Wikipaedia article on Swirl Flaps
Just read an interesting
article on swirl flaps on Wikipaedia that can be found here. According to this article the primary purpose is to introduce turbulence into the inlet manifold with the end result of reducing harmful emissions. It also suggests that they have a minor impact on fuel consumption but I can report otherwise!
Fuel economy drastically improved on urban driving
Fuel economy is drastically improved even on urban driving. The author of the article probably meant that the swirl flaps weren't an economy device as such and the improvement I'm experiencing is principally due to a happier ECU.
One disadvantage - Smoke on acceleration
Important to say that one effect of disconnecting the flaps is heavy smoking on hard acceleration at low revs. At times it's really heavy smoke.
