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Cleaning the throttle body of an ecotech?

gogoboygareth

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Anyone done this?

I've had a problem whereby my VXII (V6 Exec) will sometimes "die" when I'm taking off very slowly from a standstill (i.e. when I'm stopped at an intersection - I put my foot on the gas just a little bit, the car creeps forward then the engine silently dies).

It's only done it about 4 times over the past 30,000km's, but that's enough for me. At my last service (50,000km service), they couldn't find anything wrong with the engine, and suggested a bunch of things.

One of them was cleaning out the throttle body to see if that helps.

Can I do this myself?

- Gareth
 

mixin

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It's best to take the throttle body (TB) off the manifold to do it, but you can sort of get away without doing that if you don't have the patience/skills.

To get to it, you need to remove the 4 10mm nuts holding the engine cover on, then you'll see the throttle body on the LHS with the black inlet tube from the airbox leading into it.

The IAC (idle valve) is smack bang on the top of the throttle body. It points towards the firewall, and is retained by 2 phillips head screws (accessed from the firewall side) & a wiring plug.

You will also need an aerosol can of carby/throttle body cleaner.

The reason I say that is ou need to disconnect the throttle linkages & stuff, and when you remove the idle valve from the TB you'll see it pokes into a passage that goes from one side of the throttle blade to the other - the valve regulates the amount of air that travels that passage around the throttle butterfly.

Anyway, if you don't want to pull it odd, get yourself a good rag that won't fall apart, remove the inlet pipe, crack the throttle fully open, and stuff the rag in the top 1/2 of the opening.

Remove the idle valve & clean the pintle & spring with carby cleaner.

Then with the nozzle on the carby cleaner can, spray it into the passages in the throttle body until no more carbon (black crap) comes out. You'll need to remove & replace the raga few times during the process, and wipe up any spills or excess.

Put it all back together & it should be OK.
I've never bothered resetting them, and never had a prob (after all, the ECU drives it & monitors the idle RPM anyway!) but some say you should, I'm sure there's a post on here somewhere that describes the method.
 

Alloytec

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make sure you mark the location of both of the sensors/valves other wise the car will not run correct :)
 

TigerVX

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I know this post is a bit old but what is meant by marking the position of the sensor/valves? I thought they could only go on one way.
I just cleaned my throttle body and had no probs with re-assembly - seems to be running a little better now.
 

slowr8

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Get some throttle body cleaner from Wynns.

Run it through obviously properly, and it won't have any dramas no need to pull it apart.
 
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