To Throttle Body Heater or Not

[Rover831]

My throttle body heater recently sprung a leak on my 2000 LR Disco. I ordered the kit to make the repair when a thought occurred to me, why!!!???? Don't most engines benefit from cold air entering the engine. Hence; the use of Cold Air Induction in high performance engines. I know I shouldn?t use land rover and high performance in the same sentence but the thought occurred to me that it might be better to just bypass the throttle body heater with a small piece of hose? After all, I don?t think it gets cold enough in Texas to need this. Thoughts?

 

[headdamage]

Venturi effect

 

[DarylJ]

Yes, you should install it. It's there (by FMVSS) for a reason.

You may not need it typically in Texas. But boy would it suck to be on a trip somewhere colder and humid and have your throttle body freeze open while you're on the highway.

Do you know why people bitch about them leaking? Because most of those are the people who did their head gaskets and threw away all those other gaskets that came with the kit, or went to the lowest bidder billie bob garage to have them done and they did the same thing. Or people who don't service their cooling system regularly (who will be due for head gaskets soon enough as well).

 

[KyleT]

i dont know... I bypassed it on my boosted miata and it has never ever goofed and this thing moves some air.

never actually heard of one freezing up either. seen them corroded up or the cable go bad.

i dont believe the new jag motor trucks have one, but it has an elec throttle body and may as well be an elec heater, i dont know...

its not like if it sticks you will get going that fast... plus just kill it if it happens.

 

[rovercanus]

I've had mine freeze up when I did a bypass. Any place you have temps below 30 degrees and humidity I wouldn't bypass it.
It's cheap and easy to do so why skimp on it?

 

[DarylJ]

temps below 30 degrees

Doesn't take anywhere near 30F to freeze a throttle body due to basic physics (the throttle body is a venturi.....just like the expansion valve in the air conditioning system).

 

[SGaynor]

never actually heard of one freezing up either. seen them corroded up or the cable go bad.


its not like if it sticks you will get going that fast... plus just kill it if it happens.

Both statements above are covered here:
http://discoweb.org/forums/showthread.php?t=46013&highlight=throttle+body