Guaging interest, porting throttle bodies
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From: Long Island/Daytona Beach
Guaging interest, porting throttle bodies
How's it goin guys. A buddy of mine ports throttle bodies for mainly american cars, 5.7/6.1L hemis etc etc. Anyway he came up to me and asked me how the Scion community was and if anyone would be interested in having throttle bodies ported. I explained to him how the sponsored sales department works here etc etc so This is not a sales thread, I'm just gauging interest for him to see if anyone would be interested in having throttle bodies ported and if it's something he could invest into. He took a look at my throttle body and he said he'd probably be doing like 30-40 dollars shipped for the work. So you'd just send in a tb and he'd port it and send it back out. Anyway here's an example of what he does, he goes from this:
to this:
The pics above are a stock 5.7/6.1 Hemi and a ported one he was working on today. It isn't 100% finished as I snapped the pic while he was polishing it and hadn't worked on the blade yet, but you get the general idea. He ports by hand, not CNC. He also does intake manifolds, and heads on request, but mostly does TBs.
What he does is he enlarges and re-finishes both sides of the throttle body, tapering it in the center for the stock TB blade. The stock blade is knife-edged for better throttle response.
Guy really does great work from what I've seen and he said that he hasn't gotten a single complaint from his previous customers. Apparently he's had reports of fuel economy increasing by rough about 1 mpg and some performance improvement aswell, however he hasn't had any dyno proof (one of his customers with a Gtech reported a .2 reduction in 0-60) just what his customers have told him.
I mean I haven't really been in the scion community in a while (I'm actually in the process of building an 86 Volvo 240 built motor, t5 tranny, GT28R all that good stuff =D) so I'm not sure if anyone would be interested but I told him I'd ask in the forum.
Thoughts?
to this:
The pics above are a stock 5.7/6.1 Hemi and a ported one he was working on today. It isn't 100% finished as I snapped the pic while he was polishing it and hadn't worked on the blade yet, but you get the general idea. He ports by hand, not CNC. He also does intake manifolds, and heads on request, but mostly does TBs.
What he does is he enlarges and re-finishes both sides of the throttle body, tapering it in the center for the stock TB blade. The stock blade is knife-edged for better throttle response.
Guy really does great work from what I've seen and he said that he hasn't gotten a single complaint from his previous customers. Apparently he's had reports of fuel economy increasing by rough about 1 mpg and some performance improvement aswell, however he hasn't had any dyno proof (one of his customers with a Gtech reported a .2 reduction in 0-60) just what his customers have told him.
I mean I haven't really been in the scion community in a while (I'm actually in the process of building an 86 Volvo 240 built motor, t5 tranny, GT28R all that good stuff =D) so I'm not sure if anyone would be interested but I told him I'd ask in the forum.
Thoughts?
Last edited by a_german_named_hans; Apr 4, 2010 at 01:20 AM.
Thread Starter
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From: Long Island/Daytona Beach
No he uses the stock butterfly plate. He just knife edges the butterfly plate and when he ports he tapers into the butterfly plate so that the stock plate can be used.
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Hi everybody, my name is Ryan , I run an outfit called Flyin' Ryan Performance. I deal with primarily late-model Mopars (that's Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler stuff for you JDM types :D ) . I am the guy that Konrad aka A german named hans speaks about.
As a way of paying my bills and providing myself with a little supplemental cash, I do hand-porting and polishing. I almost exclusively deal with throttle bodies, but will do intake manifolds and headwork if you ask me nicely.
I have 100% feedback on Ebay and Jeepgarage.org (where the majority of my business stems from) . I dont have the same precision as a CNC but I do try my best to make nice stuff.
Lets do it to it 
No, it does not. The way I do it, I enlarge the inlet and the backside as far as I am willing to take it, then taper it in to the size of the butterfly. I don't offer various sizes or anything like that, it is a one-size fits all sorta deal.
What I have found through customer feedback as well as my own testing is that enlarging the inlet, port-matching the backside to the inlet of the intake manifold, all the while retaining a modified OEM blade creates crisp throttle response. I suppose it could be argued that it creates a venturi like effect by forcing the air through a slightly smaller passage (the blade diameter). A customer of mine took a early FRP TB (the first few TBs I did were not nearly as clean and smooth as they come out now) and a professionally done TB with a larger blade and all, and by the seat of the pants no difference could be determined.
40 shipped seems reasonable, based on looking at Konrad's TB.
The average throttle body takes me a few hours time. Since I'm a full time student, the bigger issue is finding TIME to port. Currently I have 5 or 6 TBs I have to get done still. My average turnaround time is a week or two.
