horsepower in a car is to improve the air flow both into and out of the engine. In another blog I'll talk about the engine exhaust.

The more air that comes into the engine, the more oxygen is delivered to the cylinders. When this extra oxygen is mixed with the proper amount of fuel and burned, more horsepower is developed.

In prior blogs we discussed different types and brands of cold air intakes, and I stressed some of the features of them. The one area I did not cover in any detail was the air filter. Factory air filters, and most of them you can purchase in the local auto parts store are made out of paper. This can result in several things.

First while they trap dirt and debris they also restrict the air flow. So less air means less power. Second, they become dirty and when they do, the only thing you can do is throw them away and buy a new one. Over time you will be spending a lot of money on paper filters.

The after market cold air intake companies have answered these problems with unique design for their air filters and special materials. The designs allow more air to flow through even when the filter becomes dirty. And many of them allow cleaning of the air filter, and typically these particular companies will offer a lifetime guaranty for their filters. Let's see the stock filters offer the same.

Two of the most typical of these aftermarket brands are AEM and K&N. AEM has a filter they call the DryFlow and it can be cleaned when it becomes dirty. K&N also has a great filter, but they use a light oil bath on their filter. Both improve the air flow and even the catching of very small particles before they harm your engine.

I would use and trust either brand. Since I can use only one at a time, I'm currently running with a K&N in my Ferrari.

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Consumer Reports Continued

Yesterday I reported that Honda ranked first as compared to all automakers with Subaru second and Toyota third. Consumers also had a variety of other types of comparisons. One was their listing of the "Top Picks - Best of the year in 10 categories:

Family Sedan: Honda Accord!!
Pickup Truck: Chevrolet Avalance
Fun to Drive: Mazda MX-5 Miata
Small SUV: Toyota RAV4
Small Sedan: Hyundai Elantra SE
Green Car: Toyota Prius
Minivan: Toyota Sienna
Best Overall Vehicle: Lexus LS 460
Upscale Sedan: Infiniti G37
Midsized SUV: Toyota Highlander

Well Toyota scored more top picks than Honda, but our Accord won in its group, so all is not lost.

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Accord Details from Yesterday

Yesterday I reported that the Accord EX-L won the four sedan shootout in Car and Drivers April 2009 issue.

Some of the things the article mentioned were that this Accord was a full size car, which is based on interior room, and not the overall size car. For example, my wife's Jaguar is a large car on the outside, but rated as a "compact" because of interior room. One reviewer thought the Accord was too big and ugly. The other staffers did not hold with his view. Everyone seemed to agree that the five speed transmission needed one more gear because of "languid" in fifth gear. I think some of this is a little bit of the standard moving up. In my mind (and I understand its slipping a little) it was not too long ago that a reasonable automatic transmissions had three gears. Then it went to four and now five gears are not enough. If I remember correctly, one of the new Benz has a seven speed. Somehow I have the feeling we are getting spoiled.

One of the things that they did like was the steering. They called it "intuitive path control - you can place the car with complete confidence, right up to the limits of adhesion." That sounds good to me, because if the car does not handle, I don't want any part of it.

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Accord Squeaks By

The April 2009 Car and Driver compared three family sedans in a head to head contest. They were the Honda Accord EX-L, the Ford Fusion SE (2010 model) and the Mazda 6 i Touring.

It came down to a split decision, but the Accord won the comparison. According to the article the highs on the Accord included: Sports-sedan reflexes, plenty of power, potent engine sounds, smooth ride, and lots of room. On the other hand, the lows included: Forgettable styling, center-stack button clutter, and where's the six-speed gearbox?

Even though it was close, it's like sports and elections. Someone or something won, and the others lost. That's the way it will go down in the history books. Now I would like to hear what the Ford and Mazda people are saying in their back rooms. I'm sure that they are analyzing the results very closely, and I would not doubt that they will be making some changes to their cars. Why? Because winning a contest like this is almost priceless from an advertising standpoint. If I was in their shoes I sure would be making some changes so that next year, my car would win.

