Need advice on throttle body problem please

Sup guys (and gals). I recently installed a BBK throttle body (65mm) onto my 2003 V6 Coupe. Well, the problem I had was, when I first fired it up, it would idle high. At one point, while I was letting it idle, per BBK's instructions, for a few minutes to let the computer adjust, I noticed that the headers on the left bank were glowing :jaw: . I don't think that's normal, so I shut it off quickly, waited a few minutes, then fired it back up. It started right away, but the headers weren't glowing. I adjusted the idle as much as I could to try and get it back to the factory idle (it's idling right now at about 900 rpm's and drops to about 700 in drive). I have no idea what made the headers glow or what could be the problem. Have any of you experienced this issue? Please let me know what could have gone wrong. Everything seems fine now, but I'd like to know what could have caused such a problem when I was only adjusting the throttle body and air induction. Also, am I good at those rpm speeds or does more adjusting need to be done? Having the CAI and throttle body spacer already in made the install a pain, which was made even more so by the strut tower brace. But anway, if you have any advice or can help me out, I'd appreciate it. Thanks alot in advance.
 
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i have no help or any experience in this field. however i do have the same car as you. and i was wounderin how much you paid for the throttle body, if it is hard to install by yourself (if you do not know much about mechaniscs) and is it worth it
 
Well that isnt normal for sure I would go to a shop and tell them to check it out. If you are still driving it then I would suggest that everytime you are done driving it to any location even down the road to get out and look under the hood to see how it is looking and watch your heat gauge. It is really for the engine but if your headers are that hot then I think that th temp would rise. I would also suggest taking it down to the local ford shop and tell them that you put a new throttle body on to help with gas millage and your headers were red and have them take a look at it. It could be something that you cant see from outside the engine that may have caused that.
 
Thanks guys for the response. Well, I have been driving it since then and I haven't had any problems out of it. I took it down to Gullo Ford to have their mechanic look at it and all he said was that it was most likely the computer acting funny to the new throttle body. He said that the problem is pretty common and that it shouldn't become an issue again. He did mention though that there could have been some serious damage done if I hadn't shut down the motor. BBK's instructions are crap. :mad: In the package, it says to disconnect the negative battery terminal and then go at it. But on their site, it says to disconnect both battery terminals AND let the car sit overnight so the computer chip will be fresh when you reconnect everything. :shrug: :bs: Make some better instructions people. If it had blown a head gasket or something, you can bet I would have held them liable for it. It idles higher than it used to, at about 800 now I think..closer to 900 when in park. But driveability appears good and I'm getting a little over 20 per gallon gas mileage. :shrug: I'm just going to call it good I guess and move on. I hate to do that, but since the mechanics seem to think it's fine, I don't know what else to do. I don't want to pay every shop in town just to get the same answer, you know?

As for the inquiry on price and install difficulty, I paid $249 for the throttle body and it took dang near four hours to finish installing and setting the idle. Setting the idle was a disaster, and IF YOU ARE USING YOUR STOCK THROTTLE BODY NOW WITHOUT A SPACER, THE BBK 65MM THROTTLE BODY WILL NOT WORK ON YOUR MOTOR UNLESS YOU PORT THE INTAKE. BBK will not tell you this unless you go to their site and find it out yourself. Fortunately, I have the spacer on so I didn't have to port it out. Bottom line, if I could choose whether or not to do it again, I wouldn't. The performance increase is there, and it sounds a bit deeper in the exhaust tone, but it's not worth the hassle of setting it up and possibly screwing up your motor in the process.:(

At any rate, thanks alot for the replies guys. :nice: I'll see ya around. :SNSign:
 
My dad has a V8 that get 26mpg you should be able to get to closer to 28mpg. Do you race the car alot and drive it hard shifting at i RPM's? There should be a way to lower your RPM on the throttle body there should be a small screw or something that will change it. check it out that'll help
 
Yellow_V6 said:
My dad has a V8 that get 26mpg you should be able to get to closer to 28mpg. Do you race the car alot and drive it hard shifting at i RPM's? There should be a way to lower your RPM on the throttle body there should be a small screw or something that will change it. check it out that'll help

