'They' say you can just spray the TB cleaner on them while installed. I don't know who 'they" is other than random voice on the internet. My first thought is I don't think I want that stuff in my intake manifold no matter how fast it evaporates. Second, after seeing it firsthand, you should really remove the TBs to get at the majority of the gunk on the back side of the butterfly valve.

I suppose you could possibly remove the TBs and lay a towel over the engine and try to clean the TBs over the towel while the harness is still attached. Seems like a hassle to me.

The reset is easy (car OFF 10 sec, ignition ON 2 sec, repeat once). Then mash down your throttle for the next 50-100 miles. Every time you accelerate give it WOT. As much as possible. Someone try this and see if you notice a change in how the car responds to your throttle input. It won't help with the lag on the stock tune, but I bet you notice a peppier response.

mr.jar- is that ignition ON as in start engine or just go to ON without starting the car? :confused: then turn off 10sec, and ON again 2sec and OFF.

i suppose if you keep mashing the gas, the ECU will be out of the eco mode so it will
behave more responsively than normal driving... until you drive normally again and
the ecu returns to :yawn: mode?

I was wondering the same thing myself. It is ignition ON while engine remains OFF. I actually did it incorrectly when we did the TB cleaning, but it still worked even with turning the car all the way on. The instructions say at least 2 sec on, so I let it come on long enough to settle and feel comfortable turning it off so quickly.

Also, I have a tune, so I'm not sure how much eco mode my car goes into these days :icon17: But I did notice that the car seemed to give me more gas with less pedal than before. I also got more 'bucking' from the car while driving slowly in low gear at higher RPMs and letting off the throttle suddenly.

thanks for the info. that sequence is basically the same as accelerator pedal reset on the ealier models. :D

yah, since you have a tune perhaps you no longer have eco mode (i prefer not to have
eco mode too :D )

i have cleaned my throttle body on my G35 and my 370z and i removed them each time to get the inside clean i think as long as you dont push on the throttle plate and move it when its off you shouldnt have to do any reset . ive never had to . i think i unhooked the negative before i did it but not sure if even that is necessary if the car is off and i have re routed the coolant lines that were attached to them . the coolant still flows but no longer heats the throttle body. :driving:

Picked her up from dealer and I noticed a change in response right off. All they did was adjust ecu and clear CEL.

Cleaned TBs. Took about 1.5 hrs including bowel movement and lonely mans lasagna meal. Not bad but boy were they dirty. 34K on her and I don't think it has ever been done. Used CRC TB cleaner about 40 qtips and 10 shop towels.

I did not disconnect because I didn't think it would give me much more maneuverability and didn't want to deal with reset. I did unbolt to get to back side, a must in my opinion. You really don't want all that garbage going into your baby.

OOOOOOPSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

I did move the butterfly. I wanted to make sure I cleaned every bit of it, and when you move it you can see what you miss. I was wondering about it as I started to move it.....second guess....**** it, move it, if it need reset oh well. Made no difference. I took it for a spin and not a problem. Idle was smooth at stops. I let her idle for about 3 or 4 minutes after wards and it was steady and smooth. I think it might be a few days before i can say the idle drop at stops has gone away completely.

Once again, thanks to you guys I feel comfortable and happy with my Z.

GJ justice and thanks for confirming you could clean them without unplugging the harness. :tup:

FWIW, I found a cheap package of brushes at Walmart in the paint section. Three brushes: one SS, a softer brass one, and an even softer plastic one. The two softer ones worked great to start, then finished up with a shop towel :tup:

So did all that garbage get all over your engine bay? It didn't seem like there was much slack in the harness line. I disconnected everything so I could take it over to my driveway and spray it over the concrete. But whatever works for you :tup: I had 50K on mine when I did it - very noticeable improvement in the idle.

:iagree: This form is the best!! :tup: :tup:

Actually what i did was rotate the TB so the intake side was facing down and i placed a couple of shop towels under it so it would catch the garbage and spray. I placed a towel on top to cover any splash as i sprayed. Once i did that i just took my time and wiped and sprayed and wiped and sprayed. Not a lot of room to work, but enough. Also no need to take off rear engine cover, I left mine on. So as for a mess, not really one at all.

if i was to do it, i would clean the plenum side first, then stick a towel in there before
spraying the tb... with nothing other than RC car motor spray. :icon17: and just
wipe off with a rag. i suppose i can buy a can of tb cleaner.

that was the dealer do with my Z to resolve the problem loool!! they clean the throttle bodies and re-calibrate them... well that they told me:p

Ok, so you did put towels down. I just wanted to be sure :icon17:

GJ :tup:

Took mine in today! Will pick it up tomorrow as i got out of work late today :shakes head:

Good to hear everything is still working for you carlitos, i hope this solves our issue once and for all.

This is covered under the 5 yr power train warranty? Any of you guys get this done also have Uprev?

I am still in the bumper to bumper, but it could be. It just states warranty on the invoice, not which one. And No to the Uprev.

