Throttle Body Coolant Line

[terprugr]

The little plugs on the side of my throttle body must have corroded because yesterday there was coolant shooting out of the upper one. So in typical shady fashion I just rerouted the coolant bypassing the throttle body. So now the qyestion: what function does that line serve besides warming up the air a little bit as it runs through and how important is it really?

 

[Broncobill78]

Man that's a damn good question & I really hope that someone who knows will answer it. Fact is that I have the same damn water-cooled throttlebody on my 88' but there isn't even a hose running to it. You're in CA & I'm in FL so if I had to guess I'd say it doesn't matter one bit to either one of us. I'm a transplant from New England and I can well imagine that if I was still there I'd sure want the thing being warmed up right about now but since it was 81* today I'm not really concerned about it. I think it's more a cold-climate thing and it helps it to warm up & keep warm in coold environments. But then maybe I'm just shooting in the dark. Eventually one of the mods or someone who *knows* will probably pipe in but if you're not experiencing any drivability probs then I'd say it's moot.

 

[terprugr]

Where'd you grow up in New England? I'm from Mass myself. I hope you are a Pats fan. This will be the first year I'll be in the States for the Pats in the Super Bowl since they started winning them.

I plan to start my 351 stroker project in March. I'll make sure to keep everyone updated. Still haven't decided how big I wanna go. I guess I have to take a look at the block first once it's out.

 

[Broncobill78]

I watched our boys back when Grogan threw the ball & watched Tony Eason eat that thing more times than I could count, then suffered thru the seasons when WAAF sat the RockBus outside Sullivan Stadium handing out brown paper bags w/eyeholes cut in them for all the faithfull to wear. Grew up just outside Worcester & was lucky enuf to have a friend who's family held season tix & brought me 2 or 3 times a year. This season has been a LONG time coming and I'm enjoying every game of it, it's not very often that you get to spend an ENTIRE season watching your team treat the rest of the NFL like the JV (with my semi-sincere apologies to everyone out there who ISN'T a Pats fan & no apology at all to Bears, Dolphins or Jets fans. You live by the sword you die by the sword).

I always thought the 408 stroker kits were a good compromise. Great power & torque without going SO far overboard that you have to start notching the piston bores and you still have enough material left to rebuild the thing at least once down the road. Who wants to spend all that on an engine that can never be rebuilt ? I guess there's something to be said for it but that sort of thing has always been WAY outside of MY paygrade.

 

[Broncobill78]

Aahhh, now isn't that better ? I always prefered this to the Flying Elvis.

 

[Seabronc]

So now the qyestion: what function does that line serve besides warming up the air a little bit as it runs through and how important is it really?

I don't know if I can adequately explain having a heating element on an intake in a post, but I'll take a crack at it. To my knowledge it is for the same reason for having the ability to apply heat to normally aspired aircraft engines. That is to prevent icing caused by a combination of conditions of intake air temperature and humidity conditions. It is caused by the venturi principle effect on air due to the sudden change in pressure from the outside to the inside of the intake chamber. It is a lot more important when flying an airplane since losing the engine power due to intake icing gets a little more touchy than with an automobile. With an aircraft, you have controls that let you determine the amount of heat applied where on the auto engine they just run a small amount of heat to prevent icing. Like Bill mentioned, if you live in the south or a warm climate you probably wouldn't experience the condition. Don't bother jumping on the KN filter thing about cold air, that is fact, normally aspired engines run like ***** Apes on cold air. However, cold humid air freezes on the internal surface of the intake and can drastically reduce the air supply. Heating the surface prevents the freeze up and has little effect on the air temperature to the cylinders. Believe it or not, no matter how warm your engine feels, the inside surface of the intake can be below freezing, it happens in aircraft and it can happen in automobiles.

That's a one paragraph answer, there is more detail to go with it, but we are not doing a course on it :wacko: . Do a little research on intake icing if you are really interested.

Good luck,

>-

 

[bidibronco]

Holy crap! That's awesome!!!

 

[terprugr]

Thanks for the explanation. I get it. I work on gas turbine ebgines, but i never thought venturi pressures were that extreme inside a car engine to have that kind of effect. You the man. GO PATS!!

 

[blkwlf]

Seabronc, your absolutely right. 30 years ago driving an old ford 2door in Germany, i experienced carb icing and it had a dramatic affect on the performance,. i remember one or two times on the Bahn having to get out to clear the ice off just so i could drive.

as far as from the flying perspective, from my job in the towers for 30 years, i have seen a few f-16s take a nose dive because of ice ingestion. guess those high speed blades cant deal with big junks of ice dropping off the intake. not a pretty sight

my bronco also blew a hole in the tube last year but i had enough left to still run a line. i also talked to the head mechanic at the dealer at the time who told me as long as you stay in warm weather, u can just plug the lines and not worry about it. if it happens again, thats what i am going to do, just plug the line off the radiator and the one on the block