Intake water hose bypass???

[trwp72]

I heard something the other night at our car club meeting, and I was wondering if it was true... A friend of mine said that the 302 FI had a water line that ran through the intake near the butterfly. It is supposed to warm the intake around the butterfly on the intake. He has bypassed his, and he said he is getting better gas milage, and better performance. I wanted to know if anyone had heard of this, and does it help? I am painting my intake upper tommorow, along with some other parts under the hood... Figured if this works, I may bypass the hose going up to the intake. So has anyone heard of this, and does it work???

[1987cp]

The actual bypassing is pretty easy - replace the adapter in the lower intake with a pipe plug, and for a quick fix put a rubber cap over the other side. For a more permanent fix, you can either eliminate the metal tube in the heater hose system (I did this to start), or else braze or solder over the end of the small spout that would go to the EGR spacer for a more permanent fix (how I've got it now). I hadn't heard about the increasing-power part; I did mine initially just for simplicity and to reduce the likelihood of leaks.

[Archangel]

Tom, what you speak of is the coolant circuit that flows through the EGR spacer, tis originally intended to either for cooling the EGR channels (200F colant vs. 400F exhaust) or warming up the throttle body, forgot which exactly. As for mpg/power gains with bypassing it - wait for Dave (turbo2256b) to chime in, he knows all the little tricks associated with that system.

[turbo2256b]

Its to cool the egr spacer. What I do is install another fitting on the other side of the intake Pass side. Then tee that side to the existing one on the drivers side and run it into the EGR spacer. This helps to reduce steam pockets in the rear of the cylinder head. Helps to keep cylinder head temp even across all cylinders. Do this on most all of my engines Chevy, Ford, Dodge. Think there are some pics of what I did in one of my threads.

[gadget73]

I did some testing with mine, with that hooked up, the air in the lower intake is 20 degrees hotter. I was using the measurements at the ACT sensor in the lower intake, and the results were consistantly warmer with the water plumbing hooked up. The amount varied on the outside temperature, but 15-25 degrees each time. Depends who you ask whether its an egr cooler or a throttle heater. My personal testing tells me throttle warmer is more plausible.

I replaced the fitting in my lower intake with a pipe plug and used a short piece of 1/4" fuel line with a bolt and a hose clamp to seal the part off on the pipe. I had problems with water leakage at the egr spacer, the spacer I was using had this groove that wasn't covered by the Mark VII gasket I was using at the time. Since sucking coolant into my motor wasn't on the priority list, I just removed the whole thing and forgot about it.

[turbo2256b]

Here is the thread http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthread.php?t=12603

As I was once a Ford engine designer it was used to cool the EGR per the design guide. Might not have been to cool the intake air charge. If you want to disconnect it from the EGR fine but the lines shoulld be teed and/ or two lines run into the front crossover for best performance. I do this on carbed engines also.

[trwp72]

Eh, not worth the trouble.... IF it made a huge difference, maybe... but it sounds like it doesn't make that much difference...

Tom...