Throttle body mod?

[volume311]

Has anyone done anything with the throttle body? Like shaving down the screws that hold down the butterfly valve or replacing them with countersunk screws. I've researched a little bit, some people even shave down the metal bar down to make it flush with the butterfly valve. Just wondering for a weekend project one of these days. Supposed to imrpove the airflow through the TB.

[mbeach]

I made a prototype throttle body spacer (out of machinable plastic) about a year ago. The linkages had to be moved, and some other parts had to be made, so I abandoned the project. It would have provided minimal gains for the dollar anyways. I suppose that I still have the AutoCAD drawings around here somewhere -I made them using a TB gasket as a template.

Anything that you can do to smooth the airflow on the intake side is helpful, until you get to the variable length runners. I figure that they induce a lot of turbulence on their own. So, smoothing the flow between the TB and the cylinders is going to be more beneficial. That is, unless a little turbulence is required for proper fuel mixing at the injectors.

In a nutshell, I don't think that our intake manifold is good enough (smooth, flash-free) to warrant any great efforts in the airflow department, unless someone is willing to sit down and do a thorough port and polish (extrudehone?) job on the thing.