At this point, I'm just gauging the interest.
As a way of paying my bills and providing myself with a little supplemental cash, I do hand-porting and polishing. I almost exclusively deal with throttle bodies, but will do intake manifolds and headwork if you ask me nicely.
I have 100% feedback on Ebay and Jeepgarage.org (where the majority of my business stems from) . I dont have the same precision as a CNC but I do try my best to make nice stuff.What I have found through customer feedback as well as my own testing is that enlarging the inlet, port-matching the backside to the inlet of the intake manifold, all the while retaining a modified OEM blade creates crisp throttle response. I suppose it could be argued that it creates a venturi like effect by forcing the air through a slightly smaller passage (the blade diameter). A customer of mine took a early FRP TB (the first few TBs I did were not nearly as clean and smooth as they come out now) and a professionally done TB with a larger blade and all, and by the seat of the pants no difference could be determined.
40 shipped seems reasonable, based on looking at Konrad's TB.
The average throttle body takes me a few hours time. Since I'm a full time student, the bigger issue is finding TIME to port. Currently I have 5 or 6 TBs I have to get done still. My average turnaround time is a week or two.
At this point, I'm just gauging the interest.
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 3
Heres another pic of a throttle body I was working on this weekend. This one hadn't yet been cleaned and re-assembled, but it's a better picture of what I actually do.
The final product ends up slightly more polished than it is here...There was still some remnants of buffing compound on this one.
The final product ends up slightly more polished than it is here...There was still some remnants of buffing compound on this one.
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Scionetics
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My only concern would be fuel delivery. These ECUs are great and VERY accurate at calculating air flow of the air entering the system. Part of the equations which the stock ECU uses to calculate delivery of fuel is based upon that stock TB size. So if it's increased, it will cause a leaner AFR, which can produce power, but also make it more sensitive to knock. Has this been tested for safety? I am in no way knocking your deal, just making people aware that they may need to retune to use this item.
Also, how is idle?
Also, how is idle?
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 3
I saw what you originally wrote in your post. I'll be more than happy to post dyno results if you pay for the pulls. Please refrain from telling me how to run my business.
I haven't spent a dime on advertising- or dyno results, for that matter- and yet people are buying TBs from me left and right on word of mouth alone. And I have 100% positive feedback. Coincidental? No.
I'm not a fan of dynos. They are good for the purposes of tuning (to a point), but thats about it. Most dyno facilities cannot even come close to replicating the dynamics of street driving- be it load, relative wind (i.e. air flow passing through the vehicle), etc etc. It just isn't the same. Not only that but the dyno numbers can be tweaked and massaged. I can easily manipulate a dyno reading to show that my TBs create 20whp. Obviously I'm being facetious, but it's to make my point.
I will be the first to tell you I know next to nothing about Scions, or TCs. But, common sense tells me that bolt-ons don't make nearly as much of a difference on these as they do the V8s I'm accustomed to working on. This is due to smaller displacement. Assuming no major tuning issues, I would not expect to make a noticeable difference on the dyno. I prefer track results.
I looked at your site and you appear to be quite knowledgeable, so allow me to pick your brain.
It appears that the TCs use a MAF system as part of their fuel/spark management. I'm used to dealing with MAP systems. So I assume that the MAF "expects" a certain air mass correlating to a throttle percentage and rpm?
how does the stock ECU calibration react to bolt-on modifications such as CAI's, full exhaust, etc etc.?
My theory is this: At part throttle where the ECU should be in closed loop, even if there is more air coming through (which there will be), the ECU should have the ability to add whatever fuel is needed to correct to that 14.7:1 AFR. Not knowing anything about what the stock ECU calibration is like in terms of WOT AFR, I dont know how it would change. I would presume it would be a few tenths leaner.
I dont think it would necessitate a re-tune, only because it doesn't appear that a retune is needed for other bolt-on modifications. Unless I am missing something??? The ECU doesn't freak out when there is a change to air density due to a change in the temperature or say, high altitude, so why would this be all that much different?
One area where I WOULD be concerned, is how the ECU would react to a TB that had a knife-edged blade. the knife edge allows even more air to pass the blade at a given throttle percentage in comparison to a already ported TB. So in theory the increase in air mass as you increased the TP% would "ramp up" faster than a stock blade. That might cause a problem with the ECU. It might freak out the cruise control, causing it to surge some.
On the MAP-based EFI Mopars I work on, Idle is not an issue once the ECU re-learns it. There has been one instance where there was surging and stalling, but it was a combination of not resetting the PCM and a particular model of the ECU that is very stubborn to re-learning. It eventually settled down.
