3.0L V6 Large Diameter Throttle Body R & D!!!!

[The Great NY]

In the ongoing quest to make more power with our duratec 3.0L, thoughts of a larger TB has always been on my mind. The mustang modular engines have showed promise thru the use of larger TB's. Which turns into easy bolt on power increases.

I was looking at trying the 4.0L mustang v6 TB. But why try that when our new 6 generation has a bigger TB than the stang.

Anyway, this is basically going to be a joint effort here between myself and Scott(twowheelin) to make it so our 3.0L can use our bigger brothers TB. For comparison the optimized 3.0L TB is only 60mm in diameter. The optimized 3.7L TB is a whopping 72mm in diameter. That is a huge increase over the stock 3.0L TB.

Simply put...more times then not more air means more power capability.

Scott was kind enough to let me use one of the 3.7L TB's from his stock to work on this. Thank you very much scott.

This thread will be a running log of the R&D I will be doing to get this mod a reality. From possibly making an adapter plate as well as seeing how far I can go (if need be) with porting the intake manifold entrance to better compliment the bigger TB.

All updates, testing, and any issues will be posted here as I work on this. So those who are interested in this mods outcome sub up and stay tuned.





UPDATE: (11-19-2010)

received the 3.7L mazda 6 throttle body today. immediately took it out of the package and started measuring.

first things first....the 3.7L TB is huge compared to our regular 3.0L TB, i mean it literally swallows our lil 3.0L TB

first part of the good news is. after measuring and inspecting the bolt pattern. go figure, like Scott and myself suspected there are close. not only are they close, but they are identical

like i said it seems they just made the bore larger but didnt move the bolt holes. if you look at the 3.0L TB you can see how much material there is still between the bolt holes and the bore. they may have just changed the electronics around to facilitate a larger bore.

pins look the same, same exact plug. i'll big going thru the wiring to make sure its all pinned the same and at a quick glance prior to receiving the unit. the wiring looks the same.

here are the pics so you can see what im talking about.

left is 3.0L and right is 3.7L

Left is 3.7L and right is 3.0L

And Heres the 3.7L TB literally swallowing the 3.0L TB

 

[The Great NY]

UPDATE: (11-20-2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEmW24l4Zyw

i kinda eyeballed the way the connector is. the housing for the actual gears of the TB is slightly different than our stock one. it has one buldge on it that ours does not.

but looking at it. i do believe if i face the gear toward the front of the car it will fit right in without the bulge hitting anything on the manifold. if i put the gears toward the firewall like our stock TB it will hit something on the intake manifold. on the neck of our intake manifold right behind where the TB meets the manifold on the fiirewall side there is a protrusion that sticks out off the manifold pretty good and it will definately interfere with mounting it. so im gonna face it towards the front.

what im trying to do is make this as bolt on as possible with the least amount of modifications.


tomorrow im taking the 3.7L TB and my spare manifold to my job (i should have some free time a bit tomorrow) to see about any needed porting on the neck and if its needed or not. and to also check out the gasket to see if that will be an issue as far as placement to mate up to the larger TB



UPDATE: (11-21-2010)

Got to work today and starting fit testing the TB on the intake manifold. As I said the bolt pattern is indeed the same and bolts right up.

But as I suspected the extra bulge that I noted previously as possibly being a problem is indeed hindering bolting up the tb. By a 1/4" worth of issue at that. And more at about a 3/4" if clocked the other way

So this determines that a spacer will be needed for this mod. One more thing I noticed that I completely forgot about until I pulled off the stock TB is that the stocker has a block built into it to cover an auxillary air channel on the intake manifold. Shown below:

The 3.7L TB does not have this block for that air channel. No biggie. Ill explain why later.

Onto the intake manifold. Now remember me saying that porting the intake manifold a lil bit would be the path to go for acheiveing max potential of this mod. Or at a minimum the I'M neck entrance. Good news is there is plenty of material to take away to port match the I'M with the TB. Notice the portion of plastic I'M material on the inside of the oring gasket. There is approximately 3mm of material there inside the oring gasket. Look below:

Now..I went further in looking at the I'M and relized that you can indeed take all of that 3mm out of there. Because for one...with the 3.7L tb you will not be able to utilize the stock oring gasket. At least around the main bore. So converting to a paper gasket would be the route of choice. Why can't we use the stock gasket? Well the 3.7L TB sealing surface is to big of diameter to mate up to the stock gasket. Its bigger by about a CM. Look below:

You can see the gasket poking out decent on the right side. Paper gasket it is and get rid of all the material via porting. Which is better anyway.

