TV modifications to increase gas mileage

There is debate currently about allowing camera systems instead of mirrors on semi trucks, right now you still need mirrors to be legal, not sure on personal vehicles, but you might want to check legality of NOT having mirrors.

Cold air intakes are about $300 but take a look at what it is. If you look at the stock air box where your filter lives, its a choke point. Its a large box but has a small inlet behind the grill. What does a cold air intake do but eliminate that box, remove the choke point, and allows more air flow to the throttle body. In my Jeep there was a tube about 2" in diameter from the exterior in to the middle of the box. I cut the box in half, threw away the lower half along with the tube, made a pair of L mounts from aluminum stock, attached those to the fender and the upper half of the air box. Replaced the stock filter with a K&N filter and did a computer reset (disconnected the battery positive and cycled the ignition switch). That process may be different per vehicle but started the Jeep, it revved high for a few seconds while it read air flow then settled down. You can feel the difference at 2400-2800RPM especially and 3-5 more MPG on average. I also pulled the rubber hood seals out of the corners of the engine compartment to allow the hot air under hood to flow out. The computer on my 05 Grand Cherokee is in the upper right corner and the trapped heat caused a shutdown twice in the summer. Now the airflow along the fenders and over the hood pulls the hot air out from under the hood; no shutdowns and more cooler air pulled in to the engine compartment. YMMV!

Don't forget to turn the air cleaner filter cover upside down. That's also a proven performance booster;) 
An occasional cleaning of the MAF can benefit a motor as will regularly replacing the stock paper filter and especially if you've been hauling on dusty roads. Removing intake restrictions can't hurt but as has been noted earlier, modern engines are tuned for optimum performance without an intake kit. Fooling around with a K&N, cleaning, oiling etc... to reduce filtering is not a good idea for a stock motor. Unless you are running a performance modified motor allowing more dirt though to increase flow, is that a good idea? Not on my buggies....

@ChanW ; Embarrassed to say I went through that phase too.

Add magic tweak A. Break part B. Rebuild A, B, C and gain 50Hp... but break D, E, F, G. Rebuild again and have a tuner 500 miles away tweak out every bit of power with a day of dyno-tuning. Have to replace parts H through N.  In my defense, that was before NuCamp brought out the modern T@B, so we had nothing else to spend our overtime on.


A cold air kit can add power at wide open throttle, but shouldn't normally do much for everyday gas mileage. But can be an ingredient of a broader multisystem improvement. 

DougH said:

@ChanW ; Embarrassed to say I went through that phase too.

Add magic tweak A. Break part B. Rebuild A, B, C and gain 50Hp... but break D, E, F, G. Rebuild again and have a tuner 500 miles away tweak out every bit of power with a day of dyno-tuning. Have to replace parts H through N.  
A cold air kit can add power at wide open throttle, but shouldn't normally do much for everyday gas mileage. But can be an ingredient of a broader multisystem improvement. 

Teeeheee…..so true...before you know it you've been through everything and what started out as a simple project has become a total overhaul...of course if you are into the motor you also need to lighten the driveshaft, rebuild the diffy, etc.. and to think, it all starts with an intake kit and changing the under-drive pulleys.

I am not a fan of air filters of the K&N style. They may improve airflow, but the filtering is poor until they get dirty. I have been following the Dodge Cummins vehicles and driving one for last 20 years and know at least on the engine (turbo diesel) they pass more dirt than a standard paper filter.

Honing your internals at expense of maybe slightly better mileage and cooler sound doesn't seem like a good deal when a Cummins is going to cost $10k+ to fix.