How to Clean Both Throttle Bodies

Nice Aaron. I hope pulling the negative is enough to avoid issues. Did you lose the presets?

Have you never disconnected the negative cable from your FX before!!??

---------- Post added at 05:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:50 PM ----------

Dealer told me that it's highly recommended to do a relearn after throttle body cleaning to reset everything since over time the valves won't be exactly where they were before since the build up of dirt.

Not sure how true this is.

Aaron, did you do any relearn and if so, what kind and what steps? Thanks!
 
Disconnecting the negative battery on it while pushing open the butterfly valve works so I don't have to worry about messing anything up. I ended up doing the closed valve learning, throttle position learning, and idle relearn this time. Didn't need to but just did it to clear things up they may have been needing clearing.


Downside to disconnecting the battery I lost my maintenance interval memory on the speedometer, auto window up needed a reset since it stopped working. Also lost all memory settings and radio presets and adaptive shift learning in the transmission computer.
 
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are instructions for these somewhere on iS?

closed valve learning
throttle position learning
idle relearn
 
:nuts: ok im goin coco here so if i disconnect the negative will i have to do close valve learning throttle position learning and idle learning ?
 
say this 10 times really fast "close valve learning throttle position learning and idle learning"
 
are instructions for these somewhere on iS?

closed valve learning
throttle position learning
idle relearn


These are the 3 procedures. To successfully do it you need to make sure all the following conditions are met at the top first before performing any relearning:

idled.png


---------- Post added at 10:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:28 PM ----------

:nuts: ok im goin coco here so if i disconnect the negative will i have to do close valve learning throttle position learning and idle learning ?

Dude I said it already lol :tongue (2):

You don't need to do any of the relearning. It's up to you if you want to do it. I just did it just incase.

Disconnecting the battery may help from keeping the SES light from coming on if you open up the butterfly valve. I don't know if it would but it's possible. Seen it happen a few times already on the G37/G35 forums.
 
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disconnecting the battery isn't doing anything to prevent any errors being recognized, errors are prevented by being gentle with the butterfly itself. be very gentle and don't let it snap closed and you will be fine even without the battery disconnect, I've done this many many many times.

how this system works is the throttle body at rest de energized gives a very specific voltage reading. it always returns to this exact same specific resting position giving the exact same voltage reading unless it's faulty, or it's re calibrated, or its disturbed by snapping it closed, knocking it out of calibration.

as an example, lets say any particular TB at rest is programmed as throttle closed reading of 1.16V... as long as the ecu sees the throttle at this 1.16v at rest it sees everything as ok, no problem and it will always show the 1.16v at rest as long as there are no problems. now lets say you open the throttle plate and let it snap closed even partially on just the return spring pressure. what this will do is simply knock it out of calibration... the NEW rest position reading may now be 1.21v, or it may be 1.10v, whatever it is now it is no longer PRECISELY what the computer expects to see, so it sees this as an error. the "fix" would be to reset the learned at rest position, which would then re teach the ECU the new closed position reading of the new reading of 1.21v or the 1.10v or whatever it may wind up being....

the resting position calibration is delicate and easily shocked or otherwise disturbed but when carful you should not have an issue... always use a non abrasive stick or something to make sure you don't accidentally let it snap whenever holding it open and also don't force it in any way... I use a screwdriver but you have to be very careful not to knick anything or make scratches, a wooden stick would be safer for a novice.

along these lines it is also not really necessary in most cases to even remove the throttle body at all, it is very practical and satisfactory to open the throttle plate gently and clean the edges and the resting areas and get just as good results for the most part, of course the more you disassemble the more you will be able to clean better but following that train of thought then why stop at just the throttle bodies?, may as well do the whole intake too... point being you really don't NEED to do more than just clean the TB's right there while still bolted on the engine, especially if your going to wind up doing it frequently... be gentle and just don't turn the ignition on throughout the process and you should be fine... worse case if you do screw up and wind up with and error don't panic, just reset the learned tp

also, one last word on what's "dirty"... just seeing some blackish oily residue there is not only normal, but you will never eliminate this from happening even if you cleaned them once a week, this happens by design and it really is not a problem, don't think oh it's dirty because there is a light film of dirty oil residue, it will almost always have this and it will return again shortly after cleaning, it only winds up becoming a problem over time and after many miles and eventually gets over excessive buildup, eventually it will build up enough to form a ridge that starts to block a percentage of airflow, THIS is when it's at the point that it really needs to be cleaned and this is the point it starts to affect idle, this is also why cleaning them on the car is fine, because there really isn't much benefit to over cleaning, get the heavy buildup ridge off and your good to go for another 20k or whatever...

