Thread: 3800 V6 hot start issue

Hi guys, well it's been about a month and my wife's '04 Grand Prix has been normal.

What I did was remove the air intake hose off the throttle body and doused it good with a can of carburetor cleaner. It was dirtier than Larry Flint, so it needed a good cleansing anyway.

I started the car and it smoked some and I drove it about a mile and it seemed to drive fine. After that I told my wife to pay attention to how it started and she reported no problems. I had no trouble either when I drove it a little.

Now this has me thinking. My 2002 Silverado with a 5.3L V8 has 150,000 miles and I have not cleaned the throttle plate opening. I have not had any trouble, but I think I will remove the hose and give it a cleaning. Maybe the trucks have more cubic centimeters of space opposed to the tight quarters of these cars. I don't know, but I'm glad our problem was solved with a can of carb cleaner.

Thanks for your input.

If you really wanna get it good, take apart the whole intake ducting, take off the MAF, spray it out with MAF cleaner (nothing else, anything else will destroy the MAF), then while the MAF is drying (air dry only, dont touch any part of the insides with anything), take the 4 bolts off the TB and yank the whole thing off the car, disconnected and all, douse it real good with TB cleaner, wipe it down with a rag, open it up by hand and wipe it all down good... and then while that is drying, get a rag wet with some TB cleaner and wipe down the inside of your manifold where the TB connects, as far in as you can get.

jmoore4294 linked you to a really good write-up earlier in the thread for all this.. maybe it's just me but I'd feel like I missed a lot of gunk if it was bad enough to cause issues, and then I only sprayed it down with it still on the car, and I dunno if you cleaned the MAF or not.