Throttle body-do not clean?

Never heard of not cleaning one...

done it on 4 totally different ford engines with no prob, used the spray u mentioned and everything

FWIW, and it may not be much, there may be some validity to this. I used to have a Ford Probe with Mazda's 2.5L V6. Those engines had a very thin elastomer coating on the inside of the throttle body that was used to seal the throttle plate in the closed position. If this elastomer was removed, it could result in the engine RPM hanging and the idle becoming unstable as the removed elastomer, taken out by the solvent, allowed air to bypass the idle control solenoid. It wouldn't surprise me if this practice was more widespread among manufacturers.

What benefit do you really gain by cleaning a film of gunk from the throttle plates? If you were to flowbench a throttle body with and without gunk on the plates, I doubt you'd see an increase in CFM... Personally, I'd leave it. If the thing is really gunked up to the point where flow is being compromised in any way, you've got other issues to address.

[Edit]Further to this, my 2002 Ford service manual for my Mustang states, on page 303-04B-5, the following:

"CAUTION: The throttle body bore and plate area have a special coating and cannot be cleaned."

trinity_gt said:

...Those engines had a very thin elastomer coating on the inside of the throttle body that was used to seal the throttle plate in the closed position...Further to this, my 2002 Ford service manual for my Mustang states, on page 303-04B-5, the following: "CAUTION: The throttle body bore and plate area have a special coating and cannot be cleaned."

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Do aftermarket throttle bodies have this coating?

When I first took my FRPP TB out of the box I thought that it was used
allready since there was black stuff on and around the butterfly.
But yeah its a coating they spray on it.

I don't believe my Acuufab did but I don't know for sure. Probably worth asking the vendor.

trinity_gt said:

I don't believe my Acuufab did but I don't know for sure. Probably worth asking the vendor.

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I can confirm both Accufab and BBK TBs have the coating. Accufabs was a very small ammount, BBKs look like a blind guy applied it with a 4" paintbrush

myponyrocks said:

I can confirm both Accufab and BBK TBs have the coating. Accufabs was a very small ammount, BBKs look like a blind guy applied it with a 4" paintbrush

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:SNSign: