Ok, so rumor has it that if you remove your coolant lines from your throttle body that you can gain up to a 1/4hp because of your throttle body being cooler, making the air that runs through it cooler.

Now has anybody ever thought of removing the coolant lines and replacing them with other lines that ran straight water, or tranny oil, or some type of liquid through them. then have that liquid run through a small section of an aftermarket or used tranny cooler mounted on the bottom of your rad. all of the air rushing by/over/through should cool the tranny cooler, which should cool the liquid, which should cool your throttle body, which should cool the air that runs through it, thus...more hp.... The only problem i can think of it trying to get the liquid to recirculate. hmmm....

do you think this could work?

please give me some insight...

thanks eh
-Phil

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86 SE V6 under constuction
Please rate me if i am of any assistance, thank you...

It could be done, but unless you are running a turbo or supercharger, I doubt you would see any benefit. The throttle body in an NA system does not get hot (except for the heat from the hot engine compartment). I don't think an air-liquid intercooler would remove that much heat from the throttle body that it would be worth the effort. A better bet would be to insulate the throttle body.

I believe (?) that unless you are using a turbocharger or a supercharger which generates lots of heat and therefore heated air entering the throttle body, that attempts to cool the air for a standard air intake due absolutely no good. You gain nothing for all of your efforts. That's why, with a turbo, the use of a water injection system works well; it cools the air going into the throttle body and prevents detonation. Cooler air is denser than hot air, so cooler air from a turbo packs more punch than hot air. Ed

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The coolant passage in the throttle body runs straight from one side to the other in the bottom part of the throttle body only. The only area that it heats is the part at the bottom where the bottom edge of the throttle blade sits. Under very rare conditions it is possible for a small amount of ice to form at that spot and cause the throttle blade to get stuck open, so that's why GM put the coolant lines in. The rest of the throttle body is cooled by the flow of cool air from outside the engine compartment by way of the snorkel. If you put a so-called Cold Air Intake that pulls air in from the engine compartment instead of the ouside, then your throttle body will run hotter.

The only other source of heat to the throttle body, and it's a big one, is the high-temp air that's ambient in the engine compartment, so I guess you could wrap the throttle body in some sort of insulation, but then you have to wrap the intake manifold too, since it's metal and also absorbs heat from the engine compartment.

JazzMan

In my Turbo Buick, I ran a seperate pump and water tank to cool the throttle body. I fill the tank with an ice and water mix and start the pump. It appears to be worth a tenth, but that is in a boosted application and only at the strip. The ice melts very quickly when run on the street. Each run at the track, I empty out the water out of the tank and add ice. It is a very simple job and does work. All you need is an extra overflow bottle, some rubber hoses, a pump and wire it up.

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Competition Yellow 84 2.5