I haven't spent a dime on advertising- or dyno results, for that matter- and yet people are buying TBs from me left and right on word of mouth alone. And I have 100% positive feedback. Coincidental? No.
I'm not a fan of dynos. They are good for the purposes of tuning (to a point), but thats about it. Most dyno facilities cannot even come close to replicating the dynamics of street driving- be it load, relative wind (i.e. air flow passing through the vehicle), etc etc. It just isn't the same. Not only that but the dyno numbers can be tweaked and massaged. I can easily manipulate a dyno reading to show that my TBs create 20whp. Obviously I'm being facetious, but it's to make my point.
I will be the first to tell you I know next to nothing about Scions, or TCs. But, common sense tells me that bolt-ons don't make nearly as much of a difference on these as they do the V8s I'm accustomed to working on. This is due to smaller displacement. Assuming no major tuning issues, I would not expect to make a noticeable difference on the dyno. I prefer track results.
My only concern would be fuel delivery. These ECUs are great and VERY accurate at calculating air flow of the air entering the system. Part of the equations which the stock ECU uses to calculate delivery of fuel is based upon that stock TB size. So if it's increased, it will cause a leaner AFR, which can produce power, but also make it more sensitive to knock. Has this been tested for safety? I am in no way knocking your deal, just making people aware that they may need to retune to use this item.
Also, how is idle?
Also, how is idle?
I looked at your site and you appear to be quite knowledgeable, so allow me to pick your brain.
It appears that the TCs use a MAF system as part of their fuel/spark management. I'm used to dealing with MAP systems. So I assume that the MAF "expects" a certain air mass correlating to a throttle percentage and rpm?
how does the stock ECU calibration react to bolt-on modifications such as CAI's, full exhaust, etc etc.?
My theory is this: At part throttle where the ECU should be in closed loop, even if there is more air coming through (which there will be), the ECU should have the ability to add whatever fuel is needed to correct to that 14.7:1 AFR. Not knowing anything about what the stock ECU calibration is like in terms of WOT AFR, I dont know how it would change. I would presume it would be a few tenths leaner.
I dont think it would necessitate a re-tune, only because it doesn't appear that a retune is needed for other bolt-on modifications. Unless I am missing something??? The ECU doesn't freak out when there is a change to air density due to a change in the temperature or say, high altitude, so why would this be all that much different?
One area where I WOULD be concerned, is how the ECU would react to a TB that had a knife-edged blade. the knife edge allows even more air to pass the blade at a given throttle percentage in comparison to a already ported TB. So in theory the increase in air mass as you increased the TP% would "ramp up" faster than a stock blade. That might cause a problem with the ECU. It might freak out the cruise control, causing it to surge some.
On the MAP-based EFI Mopars I work on, Idle is not an issue once the ECU re-learns it. There has been one instance where there was surging and stalling, but it was a combination of not resetting the PCM and a particular model of the ECU that is very stubborn to re-learning. It eventually settled down.
Last edited by Sleepy4.7; Apr 8, 2010 at 03:46 PM.
I saw what you originally wrote in your post. I'll be more than happy to post dyno results if you pay for the pulls. Please refrain from telling me how to run my business.
I haven't spent a dime on advertising- or dyno results, for that matter- and yet people are buying TBs from me left and right on word of mouth alone. And I have 100% positive feedback. Coincidental? No.
I'm not a fan of dynos. They are good for the purposes of tuning (to a point), but thats about it. Most dyno facilities cannot even come close to replicating the dynamics of street driving- be it load, relative wind (i.e. air flow passing through the vehicle), etc etc. It just isn't the same. Not only that but the dyno numbers can be tweaked and massaged. I can easily manipulate a dyno reading to show that my TBs create 20whp. Obviously I'm being facetious, but it's to make my point.
I will be the first to tell you I know next to nothing about Scions, or TCs. But, common sense tells me that bolt-ons don't make nearly as much of a difference on these as they do the V8s I'm accustomed to working on. This is due to smaller displacement. Assuming no major tuning issues, I would not expect to make a noticeable difference on the dyno. I prefer track results.
I looked at your site and you appear to be quite knowledgeable, so allow me to pick your brain.
It appears that the TCs use a MAF system as part of their fuel/spark management. I'm used to dealing with MAP systems. So I assume that the MAF "expects" a certain air mass correlating to a throttle percentage and rpm?
how does the stock ECU calibration react to bolt-on modifications such as CAI's, full exhaust, etc etc.?
