A hot throttle body that is! As it turns
out, the 2005 S197 V6's have a HEATED throttle body. The idea is to
run the engine coolant through the throttle body to prevent the throttle
body from icing up. The S197s feature a "drive by wire" throttle,
which means the throttle body is opened/closed via a computer
controlled motor, not a cable and spring. Well, in search to squeeze
every bit of performance out of The Mistress, I decided to try the "coolant
bypass" trick!
Now, as most of you know, I'm not very mechanically inclined... Now I could
have done this bypass myself, but I decided to let the "pros" at MRT
(www.mrt-direct.com) handle this
one! Besides, someone needed to work the camera! |
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The red highlights show the engine coolant hoses that run into the TB.
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First step was to take the hoses off. The clamps are in the red
circles. |
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Now we could have simply cut the hoses but to
keep things as clean looking as possible Paul decided to remove the hoses
from the TB. The easiest way to get to the clamps holding the hoses on is to
actually remove the throttle body from the manifold. To do this the two
wiring harness attached to the TB are removed and the 4 bolts holding the TB
on are removed. |
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With the TB removed the clamps holding the hoses are are
easily accessed. We removed both hoses. There is a short hose and a long
hose. For the bypass we just reused the short hose. |
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These pictures show the short hose installed.
The TB is now bypassed! |
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Now the big question... will this help
performance? In theory it should help. I took some temperture
readings before the bypass was installed. With the engine coolant
running through the TB the top of the TB was approximately 165 degrees.
The bottom side of the TB was close to 180 degrees. The coolant lines
themselves were about 190 degrees. Now with the bypass in place the
top of the TB was only 93 degrees while the bottom was 130 degrees. So
the throttle body is MUCH cooler! So in theory there should be a
performance gain... Hopefully I be able to get to the race track and see if
it really does make a noticeable improvement!
Once again, I have to thank Scott and Paul from MRT
(www.mrt-direct.com). They
took time out of their incredibly busy day to do this bypass trick!
Thanks guys1 |
