Throttle Body Spacer - Do They Work

[brnr17]

hey guys i've been looking at getting an airraid throttlebody spacer ... i'm wondering if any of you have them and if you noticed a difference and what kind of difference. I have an 01 1500 with 5.3L - Thanks Mat

[ricko2]

Paper weight in my opinion...

[Gregg1LE]

Save your money and buy a real performance mod.

[varsis]

Buy a cold air and exhaust is a cheap mod, with induction hood. I don't know about spacers but a better deal would be to get a bigger throttle body, can gain upto 15 hp. Exhaust will help so these are cheap options. Headers a little more expensive. You could do a turbo, but might need a new tranny to back it.

[Sir Dan]

No Good. I put one in my 98 Tacoma... no change whatsoever, dad put one in his 95 Silverado, no good. Don't waste your $...

[brnr17]

ok thats what i was wondering .. i didnt know anyone who had one so i figured i'd ask. thanks for the replies

Buy a cold air and exhaust is a cheap mod, with induction hood. I don't know about spacers but a better deal would be to get a bigger throttle body, can gain upto 15 hp. Exhaust will help so these are cheap options. Headers a little more expensive. You could do a turbo, but might need a new tranny to back it.

from what i've seen exhaust and induction hood are not cheap mods

[Paul58]

ok thats what i was wondering .. i didnt know anyone who had one so i figured i'd ask. thanks for the replies

Buy a cold air and exhaust is a cheap mod, with induction hood. I don't know about spacers but a better deal would be to get a bigger throttle body, can gain upto 15 hp. Exhaust will help so these are cheap options. Headers a little more expensive. You could do a turbo, but might need a new tranny to back it.

from what i've seen exhaust and induction hood are not cheap mods

 

 

I can't speak to how it works on the GM products, but I had one on my 05 Nissan Frontier and I did notice a difference in low end. It was most noticable taking off from a stop light, merging on and on-ramp, etc. Once up to speed it made no difference what so ever. In fact, I few folks on the Frontier Board I used to hang out at said it hurt they're top end and ET times at the track. I didn't race mine, and for what I used the truck for, the added low end was worth while.

 

Having said that, I did feel I lost some low end when I swapped over to an aftermarket Exhaust and Intake, the TBS really only gave back some of what was lost from the other mods. My advice is to see if you can pick up a used one. AirAid is a great company, and all their products carry a lifetime warranty. So, even if the used one has a worn gasket, chances are AirAid will send a replacement for free if you call them. The rest is aluminum, and unless the previous owner beat it with a hamer, there's not much that go wrong with it!

[99silverado1500]

The throttle body spacers dont work, I had one on mine and now its a paper weight in my office. Better off spending the money on proven things like exhaust tuners, etc.

[Drunken Sailor]

They don't work on any modern port-injected (basically everything since 1996 when OBD2 legislation came out) vehicle, yet aftermarket companies continue to produce them. The theory is that in adding the spacer, you are lengthening the intake runner, which shifts the power band into a lower RPM ranger. Longer runners give you more low end, shorter more high end. But with newer style trucks like our with runners all connected to a common plenum, the throttle body spacer is only lengthening the plenum, with no change to the intake runners themselves. It's basically just extra weight on the truck/ another potential spot for a vacuum leak/etc.

 

On the older TBI/Carb vehicles, the spacer also gave the air/fuel mixture a longer distance to travel before it hit the cylinder so fuel would atomize better. With new vehicles we have no control over where fuel is injected but we also run such high pressure now that it atomizes fine anyway.