Of course, we must also assume that the engineers and advertising people at Honda are also reading the results with a fine tooth comb. What do they have to do to insure that they win next year?

It will be interesting to see what all three companies come up with. One thing might be the slow movement to look alike and act alike, and cost alike, etc. This is one of the reasons I like the older classics. They were not designed to win contests like this, but rather reflect a particular design philosophy. Tomorrow more on the Accord in this contest.

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Honda's Formula One Fate Getting Closer

Reuters UK reported today on some additional progress on the ultimate fate of the Honda Formula One team. British entrepreneur Richard Branson wants to take over Honda's Formula One team, the sport's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone told Reuters on Thursday.

As you may or may not know, Mr. Branson is associated with the Branson Virgin Group. He is not new to formula one racing as his Virgin Mobile company was a sponsor of the Jordan formula one team in 2002. His other ties with formula one also include the Japanese driver Takuma Sato who has been sponsored by Virgin Atlantic Japan for the past four years. Another tie in is that Mr. Branson is a personal friend of Adrian Reynard, co-founder of the BAR team that became Honda in 2006.

One of the open questions is why Honda would be more interested in a sale to Branson rather than the executive buyout which is on the table? It will be interesting to get the news next week as the deal may go through as early as next Monday.

The new owners, who ever they may be, will be looking at a 60 million dollar per year cost. While this sounds like an astronomical number, it is much better than the 300 million Honda spent, and still only finished ninth in the standings. I won't tell you how much Ferrari spent in order to be first.

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Acura TSX Gets Accord Engine?

I think a switch has been announced. If I recall correctly a lower level brand, like the Honda Accord, may get some parts or features from a higher level brand, like the Honda Acura.

I just read that the reverse seems to have happened. The Acura TSX was designed to compete directly with the BMW 3 series. However it did not have all of the major features to make it competitive. It was lacking both a V6 engine and rear wheel drive.

The 2010 Acura TSX will now have one of those features, namely a V6 engine. And where did this engine come from. Why the Honda Accord? That's the switch. According to the report it looks suspiciously like the 3.5-liter mill that powers the Honda Accord. In Acura tune, the V-6 outputs 280 horsepower (nine more horses than the Accord). No one said it is identical, but it would seem strange that in today's economy Honda would design a brand new engine, when they already have one available. My guess is that its almost identical.

The newly announced Acura however did not get rear wheel drive. For most people it is not that big a deal, however for the race minded it does make a little difference. When a car accelerates there is a weight shift in the opposite direction. So if you are going forward and punch it, the weight shift goes to the rear wheels. This is fine for a rear wheel driven car, as weight is being shifted to the driving wheels and you get more traction. In a front drive car, you lose traction from the driving wheels. No very important, unless you are stomping it. Many BMW3 drivers want to stomp it, so the new Accord will not appeal as much to them.

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Will There be a Honda Team in Formula One?

As you may know, in December Honda announced that they were leaving Formula One racing and would not participate in the 2009 season. Since then there have been a variety of rumors about who, if anyone would purchase the team. One of the most interesting ones were about the second richest man in the world, Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim Hel. The story I read said that Honda was willing to sell their team to him for $1.00. That's a price that even I could afford. Of course, once I had the team I could not afford to even buy them one tire - but that's another story.

Yesterday International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Max Mosley rated the team's chances of being in Melbourne at no more than 70 percent. Now the first race is to be held on March 29, which does not give anyone very much time to pull a team together and race competitively.

The current rumor: The Honda team's hopes of Formula One survival appear to depend on a management buyout led by Ross Brawn and supported by chief executive Nick Fry. It would be interesting if they can afford to run the team. Last year the estimate was over 300 million dollars for the average team. This year changes to the specifications and cars may reduce this by 30%, but that was still too much for Honda.

Along with Honda leaving the sport is the fact that there is no longer a North American race site, nor is there a North American team. Seems a shame we can't do one or the other.

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Superchargers and Turbochargers

Yesterday was about naturally aspired, or using the pressure of the atmosphere in your air flow system to bring oxygen to the engine.

