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Better Throttle Response for Free

16K views 15 replies 6 participants last post by  Noahfreak 
#1 · (Edited)
Scroll down to The Fix if you want to bypass my story.

The Story:

About 5 weeks ago I purchased my 2011 Ford Fusion, great car! But the throttle Response was very poor. At certain mph I can let off and coast. Then normally press the throttle again the amount that it needs to go to be normal but the car almost doesn't have any throttle. I have to press it even further to get any response. From a stop the throttle is also very weak. I have been looking into the CAI and the tune to fix the problem.

I was reading about the troubles with the Ford throttle body's motor contaminating the electrical component or board inside causing a short or CEL and it not functioning properly. I then decided to see what throttle body model I had; because on my CarFax it shows mine was replaced at 16k miles back in Fall of 2012. It now has 27k miles on it. To my surprise it was replaced with the old part number throttle body DS7Z-9E926-A (old) The new part number is DS7Z-9E926-D (new). Supposedly a revised version that takes care of the issue.

I decided To take the TB off and see if I could clean the inside of the Electronic area for any contamination. Logically, if this is the problem Ford is having with these, why not clean the inside... :screwy:

Granted my TB only has 11k miles on it and I am not having any problems. Very easy to get off and apart, only 10 min. You will need a Torx bit set. I did not find any debris inside mine at all. In fact the brushed motor is sealed and the tiny electronics board has a clear silicone protecting it. Maybe I just got a revised version that was one the first ones before they changed the part number, who knows.

The Fix:

I noticed the throttle flipper plate was sloppy clicking back and fourth. I even thought the 2 screws holding it to the shaft inside were loose. They were not. To my surprise the slop or play was coming from the gear mesh between the motor gear and the middle plastic gear inside. This is my first time tinkering with electronic throttles. I am used to cable driven TB's.

The motor mounting screws have some play so you can adjust the gear mesh. I also noticed a little bit of wear on them even only after 11k miles. I can only imagine how bad a 50k mile or 100k mile throttle body is!!! The throttle response must be horrible.

All you have to do is slide the white middle gear off and slightly loosen the two motor mounting screws to slide it closer to mesh. Don't tighten them all the way yet; just to where you can move the motor to test if the mesh is closer without binding. If you have a lot of miles on yours, I would turn the white gear 180 degrees before you slide it back on the shaft. This way you will have new teeth meshing with the motor. About only half of the teeth are used on the gear for normal operation. Tighten the motor back down and slide the gear back on the shaft. Make sure there is no friction or binding and the white gear slides on easy (See pictures below). You maybe have to turn the gear a little for it to fall into place. You may have to do this process 3 or 4 times till you feel you have it just right.

Once you have everything setup, blow everything out with a can of air or air compressor. Clean the motor connections with isopropyl alcohol if you accidently touched them. Use blue locktite on the screw threads if you want. Just tighten them back to how tight they were to come off. I believe the Torx bits I used were T15 and T20. The throttle body bolts to the intake use 8-Nm with a 1/4" torque wrench or just snug them up hand tight, about how tight they were when you took them off.

The throttle is at least 50% better now after I changed the mesh. I still pan on getting the CAI and tune one of these days also.

Movement after adjustment:


Apart:


Motor and middle gear removed:


Sloppy Mesh:



Tighter Mesh:

 
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#4 · (Edited)
Those pictures are to show the extremes on how much you can adjust the mesh. I don't think the last tighter mesh picture is quite the end result I have set mine for; but I will take mine apart today or tomorrow and update it.

There is slight wear because I would turn the gear 180 and try and slide it on and it would not go on smoothly after I adjusted it for the other side. There wear is very minimal on mine like I said in my post.

This is not a rear end with metal to metal extreme forces. This is not a Ring and pinion setup that has different angles of pitch that have to align correctly. I have worked on rear ends and yes the mesh has to be tolerance and dialed in to make sure they wear properly.

Spur gears are different and most of the time the teeth go almost all the way meshing into each other. Just do some research online if you want. Just look at the pictures even... As long as they are moving smoothly they are fine.

