If auto manufacturers could put a tiny piece of aluminum in the intake path to increase performance AND fuel economy that dramatically, it would already be there. Or, looking at it another way, if it really worked, they wouldn't sell it to consumers, but would license it to auto manufacturers and get REALLY rich. Another dead giveaway that it doesn't work is that there doesn't seem to be a white paper describing the tests, just the summary of amazing results (a test done in 1994):
http://www.fuelmiser.com/liphardt_testing.html
You could very easily get these results by doing the "baseline" test on a cold engine, and the "fuel miser" tests on a warm engine.
And here is a good article describing the effects of turbulence on fuel economy and power.
http://www.fuelsaving.info/turbulence.htm
Of particular interest is the point that increasing turbulence in the intake can slightly increase fuel economy, but CUTS power, and Mercedes Benz designers who have experimented with increasing turbulence can get perhaps a 2% increase in economy with a system that allows them to maintain power under heavy acceleration by retracting the fins at those times.
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