There are very popular methods that go far beyond this and compress the air before it enters the combustion chambers. One is called supercharging and the other is turbocharging. While they sound different and people will argue for hours which is better, in fact both approaches do the same thing. That is they take incoming air and compress it. This allows more oxygen in the same amount of space and increases your horsepower when it is burned.

There are several differences between the two approaches. The first is how is the system powered? In a supercharger system, the power comes directly from the engine. The supercharger is linked via a belt, or sometimes gears directly to the engine. So as the engine turns, so does the supercharger.

The turbocharger is not directly powered by the revolving engine, but is driven by the exhaust gases from the engine. So the turnbocharger will not start to compress air until the engine has reached some particular speed and the exhaust flow is sufficient to spin the turbocharger up to operating speed.

Tomorrow we will take a closer look at how they work.

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More Air = More Power

Yesterday I started blogging about the correct air / fuel mixture. Now let's continue with more air. Air contains oxygen, and the oxygen is what allows the fuel to ignite and burn. The more air you can get in your engine during it's intake cycle, the more power potential you have.

Anything that increases the air flow or increases the amount of oxygen in the air leads to this increase, anything that restricts or slows down the air flow reduces the power output. So what does each?


If the air's temperature rises it can hold less oxygen and if you can cool the air it will carry more oxygen. If their are any restrictions in the incoming air flow path less air is drawn into the engine. So to solve both of these problems devices called cold air intakes and short ram intakes are designed to pull in cooler, more dense air (more oxygen) and to eliminate as many restrictions as possible.


Another way to increase the air/oxygen flow is to compress the incoming air. Devices such as superchargers and turbocharges are designed to compress the air and deliver more oxygen to the engine. The key difference between these two devices is that the supercharger is directly driven by the engine (belts or gears) and the turbocharger is driven off of the waste exhaust gases produced by the engine.

So far everything mentioned can be done to a fairly stock car for street use. When you want to race a car, other steps involving smoothing the internal engine paths, special tuning, and changing such things as the compression ratio, cam timing, reducing engine part weights and other more complicated techniques, can be done.

I will not be getting into these advanced methods in this blog for a while.

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Stock, Appearance or Power?

Humans like to put things in different categories, so I will be no different, as I talk a little bit about different kinds of car owners.

So I maintain that owners usually fall into several different groups. One type of owner uses a car to get from point A to point B. They buy a car that might offer them great gas millage, comfort, carry a maximum number of passengers or things, etc. The key here is that the brand of car is secondary. If another brand does something better when they are ready to purchase, they will switch brands. A car is a means to an end, and not purchased for pleasure.

A second type of owner is interested in power and performance. It's funny that no matter how powerful the original car is, they want more. I have a friend that modified a Ferrari with twin turbos and internal modifications so that it will dyno out at over 800 horsepower. Guess what - he "needs" more power. Not sure what the next modification will be.

Another type wants the car to look great but it must also be unique and not look like another owner's car. You see these at car shows. Sometimes they are exotics and sometimes low riders. Either way the key is no one looks like you.

In the next couple of blogs I will be discussing how to add both power and unique looks to your pride and joy.

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What is a CUV? - And Why Should I Care?

Some designations about cars are really starting to confuse me. I know what a sedan, coupe, and station wagon are, but I'm getting a headache trying to keep up with the CUV designations.

According to Wikipedia:

A Crossover — variously called CUV, for crossover utility vehicle — is a marketing term for a vehicle that derives from a car platform while borrowing features from an SUV or Minivan.

The crossover combines, in highly variable degrees, the design features such as tall interior packaging, high H-point seating, high ground-clearance, or all-wheel-drive capability of the SUV — with design features from an automobile platform such as car-like handling, ride, or economy. A crossover also uses a car's unibody or monocoque construction while forgoing the body on frame construction in use on most SUVs.

Ok, now that we know, do you agree that the following are CUVs?

