The "Power Tower"

[Ken]

Have y'all seen this yet?


I wasn't gonna say anything about it, but I'm watching Crank & Chrome on TNN and they just promoted it, although it was for another throttle body type (And it only sold for around $75 they said - still a lot of money!)

Anyone try it yet, or know someone that has? I don't think I'm gonna shell out $120 for it.

You want the TB air to flow better?
Take off the throttle-body. Look into intake plenum opening.
There's 2 metal tabs sticking up into the TB airflow.
Get a Dremel and grind those down flush. That'll help, maybe
as much as the $120 POWER TOWER.

Note: if anyone is serious in trying this, you have to remove the plenum to do this. You have to clean the plenum to get out all the metal filings afterwards. It took me 3-1/2 hours to do this with a Dremel (I did it during 2 Red Sox vs. Yankee games, so I kept entertained). Others have said it's a lot faster if you use oil on the grinding stones.

[ArtZR1991]

The basic theory of these devises is that they "fool" the engine into thinking the intake manifold is larger (very common trick on carburater engines, where spacers under the carbs are used). Generally any improvement in peak power is at the expense of the power band width (ie, low end torque), there by making the car less responsive in street conditions.

As you can tell, I don't like these kinds of tricks on street cars, but it isn't just my bias. Clearly if it were this easy with no down side, GM would have done it in the stock build up.

Though it is not a perfect analogy, when we retired my Shelby from full time bracket racing, we had trouble on the street until we removed the spacers, which greatly improved low end and throttle response.

Hope this is helpful.

PS, this is not in cradiction to Greg's responsive above, I don't think because I think he is addressing an issue of airflow, not plenum size.