Hiclone

Nissan Navara Forum

Help Support Nissan Navara Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
They call em Hiclowns over at 4wdaction forum. Not many people have reported a fuel economy benefit or a performance gain. I personally wouldnt waste my money on one. I think you would be better off with a k&n airfilter.

You know what they say "if it sounds too good to be true ....."
 
Last edited:
open at own risk
 

Attachments

  • can-o-worms.jpg
    can-o-worms.jpg
    7.2 KB · Views: 108
Krankin hit the nail on the head. But you've raised the subject and I hate to see people wasting their money on snake oil so I'm jumping in.

The idea of swirling the intake air is a good one, because it would allow for a more evenly distributed fuel/air mix in the combustion chamber just before the inlet valve closed. Once that happens, the piston starts rising again and what you've hopefully got is a nice spread of compressed fuel/air across the top of the piston ready to be ignited. So, for carburettored normally aspirated engines, the hiclone MIGHT do some good. You'd do better by changing the angle of the inlet ports to direct the inlet air in so that it swirled on its own - and if you've ever pulled an engine apart, you'd see that as far as is mostly practical, that's how they are anyway.

Take away the fuel from the inlet stream (ie use direct injection) and you're not achieving anything at all with it, because there's nothing to mix until the fuel enters the chamber which should be close enough to the top of the stroke that the air's mostly all compressed anyway. If you're having issues with the fuel/air mix being unevenly distributed in a direct injection vehicle then your injector is not right, get them cleaned.

Add a turbo to the mix and the thing becomes an inlet restriction. The air entering the turbo is compressed and spun out - the turbo charger uses what is called a "radial compressor" which sucks air in and by a similar principle to the rock on a string swung around your head, the air leaves the compressor vanes at right-angles to the inlet stream, is collected and forced into the inlet manifold. Swirling the air before it reaches the turbo is absolutely pointless because of the way the turbo alters the air flow.

Swirling the air AFTER the turbo would have to happen AFTER the intercooler, too, as the fine tubes in the intercooler would quickly stop any swirl effect there as well. Since the air is under pressure at that point, there's not a whole lot to be gained by swirling it some more, since it's going to be violently pushed into the combustion chamber rather than sucked in by the downward motion of the piston. Then, don't forget, this is just air, not a fuel/air mix, because most of our cars use injectors not carbys.

Would I buy one myself? No. There are better areas that I can spend my money. I'm thinking furry dice might improve my fuel economy too, so I might try that. The theory there is that I want to go away for a weekend, so I start the truck, sit down, become hypnotized by the swaying of the dice and don't wake up until Sunday, then pack everything away again ... I've saved a whole heap on fuel, wear & tear, greenhouse gas emissions ... yep, them dice are going to be on my shopping list.
 
If they worked manufacturers would fit them as standard. It would save them millions of dollars in R & D.
 
If they worked manufacturers would fit them as standard. It would save them millions of dollars in R & D.

That comment applies to so many after market mods and additions.

I do know a guy that put one of these in his 98 Pathy from brand new and swore by it, reckons towing the van without it was like throwing money in the fire but he's really the only person I've ever heard with a positive result and while I'd rather listen to real world results any day over lab tests 1 positive in 12 years doesn't convince me.
 
Hiclones have been around for a LONG time. Why don't manufacturers fit them as standard? Well....in fact some do. Open up a Porsche Boxster engine and you will fine strangely similar looking devices in the intake tracts.

Anyway, I started fiddling with Hiclones a long, long time ago. So long ago that I can't recall numbers, but results were basically as follows....now these were on vehicles I owned that I can recall fitting Hiclones to...

TF Rodeo 2.8 turbo diesel. Hiclones worked - increased usable torque, seemed to improve fuel economy from what I can recall. But the big one was the improvement in torque. The Rodeo had a distinct lack of torque when I bought it... It had 2 hiclones - 1 before the turbo and 1 after the turbo (on the inlet side of the turbo of course)

HSV Clubsport R8 (VT series 2) - decent improvement in fuel economy, no noticeable performance change

Jeep Wrangler Renegade. No noticeable change to performance or fuel consumption

Kia Sorento petrol engine. No noticeable change to performance or fuel consumption

Hyundai Terracan petrol engine. No noticeable change to performance or fuel consumption

Hyundai NF sonata (3.3 v6). No noticeable change to performance. Fuel consumption improved marginally, but not consistently - around town improved, but highway was erratic

And that's when I stopped mucking around with those things. The results I got were so erratic that I got bored with them and couldn't be bothered anymore. However I figured "why not, give it a go". I bought two for the rodeo, then kept trading them in when I changed vehicles....didn't cost much at changeover so no harm done. Was an interesting experiment over what I would call a decent period of time and a few vehicles.

What I do find interesting with the whole Hiclone thing though is that I have concluded I wouldn't do it again after having "been there, done that".

Lots of people conclude they wouldn't try them out (even though there is a money back guarantee) but not many can point to examples of failed experiments.

Obviously everyone has their own theories, and that is the wonderful thing about freedom of choice.
 
Last edited:
I tryed it on my v6 commodore years ago "WASTE OF MONEY" took it staight back and got my money back.when the air is spinning it is good, but when it hits the butterfly in the intake would'nt it stop the spin?.
 
Mostly, yes. The butterfly is a flat disc that would retard the spinning but not stop it altogether. The twist into the intake manifold would also reduce the effect dramatically, it would just be mild turbulence by the time it got towards the chamber. Since the fuel/air mix is getting in because of the piston's downward movement *sucking* the mixture in, the air moving through the inlet ports and past the valves would nearly ruin the effect completely, at that point you would probably see some minor swirl and that's all.

It's better than nothing at all, but I guess it all depends on the rest of the geometry as to how much swirl effect there is left in the combustion chamber once the valve closes and the piston starts to rise again ready for igniting.
 
sounds like a no go. oh well gotta find better ways for fuel economy. I think my cats gone guess that is a good enough excuse to upgrade to a 3" exhaust to me
 
Someone on the 4WDaction website was going on about the HiClone last year. I told him if he bought me one, I'd pay him my savings in petrol for the year, and then pay for the HiClone if it did save money after 12 months.

He didn't reply :)
 
not trying to agrue for/against.

in my old mans holden jackaroo, he had 2 Hiclones installed and he thinks it made a significant difference. No statistics to prove it tho.
also it was a naturally aspired petrol, so any increase in intake psi would make a noticable difference.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top