i dont know if i posted this in the correct area so if i didnt then please move it for me. but tonight when i was looking at my car i noticed that my throttle cable has a bunch of slack in it. i was just wonering how i could tighten that up a little bit.

 

i would like to know that also...it feels like my throttle response has lost a little kick

 

don't do it...

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...throttle+cable

 

haha nm im a retard thanks for the response i never did think that if you tighted it to far it would break i just wanted to cover up the slack but i think imjust not gonna touch it anymore

 

eek, I've had mine tightened for almost a year now. I wonder if I haven't been stressing it or something.

 

There's nothing wrong with 'adjusting' a throttle cable when it starts to get too much slack. Over time the thin cable will strech a small amount and leave extra slack that wasn't there when the car was new.

You can adjust the slack with the two 10mm bolts that hold the cable housing to the intake plenum. Loosen the two bolts and pull back on the cable housing till the slack is gone, then slide back to give it just a tiny amount of slack so the butterfly in the throttle body isn't held open. Tighten the bolts and VIOLA!, no more slack.

The only thing I can see the guy in the other thread was doing with spacers at the pedal was raising the height of the pedal and increasing the ammount of pull it would make on the throttle body butterfly. This will not gain anything because the factory geometry, and ammount of pedal travel, already provides for a wide open throttle position. It can, however, pull the throttle open too far from the extra leverage the spacers would give, and could damage the throttle body by bending the throttle arm or the butterfly.

 

Forgot to mention, the factory leaves slack in the cable for better drivability and a smoother acceleration 'feel' for the average driver. The average joe commuter doesn't want the 'jerk' off the line you get with a tight throttle cable. A loose cable has to travel a little before the pedal acctually starts to open the butterfly. It's only a milisecond of difference, but it does make a difference.

Tight cable = quick throttle opening and what people see as throttle response.

Loose cable = spongey, slow throttle opening like a stock car.

 

well whatever you do, make sure you're not stressing the throttle body lever at WOT caused by removing too much slack. i've got about 56k miles on my car and my tps reads 100% open every time when puttin the pedal to the floor so i wonder what kind of stress someone would have to put on it to have stretched that lil cable out enough to need adjusting.

 

That's what I did. So that's not what Rob was warning against?

 

I agree, I think some people think if they keep pushing harder on the pedal it will go through the floor and make the throttle open more.

It is true you can get a faster throttle response feel with less slack in the cable, but really only if your sitting at a dead stop with the gas pedal at rest and then press on the pedal. If you are already putting pressure on the pedal, like for example, sitting on the line about to make a pass and you're holding your RPM's getting ready to dump the clutch, then you wont have any difference in throttle response.

To be honest, I've never seen any kind of throttle, be it a throttle body or a carb, that didn't have a WOT stop to keep the butterflies from opening too far. You can, however, push too hard on the throttle and bend the arm or strech the cable or even bend the mounting bracket for the cable housing. Some cars even have spring loaded arms on the pedal assy. to compensate for this.

As far as SSABII's cable being streched, it's probably the factory slack that he's only just noticed but has always been there.

 

No, that other guy was putting spacers between the arm on the pedal assy that pulls the cable and the end piece on the cable that the arm goes up against. This could increase the ammount of pedal travel before the pedal would 'hit the floor' and allow the pedal to keep pulling on the cable even though the throttle had achieved WOT. The extra leverage created by having the pedal higher in it's throw arc could make the cable pull on the throttle arm more than it should and make things bend or break.

 

ahhh, I see. Now as for the faster throttle response, I found that appealing since when I autocross, letting off the throttle and then hammering it back on coming out of a corner is a key technique. That's why I adjusted the slack.

 

Good point.

 

don'tknow if this regaurds anyone posting so far but if you have a automatic it is next to useless to tighten it.
your ecu will automatically adjust to how you use the throtle.
i have tightened mine once and the only diffrence i felt was in the first dayafter that the ecu allready adjusted and felt no diff.
just throwing that out for you

 

It's not the ECU controlled throttle response that you would be adjusting, but the moment at which the throttle starts to open in relation to the movement of the pedal. With slack in the cable, there is the initial tightening of the cable that has to happen before the cable starts to pull on the throttle arm. The more slack you have, the father the pedal has to travel to tighten the cable before the throttle starts to open. It doesn't seem like it would be much, but as urbanknight described the reasons for his adjusting the slack, a small change can give a slight edge.

BTW, I looked at the pedal assy on my car and don't see how the guy that put the spacers on his cable was able to raise the position of the pedal level to the brake as he described. He would have to have bent the pedal arm to achieve this since the pedal is spring loaded and returns to a rbber stop that wouldn't let the pedal go any higher no matter how many spacers he put in. So now I'm cunfused as to what that guy thought he was accomplishing, other than just removing the slack in the cable, which is easier to adjust at the intake than fiddily ****ing around with spacers at the pedal.