Throttle Spacer Plate

[Gerry]

throttle spacer

Dear All,

Being a scientist (don't hold this against me) and a car nut for over 42 years I have learned a few things. There is a placebo effect and it exists for everything human. The only way to really know if a difference exists is doing good before and after experiments. Get a G-tech pro ($129) and do a few runs before and after. tabulate the results and be honest with yourself. I use this method on all my cars and sometimes I am right with my expert seat of the pants feelings and sometimes I am wrong. Engines are machines that are pretty well understood and while I would be surprised at any real gains from a 1 inch spacer in an L98 I keep an open mind. Having said this I look forward to hearing the results and perhaps I will try it myself just to fan the flames. There are no free lunches but this did cost $80. Not dogma just MHO.

Best regards,
Gerry

 

[Mart]

Very well Put.

Bravo

 

[lew]

'scuse me. Seems to me that as long as the throttle plates are all the way *open*, you have a continuous open air passage all the way from the air cleaner box to the intake manifold. With the plates all the way open, why should it make any difference if you move them forward a little bit?

Lew :confused

 

[wx briefer]

Vader86 is right on. What he said! I feel his frustration. There are more snake oil products out there than one can shake a stick at. You can even find them in our beloved Ecklers and MAD catalogs, at premium prices no less! As Vader pointed out, carburetors are entirely different animals because that is the point where fuel meets the air for atomization. Don't believe what you read on this forum or any other unless someone can give you hard numbers off of a dyno.

 

[Mart]

OK, so most people think that the spacer plate is basically a snake oil product, right!

All it really does is incease the size of the plenum, right?

So, how come most of us believe that grinding those 2 little bumps (ridges whatever you care to cal them) just behind the TB make such a difference?

I have read many posts on this, usually it goes along with a little more porting and port matching, but increaseing the size of the plenum DOES have an affect, which is what this is doing.

I'm not saying I think it works, but I will not discount it either, until I have tried it, for all those that say it does not work have you actually tried it?

People used to say man can't fly, tell that to the Wright Bros.

Same with those GS stripes on the front fender, they add 20hp, don't they?
Oh well they make the car look faster.

I like this thread for some really stupid reason????

 

[lew]

Back in the 60's we all put spacers under our carburators, but I never heard it was to increase the horsepower. The spacers were never made of metal, but of some heat insulating material. Unlike throttle bodies, carburators are full of volitile gasoline. Carburators are most happy when they are cold. First generation Chevy small block intake manifolds have hot coolent running through them. The spacer was to keep the intake manifold from heating up the carburator and percolating the fuel in the fuel bowl and fuel passages.

Lew Fischer

 

[muddywaters]

Spacer Plate

Throttle bodies are most happy when they are cold also, that's why most of us by-pass them. Or should I say the air-flow is happier when it is cooler, it is also more dense.

 

[lew]

We bypass our throttle bodies so that they do not heat the air that passes through them. But, bypassing them makes them cool, does it not? A bypassed throttle body does not get hot enough that you can't keep your hand on it with the engine running. I would think that a spacer would itself heat the air that passes though it to the same extent as a bypassed throttle body. In any case, bypassing the throttle body will not cause any great increase in HP, certainly not enough to discern by seat-of-the-pants driving. The increase is so small that it is exceded by the sampling error of a dyno. Still, any little increase in performance you can get is good. I personally think there is some justification in doing the bypass just to decrease the tendency towards engine knock, and resultant power robbing spark retard.

I have never seen a factory fuel injected engine with the throttle body separated from the intake manifold. My 96 Yukon, for example, has a 255 HP Vortec 350. The throttle body is mounted directly to the top of the intake manifold, even closer to the runners than on an LT1. It makes 330 LB FT of torque at 2800 RPM. With all due respect, don't you think if GM could get a little more torque to get my 6,000 pound truck moving by putting a spacer under the throttle body they would have done it already? There is plenty of clearance under the hood. Or, they could have mounted the thing on the air box if they had wanted to.

Having been a physics merit scholar in undergrad, I can't think of any reason why it should work. I certainly appreciate people who try new things, and I like to try new things myself. It is just that I like to see some credible explanation as to why it should work, otherwise we are just sticking magnets on our fuel lines and propellers in our air filters.

Lew

 

[Gerry]

spacer plate

I just love the propeller in the air cleaner trick. I wish I'd thought of it and then I could buy any car I want. A fool and his money are soon parted was never so true as for cheap engine mods and penis enlargement pills.

Best regards,
Gerry