My theory is this: At part throttle where the ECU should be in closed loop, even if there is more air coming through (which there will be), the ECU should have the ability to add whatever fuel is needed to correct to that 14.7:1 AFR. Not knowing anything about what the stock ECU calibration is like in terms of WOT AFR, I dont know how it would change. I would presume it would be a few tenths leaner.
I dont think it would necessitate a re-tune, only because it doesn't appear that a retune is needed for other bolt-on modifications. Unless I am missing something??? The ECU doesn't freak out when there is a change to air density due to a change in the temperature or say, high altitude, so why would this be all that much different?
One area where I WOULD be concerned, is how the ECU would react to a TB that had a knife-edged blade. the knife edge allows even more air to pass the blade at a given throttle percentage in comparison to a already ported TB. So in theory the increase in air mass as you increased the TP% would "ramp up" faster than a stock blade. That might cause a problem with the ECU. It might freak out the cruise control, causing it to surge some.
On the MAP-based EFI Mopars I work on, Idle is not an issue once the ECU re-learns it. There has been one instance where there was surging and stalling, but it was a combination of not resetting the PCM and a particular model of the ECU that is very stubborn to re-learning. It eventually settled down.
I haven't spent a dime on advertising- or dyno results, for that matter- and yet people are buying TBs from me left and right on word of mouth alone. And I have 100% positive feedback. Coincidental? No.
I'm not a fan of dynos. They are good for the purposes of tuning (to a point), but thats about it. Most dyno facilities cannot even come close to replicating the dynamics of street driving- be it load, relative wind (i.e. air flow passing through the vehicle), etc etc. It just isn't the same. Not only that but the dyno numbers can be tweaked and massaged. I can easily manipulate a dyno reading to show that my TBs create 20whp. Obviously I'm being facetious, but it's to make my point.
I will be the first to tell you I know next to nothing about Scions, or TCs. But, common sense tells me that bolt-ons don't make nearly as much of a difference on these as they do the V8s I'm accustomed to working on. This is due to smaller displacement. Assuming no major tuning issues, I would not expect to make a noticeable difference on the dyno. I prefer track results.
I looked at your site and you appear to be quite knowledgeable, so allow me to pick your brain.
It appears that the TCs use a MAF system as part of their fuel/spark management. I'm used to dealing with MAP systems. So I assume that the MAF "expects" a certain air mass correlating to a throttle percentage and rpm?
how does the stock ECU calibration react to bolt-on modifications such as CAI's, full exhaust, etc etc.?
My theory is this: At part throttle where the ECU should be in closed loop, even if there is more air coming through (which there will be), the ECU should have the ability to add whatever fuel is needed to correct to that 14.7:1 AFR. Not knowing anything about what the stock ECU calibration is like in terms of WOT AFR, I dont know how it would change. I would presume it would be a few tenths leaner.
I dont think it would necessitate a re-tune, only because it doesn't appear that a retune is needed for other bolt-on modifications. Unless I am missing something??? The ECU doesn't freak out when there is a change to air density due to a change in the temperature or say, high altitude, so why would this be all that much different?
One area where I WOULD be concerned, is how the ECU would react to a TB that had a knife-edged blade. the knife edge allows even more air to pass the blade at a given throttle percentage in comparison to a already ported TB. So in theory the increase in air mass as you increased the TP% would "ramp up" faster than a stock blade. That might cause a problem with the ECU. It might freak out the cruise control, causing it to surge some.
On the MAP-based EFI Mopars I work on, Idle is not an issue once the ECU re-learns it. There has been one instance where there was surging and stalling, but it was a combination of not resetting the PCM and a particular model of the ECU that is very stubborn to re-learning. It eventually settled down.
I wouldn't buy this from you if it made 50whp. Your attitude is crap and you're being argumentative with (formerly) prospective customers.
chill bro he seems like a nice guy offering a new product to our community. of course everyone wants instant dyno results but with a small business like his im sure its not financially feasible to pay for someone to dyno it.
someone just has to go first and tell us the results.
someone just has to go first and tell us the results.
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Joined: Jan 2008
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From: Norfolk, VA
I believe this was visited a year or two back. Black Diamond Racing in CA had modified a RX8 throttle body to work w/ the TC. Mainly due to the fact that there isn't much you can do to the TC throttle body. But they ran into idling issues, and it never came to be.
I just checked their site, and yup they don't market it anymore. They used to.
Sleepy, you may want to contact Black Diamond to see if they'll fill you in on their issues. Probably not, but won't hurt to try. http://www.blackdiamondracing.com/
I just checked their site, and yup they don't market it anymore. They used to.
Sleepy, you may want to contact Black Diamond to see if they'll fill you in on their issues. Probably not, but won't hurt to try. http://www.blackdiamondracing.com/
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