Dual Drive by Wire Throttles

Due to the number of questions I decided to discuss this setup in detail.

Dual throttles was designed to split mostly V engines to run it as two separate engines. The V12 and some V8 engines used this setup. The advantage is in cruise mode one throttle operate independently from the other and can reduce fuel consumption by taking the load of half of the cylinders. It may also help in low power use to control a single throttle more effectively than one large throttle. There may be more reasons unknown to me.

These engines have two intake plenums and they are not shared with vacuum. This means that the two throttles is not balanced and does not produce the exact same manifold pressure. This will then require two MAP or MAS sensors and separate fuel calculations. Which means two ECU’s which are difficult to setup and tune.

To run this engine with a dual throttle and one ECU will be impossible. You will have to modify the intake to add a runner between the 2 manifolds. This may influence the air flow dynamics of the manifold. The other option is to add one larger throttle and split it to the two intake pipes. I’ve seen this plenty of times and were done professionally. It is in my opinion the better modification.

There are however a few engines that share an intake plennum. We may still develop a dual controller later that will contril the 2 throttles on the same system but it will require software development.

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