I own a 1997 F150, 4.2 V6,excellent little truck. Recently we picked up a small camper trailer 12’.
I was entertaining the idea of installing a throttle body spacer,which claims increased mid range performance and better fuel economy.
Do these parts really do the job? I was under the impression that more power equals more fuel consumption. Though we could use a liitle more pulling power!!
I smell a scam. If a $20 spacer made such a difference, why isn’t it standard?
Well it is not a $20 spacer,from summit racing there are many different models and they run around $100. I was hoping someone would have hard facts about these parts.
No $100 bolt/snap in piece is going to make your truck more efficient. Do not buy it.
It might work if it was part of a much more extensive set of modifications, but I doubt it can do anything all by itself.
It’s hard to increase performance and economy at the same time.
I tend to agree that it should be part of a complete work up and modification,someone has given me the part and being tempted to try it, but it sound like you guys are right!!
The only way you’ll increase both power and mpg is to violate emission output. It will take lots more than a $100 part to do that.
It will work. The only problem is that a throttle body spacer only will not make enough difference in performance or fuel economy to even notice except (maybe) on a dyno.
The theory behind them is that they increase the length of the intake runner a bit. This in turn improves the low end torque a bit.
A spacer in conjunction with other modifications can help. By itself, it does not do enough to justify the cost.
If it’s worthless at $20, what’s it make it at $100? If there were ‘hard facts’ to support them, the automakers would do it already, for much less than $20.
It’s like playing an A vs a B-flat on a tuba. It lowers the resonant frequency of the intake tunnel and moves whatever little bump in the torque curve down a bit.
So by changing the curve slightly is this going to make a change in performance or will it be too small to notice.and what other changes can be made ?
It will not make any difference that you will physically notice, at all.
The only real way you’re going to get noticeable power is by spending a bunch of money. This means intake/exhaust work, cylinder head work, and a new camshaft.
Adding a turbo or supercharger bumps the tab up even further.
Your best and most inexpensive option if you want more pulling power is to sell the truck and buy one with a V-8 in it.
These add-ons claim the same benefits as high-rise manifolds. They claim to reduce turbulance below the throttle body thus reducing coalescence and improving flow, maintaining better active surface are per volume of fuel into the cylinders.
I don’t “buy it”. The fluid dynamics of modern intakes are pretty well understood and in order to achieve the best possible power/mileage compromises are already designed on. Your intake ports, your injector, and your valve areas and exhaust are already pretty significant constraints and I seriously doubt that a tiny reduction in the post-throttle turbulance could make one iota of difference.
And yes, hot rods that use the aforementioned high-rise manifolds accept the compromise of poor mileage. They also open the intake ports and exhaust ports (known as “porting”), use bigger valves and/or open them more and/or longer (high rise and/or high duration cams), use high volume carburators, reduce exhaust restriction with headers, and a few other tricks to get more power.
Save you rmoney. Put it in the bank.