Got one as soon as I could get my hands on one, yes. One junked $4000 race motor is one too many.

 

Sav, have you guys done any testing on that? A replacement for that ugly upper manifold piece?

 

? I don't know what you're referring to. A replacement upper intake manifold?

 

You know how the manifold is split into 2 pieces? The upper piece of the manifold has a wimpy 2" diameter bottle neck right after the throttle body.

 

The stock manifold does. The squaretop improves on that drastically, and any aftermarket intake manifold does as well. I have no idea why you would bother replacing the upper half when you could just change the entire thing and see even more of a gain.

 

OK so a replacement top half that is similar to the square top and has a throttle body flange for the small ford pattern (I used a $45 shipped 65mm crown vic TB. Included the TPS/pigtail & works with the miata throttle cable end). Should be doable for less than an entire new intake manifold. No whistle on the ford throttle bodies cause no IAC. bwahahaaha. Simple fix with another bracket.

 

Hmm whatever came of the top mount throttle body, intake manifold begi was working on? Sure probably looks funny but if it gets rid of the uneven flow why does it matter?

 

The whistles go "woo".

 

So lets say that I wanted to wait on buying one of these because of a lack of funds at the moment. Is welding or JB welding the screws on the stock one an acceptable temporary solution? Does it stop the engine from ingesting the screws or does something else get swallowed when the throttle shaft breaks?

 

Use two-part epoxy. I do it on throttle bodies and VICS butterflies.

 

Have the VICS butterflies been known to fall apart, or are you just being extra-cautious?

 

Is JB weld basically a two part epoxy or am I about to make a horrible decision?

 

Yes, JB Weld is 2 part. It's also one of the best available for metals.

 

Here is the throttle body on my 1.6 car. It is also available in the 1.8 version. Last I checked cost was $ 410.00 plus a core.




$400 is expensive for a throttle body but whats an engine cost?

 

Uck for 400 bucks i'll look for alternatives

 

Not to be a dick, but this is basically what everyone who's never broken a throttle shaft is going to say. I have a $4000 built motor in pieces in the shop because it ate a throttle screw - I would have gladly paid $1000 for an upgraded throttle body a year ago had I known it was going to break 8 hours after installing that motor.

If you don't think it's worth $300 or $400 or whatever, just wait until you're replacing a motor because your OEM TB broke. That's usually pretty convincing.

 

Pretty sure I remember Emilio saying in a post that he does this on his track cars and hasnt had a TB shaft failure since

 

Throttle shaft breakage - Page 6 - MX-5 Miata Forum

post#140

 

A lot can happen in a year.

 

Does this happen to the 1600 TB as well?