As I said in my thread regarding cleaning the MAF sensor, I looked into the intake side of the throttle body and it looked pretty clean.
After reading the instructions on the can of cleaner, though, which said to manually open and close the butterfly, I opened the butterfly all the way and slipped a fingertip across the inside/underside.
Bleah! Nasty! While the front of the butterfly looked fine, the back was a black greasy grimy mess.
So I cleaned the thing following the instructions on the can, and generated a puddle of black fluid at the inside bottom of the throttle body. I mopped it up with a rag so as to have less crap sucked into the engine, and kept cleaning until I was satisfied that every surface possible had been hit by the cleaner.
Reassembled and took 'er out for a spin on the freeway, and MAN, I'm quite impressed by the results. Mostly it seemed to help the idle and acceleration getting on the freeway.
I dropped my tire pressures down a few PSI as well, and dialed in 2 fewer PSI in the rear, as the factory suggests. I guess they are trying to tune out some understeer.
Anyway, happy Malibu! She was making smooth lane changes and passes, plenty of pep and no scary wiggles.
Both the MAF sensor and throttle body cleanings are pretty easy, and if your car hasn't had 'em in a few years, do it.
After reading the instructions on the can of cleaner, though, which said to manually open and close the butterfly, I opened the butterfly all the way and slipped a fingertip across the inside/underside.
Bleah! Nasty! While the front of the butterfly looked fine, the back was a black greasy grimy mess.
So I cleaned the thing following the instructions on the can, and generated a puddle of black fluid at the inside bottom of the throttle body. I mopped it up with a rag so as to have less crap sucked into the engine, and kept cleaning until I was satisfied that every surface possible had been hit by the cleaner.
Reassembled and took 'er out for a spin on the freeway, and MAN, I'm quite impressed by the results. Mostly it seemed to help the idle and acceleration getting on the freeway.
I dropped my tire pressures down a few PSI as well, and dialed in 2 fewer PSI in the rear, as the factory suggests. I guess they are trying to tune out some understeer.
Anyway, happy Malibu! She was making smooth lane changes and passes, plenty of pep and no scary wiggles.
Both the MAF sensor and throttle body cleanings are pretty easy, and if your car hasn't had 'em in a few years, do it.
