sad to say, i have NO idea what a throtle body is...

 

no problem: here's a couple images of what it is. Click me
It's simply a mechanism to help regulate air flow into the intake manifold. The more you press down on the accelerator, the more the plate rotates to open to allow more air in, which the car computer should compensate and add more fuel to the mixture when dumping the mixture into your cylinders. The throttle body is somewhat warmed up by your coolant and thus you also have coolant passages in it to keep the body warm so your air entering the intake manifold is somewhat related to engine operating temperatures, especially inportant during warm-up sessions. There is also a good amount of people that believe the coolant bypasses in the TB affect performance after warmup as now you are running hotter air which is less dense and thus for summer months, they disconnect all coolant passages to the TB and route the inlet and outlet together. I know completely useless for this thread but thought I'd through that in. Anyway, so why does it get dirty if only air is entering this body, you might be wondering? It has to do with blowby gases that come about from your PCV (positive crankcase valve), what happens is excess gases buildup in your engine area and to relief them, they are routed through a line back into your plenum. That's the main culprit, other issues arise from an airfilter that has holes and allow particles and dirt particles to enter the intake plenum.

To find it, it's where your cable ends that starts from the accelerator pedal. Another way is to follow your air filter box, follow the black plastic hosing line (called your plenum) to a metallic body that you will see the cable sort of wound half way around this linkage. That is your throttle body.

 

thanks, i think i'll clean mine using people's opinion on this thread . and know i know what i'm cleaning and what it is!

 

when any of you did this, did you remove the throttle body? or did you only remove the intake from the throttle body? i have instructions from a Honda manual that shows to remove both intake and the throttle body, and then clean the throttle body from the inside out, instead of spraying directly into the throttle body and into the engine.

by the way, it's a 2000 LX that i'm trying to work on.

the manual also says to remove the throttle cable before removing the throttle body. any idea on how to remove the throttle cable?

 

I just removed the intake, the whole process took all of 15 minutes.

 

Holy resurrection from the dead! I haven't been here in a while.

No you don't have to remove the TB, but you have to remove the intake plenum. It's better if you remove the TB because you can get a bit cleaner behind the butterfly valve. The only big issue is that you have to use a new gasket to sandwich the manifold and the TB. Also remember, you want to disconnect the TB cooler lines.

I have a TSX and a Tundra now and I clean the TB regularly without removing the TB from the manifold. Also, when I clean the TB, I usually also put in a new air filter (it's a yearly thing for me). Tundra is actually due now for a TB cleaning and new air filter.