Good news is...we already have a spacer made for our car. STeeda TB spacer anyone? I will have to get one and mount it up and see if that needs any porting as well. So it seems the used to be somewhat meaningless mod may actually have some use now, lol. I'm going to be sourcing a TB spacer since its already made why waste time making another one. So if anyone has one laying around. Please let me know.


So this mod is definitely doable. Seems to me like its only going to take some porting to the I'M neck and a spacer to bolt it up "properly". Not bad at all iMO

Now since I had the I'M in front of me. I went futher into looking at porting the runners. Since I already did my lower intake manifold porting a long time ago. May as well do the upper I'm as well to compliment this mod even more. This isn't something that is 100% required to make this work. But if the owner is looking at maximising gains with the larger TB its some to take into account. And go figure there is a whole lot of material on the runners that can safely be ported out. Between 3-4mm in some places. So u can safely leave about 1mm to house the oring seals like stock. Look below:

So I'm going to proceed with getting this to work. Good news is being as our manifold is plastic its a breeze to do the porting. So a simple dremel and a good eye for smoothness is all that's needed.

Again if anyone has a steeda TB spacer laying around. Please let me know. It will expedite the process..lol





UPDATE: (12-3-10)

picked up the spacer today. looks great.

he made the spacer exactly as i needed and asked for. i will definite be bringing business back to that company. met the timeline and produced my item to the specs i gave them. AWESOME!!!

now there is a lil snafu. this snafu is 100% completely my fault. when i gave him the specs for the center bore, i told him i needed it to be 75mm which he made it precisely as i asked. but i screwed up and gave him the TB inlet size. the rear of the TB is actually about 70-71mm. so the center bore is too big. so i'll be asking him to make another one with a 70.5mm center bore. im still going to use this on in the mean time. it fits fine. only there is more of the intake manifold showing that i wanted. for when i bore out the IM. see below:

no biggie, i'll just get another one made next week. but use this one for the mock up and get it on the car and run the car with it. again this was my fault and the machine shop had nothing to do with the mishap. they made it exactly as i asked.


here is the 3.7L TB bolted up to our stock 3.0L manifold....SO PRETTY!!!

i'll be making the gaskets tonite when i get back home. i have some business to take care of so i have to run back out. stay tuned.

 

[The Great NY]

UPDATE: (12-5-10)

just came back from about an hour long ride with the 3.7L TB on my car. so far everything is copastetic. no CEL's have popped for the TB. no pending codes as well. this ride i actually didnt disconnect the battery as i wanted to see how it reacted to the change fuel trim wise by a quick swap.

went to check fuel trims and my logging software is being screwy and not reading the PIDs i want it to. for some reason only engine RPM is coming up. so i'll figure out whats up with that and log fuel trim differences if any. now i havent ported any of the intake manifold inlet thus far as i want to see what happens with just a direct swap and no added variables.

FIRST THOUGHTS:

well, i was pleased to see that the car started up immediately with the larger TB on it and held its regular 2000rpm (approx.) high idle for warm up and gradually settled into 750rpm +/- 10-15rpms (which is normal on my car)

no difference in idle until it was FULLY warmed up. once it was at full operating temp it seemed to smooth out the idle a bit. my wideband didnt seem to jump around past 14.7 as much. kinda hovered there quite a bit better. it also reacted to quick blips of the throttle a lil bit better as well.

So i took it out for a spin and told myself i would just cruise around regular without boosting. but yet that didnt last too long, lol. while cruising around i took note at giving the car various combinations of throttle input versus load. IE- at a given rpm in a respective gears and vehicle speed. i did this in order to see if any hesitation would be present and to also see if it made lower RPM acceleration any easier. coming to stop lights i noticed the car drop back to idle and level out without dipping. not sure if it was because it was a new TB or not, but for reference my other TB is sparkling clean due to the meth injection so i wanna say i dont think it was that.

also while cruising i noticed that during part throttle acceleration that my AFR would go leaner on the intial pedal press than before. i wanna say around .3-.4 more. this tell me or rather leads me to believe that the car is ingesting more air. i will verify via fuel trims when i get my logging equipment in order and reading correctly

i do notuce quite the bit more responsiveness from this larger TB. i noticed it the most while taking off from a light or stop sign. it was butter smooth or for better terms a lil more effortless or punchy.

it definately seems to have a lil easier time accelerating with less throttle. so im definately happy about that.