I'm not looking to discredit anything you've said in your DIY here and if anything is contrary to anything you've stated as fact here my intentions are not so much to say your wrong, I'm just looking to give the real info as to exactly what's going on here with the TB's :)
 
disconnecting the battery isn't doing anything to prevent any errors being recognized, errors are prevented by being gentle with the butterfly itself. be very gentle and don't let it snap closed and you will be fine even without the battery disconnect, I've done this many many many times.

how this system works is the throttle body at rest de energized gives a very specific voltage reading. it always returns to this exact same specific resting position giving the exact same voltage reading unless it's faulty, or it's re calibrated, or its disturbed by snapping it closed, knocking it out of calibration.

as an example, lets say any particular TB at rest is programmed as throttle closed reading of 1.16V... as long as the ecu sees the throttle at this 1.16v at rest it sees everything as ok, no problem and it will always show the 1.16v at rest as long as there are no problems. now lets say you open the throttle plate and let it snap closed even partially on just the return spring pressure. what this will do is simply knock it out of calibration... the NEW rest position reading may now be 1.21v, or it may be 1.10v, whatever it is now it is no longer PRECISELY what the computer expects to see, so it sees this as an error. the "fix" would be to reset the learned at rest position, which would then re teach the ECU the new closed position reading of the new reading of 1.21v or the 1.10v or whatever it may wind up being....

the resting position calibration is delicate and easily shocked or otherwise disturbed but when carful you should not have an issue... always use a non abrasive stick or something to make sure you don't accidentally let it snap whenever holding it open and also don't force it in any way... I use a screwdriver but you have to be very careful not to knick anything or make scratches, a wooden stick would be safer for a novice.

along these lines it is also not really necessary in most cases to even remove the throttle body at all, it is very practical and satisfactory to open the throttle plate gently and clean the edges and the resting areas and get just as good results for the most part, of course the more you disassemble the more you will be able to clean better but following that train of thought then why stop at just the throttle bodies?, may as well do the whole intake too... point being you really don't NEED to do more than just clean the TB's right there while still bolted on the engine, especially if your going to wind up doing it frequently... be gentle and just don't turn the ignition on throughout the process and you should be fine... worse case if you do screw up and wind up with and error don't panic, just reset the learned tp

also, one last word on what's "dirty"... just seeing some blackish oily residue there is not only normal, but you will never eliminate this from happening even if you cleaned them once a week, this happens by design and it really is not a problem, don't think oh it's dirty because there is a light film of dirty oil residue, it will almost always have this and it will return again shortly after cleaning, it only winds up becoming a problem over time and after many miles and eventually gets over excessive buildup, eventually it will build up enough to form a ridge that starts to block a percentage of airflow, THIS is when it's at the point that it really needs to be cleaned and this is the point it starts to affect idle, this is also why cleaning them on the car is fine, because there really isn't much benefit to over cleaning, get the heavy buildup ridge off and your good to go for another 20k or whatever...

I'm not looking to discredit anything you've said in your DIY here and if anything is contrary to anything you've stated as fact here my intentions are not so much to say your wrong, I'm just looking to give the real info as to exactly what's going on here with the TB's :)


Good information here. It's great you know this stuff the fsm doesn't even tell you lol. It's good to know battery disconnecting wouldn't matter. I have people telling me all different kinds of things so it's good to know some light has been shed. I was pretty gentle with cleaning it so maybe that's why no issues turned up.

Like you mentioned mine were originally so dirty the car was sometimes stalling, had a rough idle, and overtime the car seemed hard to start so mine was originally gunked up pretty bad. I'll keep them cleaned everytime I change the filters now (15k-20K).

Those people on the G37/G35 forums must be sticking their fingers in the hole really hard and moving it around too much to upset it.
 
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I guess now I know don't stick my finger in there to hard to upset it. Don't want any crap.
 
u recommended this to me for my problem and said the dealer might charge me for it, u have an idea of around how much it would cost?
 
it doesn't take much at all to knock it out of calibration, just sticking a finger in there and letting it close anything less than very very gentle can do it, don't just close it slowly and let it tap closed, close it like it's wired to a big pile of C4 explosives and let it touch very very gentle and you'll never have a problem :) just reaching a finger in there isn't always a good idea because just retracting the finger alone can make it snap a bit, you want to hold it the full way while closing and touch down very easy and it's always a good idea when you first open it to stick something in there to hold it open until you're done cleaning it, a paint stick is ideal and won't damage or nick anything, soak a rag and wipe, repeat until clean, reach in and get the inner part of the butterfly lip itself too... the less amount of times you open and fully close it the less chance you have of problems, if you use a stick to hold it open when you start then ideally you will only be closing it once when done, really minimizing your chances of knocking it out of calibration
 
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