:shrug: No I don't drive it hard, and the car's an automatic so shifting isn't really an issue. I found that screw you mentioned, but if I tune it any lower, the idle drops drastically and the car wants to die. I'm testing my gas mileage. Today I filled up and reset the trip odometer so we'll see how that goes I guess. As far as racing the car goes, the freeway around where I am is 70 mph but that's about it. The occasional quick take off, but few and far inbetween. The car has been flawlessly maintained and doesn't have a scratch on it, which is amazing to me since the dang thing is black and shows EVERYTHING. :mad: Ah well.
 
my setup is almost the same as urs minus the tb... bbk cai, throttle body spacer and dual flowmasters with an auto tranny. ive also got plugs and wires but believe me im not getting 28 mpg unless ur talking about only highway miles. i've def noticed that the cai and spacer helped mileage a little bit and i can imagine the whole new throttle body would help but idk if id be expecting a combined gas mileage of 28. and yellowv6.. what does ur dad have in his setup? and are u just talking about highway miles?
 
Throttle body won't help anything, and that's from the guys at Accufab. The stock 99-04 TB flows around 297 cfm, the intake manifolds and heads don't even flow near that number. With plugs and wires, make sure the plugs aren't having issues. I've pulled out 30mpg doing 85mph on a highway out of mine. Tire pressure, spark plug condition, how hard and consistant you press the gas pedal, pumping it, in other words pushing, letting off because the guy in front isnt moving like you want to, then pushing to catch up and letting back off again, how due you are for an oil change, air filter's condition all effect gas milage more than you can imagine. Driving habit is the major cause of poor gas milage, more than 85% of people that complain of poor gas milage is people who have poor habits that consume lots of gas, and they don't even know it. 25mpg city, 30mpg highway and running high 15's in an auto on a 90 degree, humid day in Houston.

As for the idle, worse thing possible is durring the install, the Throttle Position sensor could have been damaged. They are fragile, even cleaning a TB can damage them.
Another thing could be a dirty MAF. Use a quick dry electrical contact cleaner for it, it HAS to be quick dry that does not leave any residue or harm electrical sensors, MAFs aint cheap. I've used CRC QD Electronic Cleaner on mine before, comes in a red and black can. Just be very gentle on spraying cleaner on it, light, short sprays work just fine.
And does the car do the 900rpm idle even after fully warmed up. The car will be at 900rpms when it's not warmed up yet.

As for unplugging your battery, the ECU stores the fuel/spark tables in RAM, as soon as the power source is removed and disipates, RAM is cleared out, so your ECU has to pick up the original factory tables from the ROM section which does not get erased. From there, it uses the sensors to adjust the tables to get back to 14.7:1 AF or close enough.
 
Well, the car does idle at 900 even after warming up. At stop lights, it idles at around 750 or so, depending on if the a/c is on or not. One thing I have just started to notice is, its shifting early from 2nd to third. I mean, real early. If its running WOT (wide open throttle), it will shift a good 1k or so before it even comes close to the redline. But for some reason, if I get half on the throttle and then lay into it, it will shift like normal. I tell you what, for a cheap bolt-on, this has been a real headache. I've thought a couple of times about saying forget it and just going back to factory. I still have the old throttle body in the garage just in case. Also, and I found this out on a closed track in controlled conditions, but at about 90 or so, the car runs funny. What I mean is, the speed is steady going up but the rpms aren't. They go up to about 3k in top gear (the car is not close to topping out at all so obviously it wouldn't be higher than that) but then they dip between 2,500 and 3k and the exhaust tone is real deep, which I've never heard it do at speeds like that before. Normally, anyway. It's real tough to explain this, but I ran the car twice and both times I experienced the same problem. If it's a problem. Heck, I don't know anymore what is and what isn't. I got off the gas at about 92 because I didn't want to find out what would happen if I stayed in it. The car gets run here and there, but not consistently and I always change the oil just before 3k miles and run semi-synthetic, fill it with only Shell gasolines, and check tire pressure constantly. Got the gas test back in btw. 240 miles is what it went on about 11 gallons. I haven't done the math yet, so dunno what it comes out to, but it was mostly highway miles. Well, gotta head down to the party for the fourth. Happy fourth everybody! See ya'll around.
 
22mpg, but any one time you race you loose a significant amount of gas milage so, that sounds about right. I'm searching for some problems with the BBK TBs, because I have seen other install issues with them before. Just make sure all connectors are in, and all Vacuum lines are plugged in. It would really help if you had a multimeter and knew what the voltages were out of the Throttle Position Sensor at idle and at wide open throttle, and to check if the TB is even opening all the way.