i wanna say that the biggest thing i noticed on my car specifically is that the boost hits faster and pulls harder once its there. so i think my powerband possibly may have shifted to a lil earlier onset of the rpm range. up top its just nutty, lol. i do 100% feel more juice up top. and i do think i feel the onset of boost come in slightly earlier for me. but i wasnt paying attention to my tach this time. i was going off of feel since i know my car.

overall im impressed with the mod. thus far no issues, and im glad i did it. just a lil hour ride in my car had me checking my mod fund account so i can buy the TB from Scott and just keep it. at the price of the TB and the spacer, its still less cost than the regular 3.0L TB, and to me thats big because we are all modders and this will leave room for more growth power wise for whoever buys it. i cant speak for gains on an NA 6, for obvious reasons, but i would assume an NA guy would see way better throttle response and easier higher load acceleration than with the 3.0L TB but until someone tries it, thats all moot and speculation.

im gonna get the new spacer made this week with the 70mm bore and scrap the one i have now. make some new gaskets for it as well. and rebolt it on.


thus far the only way to bolt it on is with the gear package facing the front of the car. if it was spun the other way, all those coolant and vaccum lines need to be messed with. facing it towards the front you only have to run the connector underneath the TB and unhook the Front bank upstream O2 sensor from its fastener.

heres some pics:

and here is what i was talking about with the O2 sensor plug hold down....

un-clipping this and moving it is a lot easier and cleaner than having the TB rubbing on coolant and vac lines or having to reroute them. just my opinion.

im gonna take another look thogh to see how much issue it would be to face the gear package towards the rear of the car



THE CONS:

i broke my ******* hood mirror when i closed the hood. it sits higher than the other TB due to the position of the gear package. so yea. closed the hood. heard a snap and opened the hood to see one of my mirrors cracked. FML!!!!

you guys wont have to wrry about that. if i didnt have mirrors under my hood there would still be about an inch and a half of space to play with.

 

[The Great NY]

2nd post updated

 

[KrGsMrNKusinagi]

cool stuff hows it going

 

[burkerre]

damn justin I didn't know you were over here too! I have a Steeda TBS on my car. If nothing comes up for a while just let me know, least I can do is let you borrow it for a few weeks.

 

[The Great NY]

damn justin I didn't know you were over here too! I have a Steeda TBS on my car. If nothing comes up for a while just let me know, least I can do is let you borrow it for a few weeks.

yea im a member here too. i check back sometimes, not on here much. but figured i'd post this here for those interested.

 

[burkerre]

alright well you've got my number so hit me up if nothing comes up

 

[Guest20182]

Sweet! I was looking into the Cordova Motorsports (sp?) TB, but didn't see the reason for the high price and not much improvement. I have the TBS as well, but my gasket is s***.

Subbed.

 

[Coaststarlight]

If only I still had my 3.0

Nice work!

 

[The Great NY]

@ ryan...

I decided not to go with the steeda spacer. Its overpriced. I have a local machine shop doing the spacer for me at half the price and on top of that...no shipping..lol. i should have the spacer in hand tomorrow.


@ zoomzoom6.....

The cordova TB is definitely more than a minor improvement. The only reason the price is high on the 3.0L TB is because mazda raised the price of the stocker. So in turn cordova needed to do the same. The 3.7L TB is not only bigger but also half the price. So if i get this to work itll be a great mod for my car that will open up even more power. Then once i get someone thats NA to try this mod we will see the pros and cons of it on the NA 3.0L


@ coaststar....

I love the s*** outta my 3.0L

 

[The Great NY]

2nd post updated

 

[The Great NY]

post number 3 updated...

more to come

 

[burkerre]

looks promising so far... yet again thanks Justin for moving the mazda family forward!

 

[The Great NY]

thanks ryan.

 

[Noel550]

do you have a part number or anything for the TB so that i could order one myself? all i can find for a 72mm is the Skunk2 and i dont think its the same.

Thanks for the post though! it will definitely come in handy!

 

[Guest20182]

do you have a part number or anything for the TB so that i could order one myself? all i can find for a 72mm is the Skunk2 and i dont think its the same.

Thanks for the post though! it will definitely come in handy!

Any 09-12 3.7L OEM throttle body will work. Cheapest is probably here:

http://www.onlinemazdaparts.com/parts/2009/MAZDA/6/S/?siteid=214264&vehicleid=1443710&section=FUEL%20SYSTEM&group=FUEL%20INDUCTION&subgroup=THROTTLE%20BODY&component=THROTTLE%20BODY

Keep in mind you need The Great NY's spacer for it to work on a 3.0.

 

[The Great NY]

thanks zoom zoom. i havent been on here in a minute, lol