• Compact to mid-sized sedan-derived CUVs: e.g., BMW X3, Cadillac SRX, Honda CR-V, Lexus RX 350.
• Full sized minivan or sedan-derived CUVs: e.g., Saturn Outlook/Chevrolet Traverse, Toyota Highlander, Ford Flex
• Station wagon or hatchback-derived CUVs: e.g., Subaru Forester, Ford Freestyle
• Minivan-like vehicles: e.g., Dodge Journey, Kia Rondo, Mazda 5 (Mazda Premacy).

The reason I'm asking is that there is another one on the near horizon. Honda has taken out the name "Crosstour". Spy pictures are starting to show up, and all kinds of guesses are being made.

The photos of the new Accord-based CUV, posted on the Temple Of VTEC, show what looks to be a Honda Accord Tourer, the European version of the Acura TSX, with the front end of the U.S.-spec Accord grafted on and some kind of extension in the rear.

So next year we might have a new Honda Accord.

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Is Honda Getting out of Racing?

Recently I mentioned an article that said Honda was pulling out of formula one racing. That was true, and they are now out of the sport.

Today it was reported that due to the continued economic slump Honda is now considering getting out of almost all motorcycle racing also. They said they have not yet made a firm decision -- but I think the handwriting is on the wall. The goal is to reduce expenses in light of their losses for the year.

The discussion seems to be which if any of their involvement in motorcycle racing will remain. Reports indicate that they will stay in MotoGP. Motocross, motorcycle trials and other forms of off-road racing will be the main victims of Honda's latest cost-cutting measures.

It is of course understandable, but still a shame. Without major manufacturers participation with factory team, or supplying parts, or even being a sponsor, the sports of automobile and motorcycle racing will take a hit. Many teams will no longer be able to compete, and the level of competition might drop on those who remain.

The news also reports the withdrawal of rival car makers Subaru and Suzuki from the world rally championship.

Japanese motorcycle maker Kawasaki also followed suit earlier this month by pulling out of MotoGP.

It will be interesting to see how the two sports do this year.

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Honda Accord Wins More Awards

In prior blogs I have mentioned some of the awards and recognition that the 2008/2009 Accord has won. Today there was an article published on the web on the U.S. News web site which lists those and other awards.

Here is a more complete list:

U.S. News - Number 3 out of 23 Affordable Midsize Cars

Car and Driver - 1 of 10 best 2008

Kiplinger - 2008 Accord Best in Class

Motor Week - Best Family Sedan

Consumer Report's - Best Pick in Family Sedans

Road and Track - Sedan of the Year and International Car of the Year

The full article is here:

http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Honda_Accord/

If you are looking for a new family car this year - the 2009 Accord is one car you have to check out. All of these sources can't be wrong.

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Accord is "Top" Down Under

Ok, the title looks strange. What I was getting at was that the Australia's longest running motoring magazine Wheels has just completed their Car of the Year Award for cars released in 2008.

The final shortlist of cars included the Honda Accord Euro, BMW X6, Chrysler Grand Voyager, Jeep Cherokee, Lexus LX570, Volvo XC70, Audi A4, Volkswagen Tiguan, and Mazda 6.

And the big winner was the Honda Accord Euro. Pretty impressive winning against BMW and Lexus.

Now all I have to do is to figure out what is the difference between the Euro model and the U.S. models.

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Death of Honda Sports Cars?

We all know that every car company is cutting back on expensive new model development, while they wait for the economy to turn around. It's just too risky to invest in going in a variety of directions at the same time. So it was no big surprise that Honda announced the demise of some planned vehicles.

I love sport cars. I have had a variety of them over the years including, Porsche 356B, Ferrari 308 GTB, Maserati Merak SS, Toyota MR2, Mazda RX7, Peerless, Triumph, MG TD, Jaguar XJS and I'm sure some others I can't remember at the moment (Senior Moment). So I'm a little sad to report that Honda has decided not to follow up on the S2000 sports car.

Tough times already had killed the planned 2010 Acura NSX, which would have had a front-mounted V-10. Now Honda also has decided to shelve a rear-drive V-8 Acura that was meant to take on BMW in 2015, according to Autocar. The V-8 -- long a thorny issue, given Honda's green image -- was seen as the wrong powerplant because of the uncertain future of fuel prices.

