POWER ON DEMAND AIR BOX FAN

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WHAT IS IT? An air box fan that is designed to do what a turbocharger does for your car.

WHAT’S IT COST? $375.00–(316) 990-8443.

WHAT’S IT DO? The MXA wrecking crew readily admits that we spent over a year working on the Redline Performance Products’ Power On Demand air box fan test. No, we didn’t spend a year testing the Power On Demand fan; we just spent a year dragging our feet. Why? First, the installation process seemed like a mechanical nightmare. Trying to fit an electric fan into the airbox and hooking up the electronics to make it run didn’t seem like the best way to spend workshop time. Second, we didn’t have any incentive to install it, because we didn’t believe the fan would produce enough rpm to make a difference. Third, the whole idea had “Gyro Gearloose” written all over it. The only thing that kept us intrigued was the slim possibility that it might work.
Power On Demand designer Scott Travis was persistent in his quest. He worked hard to convince us that his fan could increase air flow, pressurize the intake tract and increase horsepower.
We couldn’t drag our feet any longer. We took a brand-new 2008 Yamaha YZ250F, the fan, lots of tools and two test riders to Glen Helen to test Scott Travis’ invention.

WHAT STANDS OUT? Here’s a list of things that stand out with the Redline Power On Demand air box fan.
(1) Performance. It’s true that performance gains could be made with a product that increased air flow through the intake tract, but it would take more than the small-diameter fan on the Power On Demand. During our test, we rode without the fan, rode with the fan and rode without it again. In the end, we didn’t think much of it. The only place that it even remotely helped the YZ250F was at high rpm?but we are talking really high rpm. The rest of the time it didn’t add anything to the equation. Given the smaller diameter of the fan’s intake orifice, we were shocked that it didn’t kill the power totally.
(2) Installation. It took us eight hours to run the YZ250F through three test cycles (with and without the fan). The flywheel has to be pulled and the stator changed, the fan has to be screwed into the airbox and the electrics hooked up. When you add in re-jetting the carb, the test riders spent more time sitting in lawn chairs than they did riding.
(3) Jetting. Power On Demand requires different jetting. Our YZ250F had to be leaned out on top and richened up on the bottom. We had to change the main jet from a 178 to a 160 and the pilot jet from 42 to a 48.

WHAT’S THE SQUAWK? It didn’t work.

MXA RATING

We wouldn’t recommend the The Power On Demand fan.