Thanks bro!!! let me know when you pick up you Z :tup:
well i dont pay a $$$ for that job... so its covered under the warranty ;)

Well i dont have uprev yet and i think Pedro either

Picked it up today! No charge the first time in this specific dealer. From what i was told they will not charge the first time since its a very rare issue. Advisor at the the dealer told me that a pathfinder had been brought in today with the same problem, so this does not seem to be specific to the Z. Same as carlitos, cleaned throttle bodies and reprogrammed them. They are categorizing this as a maintenance service. From the invoice, dealer charges $37.50. They also recommended that i take the car in every 20k miles to do a fuel system clean up and avoid carbon build up and this from happening.

No complaints with the car today. However, the issue was more random for me than the case with carlitos, where i think it happened to him everyday. I think this is his 6th day issue free.

Oh, and no uprev for me right now.

is there something in the air in your area? :confused:

Not sure if serious... :ugh2:

But, to answer your question :tup: conditions have been dusty for some months now. Not really sure how much this affects our cars here in PR. I wouldnt think its enough to cause the issue we were experiencing, but who knows.

other than the Sahara Sands sometimes.... nope looooool!!! :p

Here's a good way to clean them :)


http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ps396767de.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ps14f7487c.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...psb291b7fb.jpg

damn... if those throttle bodies are not a new one. damn looks like new :tup:

I'm not down for paying someone else to clean my TBs. But if they port and polish them for the same price, then maybe ;)

Update here

http://www.the370z.com/engine-drivet...ml#post2968499

I cleaned them with throttle body cleaner whilst leaving them in place. All worked well and idle revs are back to normal and I took me just five minutes as the only task was to loosen the rubber hose, slip the spray nozzle in and spray the cleaner.

so where did all the gunk drain? :icon08:

certainly not into the intake manifold :eekdance:

:eek: carlitos lives in Narnia LOL:icon18:

loooooooooooool:bowrofl::bowrofl:

shhh! nobody here know that :p

does gunk just disappear when sprayed into TB in random directions? :ugh2:

(my emphasis)

That's not the best way to clean TBs. As others have pointed out (if obtusely), the gunk that you wash off the TBs is only moved to the manifold and combustion chamber. If there is enough crud on the TBs to have a big effect on performance, you could end up knocking a chunk loose that ends up in the combustion chamber, possibly scratching the walls or fouling plugs.

yah u definitely belong on the notorious "iggylist."

20000 miles in, cleaned them out. The car no longer "hunts" for the right RPM on cold start so that's a good sign. I'll take her out later today and do a bit of a run down and see how everything goes.

Didn't disconnect the TBs from the harness when cleaning. It's doable and safe, if not a slight pain in the back due to leaning over the side of the car the whole time.

Towels were filthy afterwards. Towel on the left was used to wipe off the inside edge of the manifold and then stuffed in to make sure none of the TB cleaner splashed in while I cleaned the TBs themselves.

Attachment 104401

I dont know if it's already been explained but if you remove the throttle body to do the cleaning you shouldn't have to re-calibrate as long as you don't move the butterfly in the middle. You can easily clean it thoroughly with out touching the butterfly

I didn't take before and after photos of the TBs but I don't know how you would clean it completely without moving the butterfly. Wouldn't it leave a thin line around the butter fly because you wouldn't be able to scrub under it? Even with TB cleaner I had to do a bit of rubbing in order to remove some of the residue.

I've removed the TBs on three different Z's to clean them. Definitely moved the butterfly valves a bunch to thoroughly clean them. All I did after was the idle air relearn procedure (takes ~25 sec). IIRC there is another, more complicated reset procedure that should be done if the idle air relearn does not suffice.

:iagree: I had intentions of not moving the butterfly valve while cleaning. But these cars had 35K, 50K, and 70K miles on them, and there was no way I was removing the line around the valve without moving it. I used a hard plastic toothed brush to clean them with great success.

Just did this today and changed plugs while I was at it. It really is pretty simple. Mine has 70k and by the looks of the TBs they have never been cleaned... My towels looked 1000% worse than the pic someone posted earlier.

I also moved the valves since they were so filthy. Started it up afterwards and didn't do the relearn yet (I had the battery disconnected anyway bc of pulling plugs). Idle seems higher than before so I'll try the relearn tomorrow. If you haven't done this yet is worth a look. I could not believe how much gunk and tar was in there.

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The relearn should help drop the idle down to 650 RPM or so instead of 800 RPM. With the battery unplugged earlier, you'll need to do the throttle closed position and accelerator pedal learning procedures. Takes about a minute to get both procedures done.

IMO, there's not much to worry about moving the throttle plates. I've done it many times, which makes it easier to get to the hard to reach spots. I also added some thin lube to the shaft as well. One of them was squeaking earlier.

I did all resets and I think they took. Idle is near 700 again after warmed up.

A follow up question about the idle relearn reset... I followed the manual and all was fine until the part where it says to hold gas pedal down for 20 seconds until MIL light stays lit, but each time I did the reset it only took about 5 seconds to stop flashing. Is this normal?

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IMO, should be fine. After the 7th second you hold down the pedal until the MIL light starts flashing (20 sec doesn't matter at this point). When it stops flashing and goes solid, you have a few seconds to quickly start the car and let it idle. Then you blip the throttle a few times and see the idle drop steadily as it warms up. I think you should be fine now. close to 700 RPM is not too bad compared to 900-1200 RPM lol.