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I'm in the middle of "trying" to balance my throttle bodies on my 82 and am failing miserably.....I am fowling the instructions but nothing is doing what it's suppose to. Instead of a manometer I'm using a Viot inches of water gauge that measures up to 15" When I hook it up to the center port on the tb it shows nothing. I have the IACs unplugged and have the holes plugged with the IAC tool. The weird thing though is that it's idling great in both park and in drive. What's up with that?? So anyway that's where I'm stuck and can't proceed any further cause honestly never done one of these.
So you have good idle in park and drive with the IAC's disconnected? I think you have found the source of your surging problem. I'm not sure the Viot tool will work. Use that link Terry82 posted, that's where I went to find out how to balance the tb's and how to make my own manometer for under 10 bucks.
So you have good idle in park and drive with the IAC's disconnected? I think you have found the source of your surging problem. I'm not sure the Viot tool will work. Use that link Terry82 posted, that's where I went to find out how to balance the tb's and how to make my own manometer for under 10 bucks.
That's what I was thinking and thought it might be the driver's side cause if it would backfire it would be that side. Have you seen the price of those, yikes???
Well my IACs came today from Rock Auto and are AC Delco but they did not come with a gasket. Should it have one? I removed my old ones and one had a gasket and the other didn't?? I called the local auto parts store and they didn't show a listing...Hmm. Also when removing the old ones they were barely tight..
There is a gasket for the IAC's. Get a rebuild kit from Rock Auto, I got one last week.
Yep I still had a leftover rebuild kit and had a few spare parts . Those gaskets were in there. Well it did made a difference but very once in a while at idle it has a slight surge but nothing like it was.
Glad to hear it, now make yourself a balance manometer and get those tb's balanced. You can do it, Al
Got my rebuild done, no surging, no backfires once I got the wires right, lol. I'll have more info in a few days, its raining here so I'm not taking her out.
PLEASE don't make a crude water based manometer tube setup. Just but a $20 vacuum guage as indicated earlier and two pieces of tubing. It is a fast and easy thing to have for checking and balancing your tbi's.
Glad to hear it, now make yourself a balance manometer and get those tb's balanced. You can do it, Al
Got my rebuild done, no surging, no backfires once I got the wires right, lol. I'll have more info in a few days, its raining here so I'm not taking her out.
Glad to hear it, did you get to drive it today? Yes I keep putting off the balancing but I did buy my tubbing today.
PLEASE don't make a crude water based manometer tube setup. Just but a $20 vacuum guage as indicated earlier and two pieces of tubing. It is a fast and easy thing to have for checking and balancing your tbi's.
Larry I'd rather use a gauge as well and do have a couple of vacuum gauges but thought you had to have a special gauge that measures water. Having trouble finding one.
Larry, the link you posted was to a vacuum gauge calibrated for inches of mercury. The balancing proceedure clearly calls for the throttle bodies to be balanced using inches of water, which is much more sensitive than Hg (mercury). While you may consider the homemade manometers "crude" they are very effective, and much more sensitive than a mercury vacuum gauge. They are easy to make as well, and cost less than $20 bucks.
Al, it's your engine, use whichever method you prefer, but as for me, I'll stick with my crude manometer and balance my throttle bodies using the same method used by the factory.
Last edited by Drawmain; 09-21-2014 at 03:12 AM.
Reason: Wording
Larry, the link you posted was to a vacuum gauge calibrated for inches of mercury. The balancing proceedure clearly calls for the throttle bodies to be balanced using inches of water, which is much more sensitive than Hg (mercury). While you may consider the homemade manometers "crude" they are very effective, and much more sensitive than a mercury vacuum gauge. They are easy to make as well, and cost less than $20 bucks.
Al, it's your engine, use whichever method you prefer, but as for me, I'll stick with my crude manometer and balance my throttle bodies using the same method used by the factory.
You are correct. Have corrected the link. This is exactly what I have and it works perfectly. Was the recommended approach from the original crossfire injection forum when it existed a decade ago. So, comments about mercury are correct, but now not applicable once I corrected my egregious mistake.
If you really wanted to get sexy, make two of them, attach both at the same time and balance the tbi's dynamically.
Larry, the link you posted was to a vacuum gauge calibrated for inches of mercury. The balancing proceedure clearly calls for the throttle bodies to be balanced using inches of water, which is much more sensitive than Hg (mercury). While you may consider the homemade manometers "crude" they are very effective, and much more sensitive than a mercury vacuum gauge. They are easy to make as well, and cost less than $20 bucks.
Al, it's your engine, use whichever method you prefer, but as for me, I'll stick with my crude manometer and balance my throttle bodies using the same method used by the factory.
Well this is where I get confused. I bought the stuff but its the amount of water to use. I have built it per instructions and have the yard stick starting where the "U" bend ends. So Do I fill it up to where it reads 3" on each side? Then once I start the procedure will each side pull 6" or couldn't I attach the hose to each tb and get the level equal on both sides? I'm sorry I know I'm making it harder than it is.
Well this is where I get confused. I bought the stuff but its the amount of water to use. I have built it per instructions and have the yard stick starting where the "U" bend ends. So Do I fill it up to where it reads 3" on each side? Then once I start the procedure will each side pull 6" or couldn't I attach the hose to each tb and get the level equal on both sides? I'm sorry I know I'm making it harder than it is.
Which is why I advised what I did. None of this confusion. But hey, "old school" is simply old school. I can balance my tbi's in under 10 minutes - from start to finish - putting in diagnostic mode, disconnecting IAC's, blocking off air intake channels and performing the balance. Bet it takes that long to just set up the yard stick gimmick.
Which is why I advised what I did. None of this confusion. But hey, "old school" is simply old school. I can balance my tbi's in under 10 minutes - from start to finish - putting in diagnostic mode, disconnecting IAC's, blocking off air intake channels and performing the balance. Bet it takes that long to just set up the yard stick gimmick.
So where did you get your gauges from then? By any chance you have a video?
So where did you get your gauges from then? By any chance you have a video?
Follow the link above and order from there or put the model number in google and search.
Straightforward. Connect to center vacuum port and adjust to 6" vacuum and done. Move to passenger side, do same thing. go back to driver side to re-check and done and clean up.
With the water manometer, I would think not maintaining the vertical alignment consistently throughout the process could result in less than perfect balancing, albeit minor.
09-13-2014, 04:57 PM
82 TB balancing??
