On the motordyne spacer it says to buy the copper spacer if it ever snows in your area. How important is this? I also saw a powerlab billet spacer which makes no note of if it would work when it snows or not. What is the reason that you "need" the copper if it snows?

 

You can tell where I live, Ca. and I have the copper gasket. I've lived in
Oklahoma, if it doesn't snow it's colder than hell in the winter. Just get
the copper gasket, Tony/MD knows they're product.

 

I was told copper is good if you live in a cold weather, regular ISO thermal for warmer climates, CA, FL etc...

Yeah, go with copper if it is that cold in OK.

 

call Tony and ask him... im sure you will need the copper for a good reason

 

The Copper throtle body heater is need when it gets really cold outside.
Its needed for the same reason Nissan/Infiniti heats the throttle body. The purpose of heating the throttlebody is to prevent ice formation inside the throttle body or on the butterfly valve.

If the butterfly valve is iced up while driving, it can cause a potentially dangerous situation. If, for example, you are driving on the freeway in cruise control on a snowy day, if the throttlebody is not heated it could get iced up.
When you tap the brakes to let off the cruise control the ecu will disengage the cruise control, stop flowing fuel to the engine and close the throttlebody.

But if the throttle body is iced up and stuck in the open position, the ecu will still stop flow of fuel to the engine. This will lean out the engine and cause it to stall. This obviously is never a good situation while driving and this is why Nissan keeps it heated. Its for safety reasons.

What the Copper does is re-route the hot coolant flow from the plenum and directs the heat only to the throttle body. What Nissan does is heat the entire aluminum plenum which in turn keeps the TB hot.

But its not necessary to heat the whole plenum to keep the TB heated. They could have just heated the TB in the same manner as the Copper TB heater does.... but that would have cost more.

The Copper TB heater gets hot on bare copper side where the TB bolts to it. And it stays cool on the insulated side where it bolts up to the plenum.

Note: With the new HR and VHR engines Nissan/Infiniti is now using the same concept as the Copper Iso Thermal. A plastic plenum assembly for total thermal isolation and hot engine coolant flowed directly to the TB to keep it heated.

 

Thanks for clearing that up. I just wasn't sure exactly what the benefits were and if it was worth the extra money to buy the copper spacer. I think I'll just buy it and be better off safe than sorry.

 

PS
I often get the question as to why the Coolant Control Valve should be switched on below 50'F (which is well above freezing).

Joule Thompson cooling effect... Otherwise known as adiabatic expansion.

As the air flows past a partially closed throttle body it undergoes a rapid expansion and decrease in pressure. For the same reason a refrigerator pump cools your refrigerator down, the same effect is happening inside your plenum.

On a cool 40'F day, the air flowing past the TB cools down significantly below ambient temperature. In fact, immediatly behind the TB the plenum goose neck gets much colder than the incomming air and actually goes below freezing.

If the air is humid, the water vapor will freezout and stick behind the throttle plate.

50'F gives enough thermal margin to prevent ice formation on the throttle body plate.

 

Okay... I live in Maryland and it is a four season area. Which spacer kit do you guys recommend?

 

You could go with any one of them but it depends on your objectives.

If you prefer the fully automatic, install and forget setup, go with the Copper Iso Thermal.
If you prefer to save on the cost of the Copper, get the regular Iso Thermal.

Then you can skip the Iso Thermal aspect entirely and get the basic.

You can use any one of them in cold weather but each has a different trade for different objectives.

 

copper iso thermal it is then....as long as i just need to install and forget.