So is the sorts car dead? I don't think so. The Barrett-Jackson auction that is taking place right now is still bringing in good prices for classic sports cars. I saw a Jaguar XKE go for $97,000 yesterday.

It just looks like new ones will not be coming out very soon.

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Gas, Hybrid, Electric, Hydrogen or What Have You?

I guess I'm getting a little confused over all of the choices you have when purchasing a new car. First you can get an all gasoline car that still get good mileage like the Mini and others. Or you can go the hybrid way, with the leader the Toyota Prius which is a combination of electric and gasoline powered.

The third choice seems to be pure electric, where all of the power comes from batteries. Some of these are interesting like the sports car called the Telsa. A two passenger sports car with a zero to 60 miles per hour time of 4 seconds. That's twice as fast as most cars and puts it in the super car range. And of course there is the Honda FCX Clarity fuel-cell vehicle I commented on yesterday.

What seems to be driving all of these different approaches is of course the price of fuel. "Last summer's four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline was no anomaly. It was a brief glimpse of our future," said Irv Miller, vice president, environmental and public affairs for Toyota Motor Sales USA.

If he is correct then the alternate types of cars will be the big winners. But today with fuel prices in the sub $2.00 range the appeal of these cars is not what it was last year. To go back to to Toyota for a second. "Sales of Toyota's hybrids have slipped in recent months as gas prices have plummeted. But Toyota says high gas prices will return, increasing demand for fuel-efficient cars."

I sure hope they are wrong. I like the smell of burning gas and the loud roar of my engine and the snap, crackle, pop of the exhaust. Riding is a Prius just doesn't cut it for me.

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Honda FCX Clarity - Car of the Future

Every car manufacturer is experimenting with different ways to go green and reduce our dependence on gasoline. Most are developing electric oriented vehicles which use a gasoline engine along with special batteries to generate power.

Honda is taking a different approach with their FCX Clarity. This is a Hydrogen Fuel Cell car and may well be the prototype of the cars of the future. The basic design of the power for this car starts with a Hydrogen Fuel Tank. It is a single tank holding compressed hydrogen. The hydrogen is fed into a Fuel Cell Stack. A hydrogen fuel cell produces electricity for the vehicle. The fuel cell combines hydrogen, which is stored in a fuel tank on board the vehicle, with oxygen from the air to make electricity. You could call this the heart of the system. Besides the electricity the fuel cell also produces water vapor and heat. This is a zero emissions byproduct.

The third component is a lithium-ion battery that serves as a supplemental power source. In the front of the car is the fourth component, a Power Drive Unit which governs the flow of electricity for the car. Last is the Electric Drive Motor which drives the rear wheels.

Honda has been working on this approach for several years and the FCX Clarity is the latest model. This one is now out in the field being tested by Car Magazines and will be leased to customers. The first customers received their car on July 25, 2008. About 200 more vehicles are planned for the leasing program.

Will we see this technology on a Honda Accord in the near future? Honda isn't saying yet.

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Accord Wins Highest Safety Rating

Car enthusiasts usually are interested in performance and style when they choose cars, and I am no different. However there are a couple of other things that are important when you choose what you want to drive.

One of these is safety. It doesn't make any difference in how great the car looks if it gets you in trouble and someone is hurt or killed. While I like older cars for their style I have to admit that from a safety standpoint, most of them are poor choices compared to a modern vehicle.

One example of a great car is the Honda Accord. It has just won the highest safety rating and has rewritten the record books of the stringent Euro NCAP safety test programme. The sleek sedan recently achieved the highest overall safety rating in the category for large family cars. Cars are rated according to safety features for various categories. The Honda Accord became the first large family sedan to score three stars in the pedestrian protection category, but also achieved the best overall performance for combined safety in this class, thanks to a five-star rating for adult protection, and four stars for child protection. For more information about this test and the Accord's safety features check out:

http://www.news24.com/Regional_Papers/Components/Category_Article_Text_Template/0,,303-716-717_2450166~E,00.html

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