What is the purpose of the intake manifold brace?
 

Seriously does it serve any purpose other then to make filter changes a mission and a half?

I am about to rip it the hell out and toss it into the nearest body of water.

it does exactly what you described.

I used it to hammer a nail in a wall to hang a picture once. Couldn't find my hammer.

You still have it in?
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I would have removed mine sooner if I had known it did nothing. Though I never really had any issues with it changing the filter, just had to kind of scratch your arms up a little, but car work isn't free of pain. Mine never went back on during the rebuild and I haven't missed it.

ive heard stories of people taking it out and something with the throttle/ cable/ braket breaks. and for others it does nothing. i guess its like a 1.6L diff. could blow up under stock power, or could hold alot more.. just whatever it feels like doing on that day.

Yeah.

Gonna take it out this Saturday. I barely got my filter off with it there, and then barely got it on.

Do you guys try to go from the top to reach the filter or something? From the bottom it's a piece of cake, even with my Hustler-sized massive forearms.

I left mine in. without the top bolts. dar.

So awesome without it, I can reach the filter from any angle now.

If that dude who thought it was a good idea was still alive id fist him with this thing.

^cant believe u still had this thing in there... now i dont wanna hear any complaints bout oil changes no mo, mmmk

Don't remove it. That is one of the reasons Emilio's throttle body plate/flapper screw came loose/broke and almost went through the motor. :-o
If I were you, I'd leave it in unless there is a reason you can't (oil cooler lines or something).

its 3 bolts to get that thing out, takes an extra what 3 min to do an oil change? I leave mine in for that reason alone. If emilio hadn't i said anything about it would be in the car. So it probably wont do anything if you took it out, but why chance it since its so easy to remove?

How sure can we be that Emilio's incident can be blamed on a lack of IM brace?

How can the brace possibly cause any problems with the TB? It's at least 6 inches away from it.
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Refresher on the incident?

I'm with coaster... Please explain or link to the incident. :D

I'nm really not seeing the coorilation here...remove that shit and never look back...never:sadwavey:

mine's been removed for nearly 10 years.

Last time I heard about a screw coming out of a throttle body butterfly and going through an engine was Braineack trying to find weight savings.

If anything the brace is just another case of over engineering on mazdas part.

Its definitely not a load bearing piece.