Review: Crawford Eco-block

I was skeptical of any claims Crawford was making about thier Eco-block spacer. For the low price and guarantee of money back I figured I would give it a try. For those of you who are not familiar with this product it installs under the MAF sensor and raises the MAF up about 8mm or so and supposedly increases the power output of the car. Read more technical info on their website https://crawfordperformance.com/products/ecoblock-q1

My experience from my butt dyno says it's hard to tell if it made a difference. The one thing I did notice is that my car pulls smoother between 4000-6500 rpm. I did have a burble that felt like the car was running too lean at full throttle in that rpm range and that is now completely gone. Smooth power deliverly all the way to redline. So no matter what the claims are from Crawford I am happy that my car feels like it is running cleaner and not so lean.

Has anyone else tried this product?

Yeah not much of a review I guess. Unfortunatley, I do not have a Cobb or any other way to tell major changes. I can only share that it is much smoother as the powerband of the turbo comes online. Maybe someone with a better setup could improve on my initail review.

When I bought the car it had a SPT CAI on it and the burble/lag/lean feeling in the powerband was absolutley crap. I went back to stock airbox and the lag was still there a bit, but much less. Now it pulls clean to redline, so I guess that is what I can share at this point.

Fircking newbie I guess, just giving it a try.

Sounds like you're running the stock tune, whose shortcomings are well documented. You would be very wise to get an AccessPort and run a stage 1 tune rather than sticking snake oil in your AFRs. V2 APs are quite affordable nowadays.

The MAF spacer has some benefits for non-turbo, non-tuneable cars, but leaning out your open-loop mixture in a Legacy GT is asking for trouble.

That just reeks like a lot of snake oil, I am actually surprised to see such claims (specifically the +8% mpg) from a company like Crawford.

By raising the MAF up out of the stream, it will read less airflow (similar to increasing the size of the pipe), which would lean it out. This might help make the car be less rich at full throttle, but while cruising around it wont make any real difference (since O2 sensor will maintain 14.7).

Knowing how picky our cars are to any intake track changes, I would be concerned with running this without a real wideband.

That just reeks like a lot of snake oil, I am actually surprised to see such claims (specifically the +8% mpg) from a company like Crawford.

 

By raising the MAF up out of the stream, it will read less airflow (similar to increasing the size of the pipe), which would lean it out. This might help make the car be less rich at full throttle, but while cruising around it wont make any real difference (since O2 sensor will maintain 14.7).

 

Knowing how picky our cars are to any intake track changes, I would be concerned with running this without a real wideband.

I think that's what the part is supposed to do. Crawford has on their website that you can expect "Up to 8% Increase in Fuel Economy and Power", which when you lean out the a/f mixture, you would expect to see an increase in fuel economy (less fuel mixing with the air) and more power (more efficient combustion of the fuel that is being injected?).

But doing this without knowing what else is happening to the engine sounds like bad news bears will be upon you.

I think that's what the part is supposed to do. Crawford has on their website that you can expect "Up to 8% Increase in Fuel Economy and Power", which when you lean out the a/f mixture, you would expect to see an increase in fuel economy (less fuel mixing with the air) and more power (more efficient combustion of the fuel that is being injected?).

 

But doing this without knowing what else is happening to the engine sounds like bad news bears will be upon you.

The thing is, it will only increase your gas mileage if you flooring it all the time (which is unrealistic), it will do jack squat when your cruising around town or on the highway.

One thing I forgot to mention, on these cars intake mods don't just make your car leaner, they also reduce mass airflow voltage, which calculates as lower grams/rev for the same amount boost as before. This is dangerous because your running less fuel and more timing at the same time, so your right bad news bear is waiting at the door.

Perfect... So this thing is crap and I should pull it out today, which I will do.

Not necessarily, but with no way to monitor your engine it could be catastrophic.. So until you have an accessport or equivalent definately remove it for now.

As rich as the (all) factory tunes run, there may be merit to this. Would definately need to be logged to determine how much leaner it will run.

Sadly you need more then accessport or Tactrix (open source version of tuning). You also need a wideband.

If anyone is curious enough to send me one, I'm wiling to be a guinea pig and do some logs to show what differences is makes to the car.

Also there is this NASIOC thread. In that thread it was mentioned this block being mostly useful for non-tunable NA cars.