Pop quiz! Name this M20 part...

[Joey Link]

As the title says. Extra points if you can tell me why it's corroded and what that would effect :D

[Jean]

No idea, but i'll take a guess. Is that a coolant line going to the tb area?

[shiftbmw]

No idea, but i'll take a guess. Is that a coolant line going to the tb area?

That was my guess too...

[erik325i]

That's the throttle heater.
There are two coolant lines that attach to the throttle body (one to, and one from). It is there so that if you live in Antarctica, your throttle won't freeze. It is corroded because some of the coolant leaked out and dried up.

Since I live in Cali, there is absolutely no reason for my car to have that, so I just bypassed it. No more hot air intake:)

-Erik

[D6 DPH]

Yup throttle heater, We all bypass that in the Uk as we never have cold enough weather to worry about it.

Benefits are minimal but all helps :D

[Joey Link]

Ah, I couldn't find it anywhere on RealOEM. Do they all have it or is it part of a cold weather package? Think I'll need it in Oregon? coldest it gets around here is 20 degrees and that's VERY rare.

[blunttech]

id keep it if it gets to 20 degrees. id also flush your system and be sure youre running the correct anti freeze

[DarkWing6]

You are probably getting corrostion becasue the cork gasket is old and leaky. Change it ASAP as it has a tendency to leak coolant into a major connector for the main wiring harness for your motor and cause that to corrode. It is about a $.20 part and will take you a max of 30min to replace. Definately worth the $$ as the wiring harness is much more expensive and time consuiming to repair/replace.

[CarsSuck]

make sure you clean off all the corrosion (scale) so that the gasket won't leak until it get 15 years old again.

[SchnellerVert]

It's for proper warm up times. It heats the intake during winter for proper emissions during cold starts. So the engine does not continue to dump fuel to warm up the engine.

Did one of these yesterday, 1.26 at local parts house.

[fretburnr]

wow... i just did mine last month - it was Flooding coolant!

fixed it with RTV in a pinch (it was new years weekend, nothing was open) and changed out the gasket later that week.

[M3 Ryan]

It is easier to remove the TB to change the gasket due to the placement of the screws on the plate, so make sure you get a new TB gasket aswell.

[Jscotty]

I had to replace the gasket on mine not too long ago.. surpisingly it was only a couple of bucks at the BMW dealership. The gasket blew only because I had a bad thermostat so once you replace your gasket change out the thermostat too.. I had a hard time getting those Torx bolts out because I tried using an Allen/Hex key. Moral of the story? Always use the proper tool.

I ended up having to drill out the bolts because I stripped the heads. Once I was able to separate both halves of the piece, there was enough "nub" left to get it out with a pair of pliers.

[AdamF 88iS]

Get new bolts when you do it. They cost pennies and the originals typically won't survive.

[euroshark]

Hmmm... my M30s dont have throttle heaters and I don't have any issues even in single digits... Aside from lack of traction...