Hi guys did you know that the new Corvette with the LS2 engine has an electronic throttle and it only costs $300 from the discount dealers. It is 90 mm which is miles bigger than what our bored out ones are and this will work great with traction control such as Motec. The dealer for those interested was Brasington, Phone 352-378-5301 That includes the pedal assembly too, not sure as yet what else you need to get it to work as a stand alone system but these are the way to go. Got to love that mass production. I'm sure there is something on the net showing this conversion.

Cheers Greg

 

Ok, but why the over engineering? The '88 BMW 750IL also had electic throttle bodies (throttle by wire). The 750 had dual throttle bodies, maybe this would be even a better setup than one large single unit!

 

Actually all the guys i've talked to who have DBW(drive by wire) hate it.

 

Adds new meaning to the term" My computer crashed "

 

My Mazda 6 V6 has it, I love the car, hate the throttle response. It has a very unnatural feel to it. It is not linear, more like on/off.

 

That's exactly what the guy at the track who had one of the new V-8 Grand Prix's(very, very nice car btw...was running very low 14's consistently) said.

He hated it, and we were musing as to how he could retrofit the older style TPS cable throttle setup.

 

Would be an interesting mod to have, but I think you can accomplish your goals without going that far.

If you really want to go nuts, just eliminate the throttle all together.

Throttleless is the near future for the mass market - it's all done by controlling the intake valves. IIRC, BMW is already running it on some production engines.

Greg

 

That's exactly how my commuter car feels like. It's a 2000 Jetta TDI. The worst part is that as soon as the breaks are applied the throttle shuts off. Even if you have one foot onthe throttle and the other on the break. So it's impossible to heel/toe with this car!

BUT I get 1200km on 60L (5L/100km)...that's somewhere around 50mgl!

 

O.K I understand what you're saying, mostly negative I note, but with the Motec you tune in the throttle response as a proportion of movement of the accelerator. This can be a big adavantage and it really comes into its own with traction control. You may floor the throttle but the throttle may only open halfway depending on what is required. Remember Motec is a race based system versus street setups to keep Joe average out of trouble. Have you seen the lastest traction control system demostrated on the Ferrari 430?

You also get better throttle response from what I understand due to better velocities through the partially opened throttle. I'm no expert here though, certainly the launch control would work quite nicely with it. I think the main reason for the negativity is the fact there is street systems and race systems, as I mentioned before I think the different settings available on the Ferrari 430 best demostrate this. All F1 cars of course use this system, McLaren introduced it in the 1993 year, it was a goodsend apparently to stop the fabulously complicated throttle linkages

The other advantage for me is that the throttle is 90 mm and that is what I need on this bigger engine, two birds with the one stone so to speak.

Cheers Greg

 

Greg,

I think most of the negative commentary is due to the purpose for 'throttle by wire' in a street app - it's primarily there to mitigate the 'human element' in the engine management equation. All about hitting ever tightening emissions targets while still putting out the HP that customers want.

Making throttle attack/decay more linear by even a few hundreths of a second matters when one is doing EPA/whatever government testing. Sure, it can be integrated into the vehicle stability control systems, but that's a bonus functionality - not a primary design goal - there's far simpler (and cheaper) ways of doing traction management for OEM street cars. There are also engine design/packaging benefits compared to having to route a throttle cable.

Race scenarios are, or course, completely different. Cars that run 10 or 12 individual throttle bodies can have some of the most archane linkages known to man. Too many pivot points, too many places to get things out of whack by a degree or two here and there. Even IF nothing breaks or hangs up, all that 'slop' leads to inconsistent airflow on a cylinder to cylinder basis, you can figure the rest out.

The traction control functionality requires a lot of sensor data and mapping in a race scenario, lotsa variables in the equation. All it takes is cubic$...

I'm not trying to discourage you at all, quite the contrary, I'm sure it'll be a really interesting project.

Greg

 

The 996 has fly by wire.....The response seems quick enough to me...........