There is a gap between the point of the tooth to the inside grove of the motor gear. There is no binding at all. I made sure of that. Yes, you would want the highest point of the tooth pitch to be hitting the highest point of the other gears tooth pitch depending on the design. The forces in there are hardly anything at all.

I will check mine in a month to see. The throttle response is much better, and for people that have a lot of miles on their car, adjusting this mesh would make even more difference than it did for me.
 
#5 · (Edited)
I'm curious about the part numbers -- they really begin with D? That would indicate a 2013 change. Most of the parts in my car are either 6 or A, depending on if it's the same as 2006 models, or new for 2010.

May I ask, why did you do this?
You knew that your throttle body is the older design which can fail on you. The failure is so common, Ford extended the warranty to 10 years / 150,000 miles. But you decided to void the warranty and open up the throttle body instead.

Unless there's no 'warranty void' telltale on these... I've never opened mine up.
 
#6 ·
There's nothing on the TB to show the warranty being broken and no sticker of any kind. You can buy a D model now for less than $100 new. Mine shows no signs of failure at all. Ford is not going to replace the throttle body unless it fails with a code showing. This is not a Recall.

It literally takes 5 min to take the TB off and put it back on.

For all these reasons it is worth it to me to have a better throttle response. I don't see any reason not to do this unless you cant see and feel to setup the gear mesh closer together.

Just a note, that these are produced in Mexico and the amount of adjustment is a lot considering that I really doubt that all the throttle bodies out there are setup inside correctly.

I would like to see the insides of a throttle body that is producing the CEL and having problems. Maybe this isn't a contamination problem like Ford says in their letters, and maybe it is just a circuit board failure from heat, time, use that is happening.
 
#7 ·
I just took the throttle body off again and it took me less than 3 min to remove it. Only 5 min to put it back on. I checked the gear mesh and it is just like the last picture above. I also made videos this time to show everyone in HD how the gears are moving after the adjustment. So all you naysayers can see! I will try and get them online later tonight or tomorrow.
 
#10 ·
Nice Write UP



Nice write up. I just bought a 2012 3.0 fusion with 50k and it has very laggy throttle as you describe. I just thought that was something typical of drive by wire and the fact that the throttle isn't linear like in a cable driven setup. AKA the computer is trying to anticipate what you're trying to do rather than trusting that you just want more throttle when you press the throttle. My wife's '07 Camry had the same issue but much worse than the fusion. That one liked to surge after you were off the gas too. Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of electronic throttle, but I know there are work arounds.
Question:
What screw did you adjust to tighten the mesh? It's unclear to me from what you've posted here.
 
#13 ·
Just wanted to give an update on my experiences with this. I took it to the dealership because of the shift flare and the guys at Kearney Pearson Ford here in San Diego were awesome to deal with. They performed the throttle body recall (software reprogram) and they reflashed and reprogrammed the transmission control module while in there. The paperwork mentions TSB 12-6-12, which appears to be the TCM software. It also mentions the 13B17 software update which is the recall for the throttle body limp mode issue when it fails.
The two times I drove it today, it felt a little firm, which is fine by me, but they said that will go away within 500 miles after the adaptive learning occurs. I noticed no flaring in any gear, it seems to hold gears better at partial throttle application (it doesn't drop down when I've just cracked the throttle), and the slamming into gear going from reverse to drive went away as well.
Overall, it just feels less numb. I feel like the new tune "listens" to my throttle inputs more and it's easier to get the engine and transmission to respond the way I want them to. It's no manual, but much better than before. The engine even feels like it's got more low end grunt for some reason.
I will update this post if any of my transmission issues come back. Thanks for the help guys!
 
#15 ·
Are all these throttle body issues I've read about and the subsequent recalls exclusive to the 3.0 and 6F35 (or whatever that FoMoCo transmission nummber is), or does it apply to the 3.5 and the Aisin transmissions as well? Anybody know?
 
#16 ·
It's only the models with the 6F35 up to 2013MY with the 3.0 V6, the 2.5L 4 and the new ecoboost engines in both the Escape and Fusion. I've heard some complaints about the Aisin, but I think they're unrelated, and generally much nicer to deal with than the 6F35.
 
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