TB Polishing

[T Man]

Ok, I have recently come into possession of a third throttle body assembly, though not by choice. My quesiton is this, will polishing the throttle bores, and maybe cutting down the lip on the top of the throttle bores give me any kind of hp or tq upgrades? I can afford to mess it up, because I have 2 to practice on (and maybe f up if) and still have the one on my truck. (yes, i have 3 tb assemblys total) I am gonna get em in a parts washer in the morning, and maybe do it tomorrow at work. What do you guys think?

[sparky2263]

:eek:

[T Man]

whats that all about?\

[sparky2263]

Messin' whicha'

[Matt 4.3 TBI]

It's definitely worth the effort, since you can do it for free. I've been meaning to do mine, but my last spare TBI had a broken screw on one of the butterflies. I would cut down the lips around the bores, smooth them into the top of the TBI, and polish the bores up a bit. Be careful not to take too much metal around the butterflies or it'll affect your idle speed (more air and fuel seeping by).

[T Man]

how would I go about doing it?

I was thinking of using a dremmel with some sandpaper hoop pieces

[Matt 4.3 TBI]

The Dremel is your best friend for this! I'd polish with sandpaper, work down to a fine grit.

[jjwalker]

DO IT BY HAND!!!

you will kill it with the dremel. Only use a dremel for the lips. I tried to use a dremel on mine and thank god I was able to correct the flaws. I did get it to a mirror finish.]

There are some pics of it here------> http://www.s10planet.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11221

[Matt 4.3 TBI]

Well, that's what I was implying. Using the dremel to take off the larger portions of metal. Cutting and polishing are two different things. They do make polishing bits for Dremels that might work well, though.

[jjwalker]

well, I would never use a dremel for polishing the bores due to aluminum being soft. Hand polishoing doesnt take long if your not a freak like me.

it takes a few types of sanding paper. 220,320,400 and either a 600 or 800 grit + super fine steel wool.

use each to fine out the previous papers scratches. After about 1 hour of sanding with all those types of paper, get the super fine steel wool and go back and forth IN ONE DIRECTION ONLY. either up and down or side to side. Use some aluminum or mag wheel polish to give you that mirror finish.

[Maximus]

I used my trusty dremel to polish and just very slightly port the throttle body on my TA.It is just a very sensitive process you need to have done several times.I cut down and blended some on the TB and then polished it to a very bright finish.It made a substantial change on the TA.Of course any mod on a LS1 to get more air in makes a big difference.So you might and probably won't get the same results.But if you take your time and be very carefull you should get it to turn out nice and get some gains out of it.