The engine in your Tundra is essentially a giant air pump ? the more air that you can get into your motor, the more fuel that can be mixed with it and then combusted in order to generate more horsepower. There are a lot of different methods out there designed to help an engine ?breathe? and maximize its power potential. Truck owners install air filters, cold air intakes, and even superchargers in order to get the most airflow possible, all in a chase for that extra horsepower edge.

There have been claims from various manufacturers saying that they can improve the way engines are engineered. Some cold air intakes and performance air filters are as good as their makers say they are. Such things rectify the motor’s performance because not only is the engine’s performance improved, other things are made all the better, as well. Take air flow, for instance; you can usually expect increased power and engine noise, as well as expense.

Unfortunately, these simple enhancements sometimes state exaggerated increases in horsepower and fuel mileage. We have tested a few of these cold air intakes and, so far, none of them has matched the results that they claim on the packaging. With that said, none of them were disappointing. There is a product that I have hard time endorsing and this is the throttle body spacer.

Designed to be installed between your truck?s throttle body and its intake, these devices, such as the PowerAid made by Airaid, claim to be able to create an intense ?vortex? of air which will help better atomize fuel when the two are mixed together. According to the manufacturers, this is accomplished by a series of grooves which are carved inside the device itself.

However, there have been engineering flaws that have been found in this product. Using common sense, if it was that easy to add a significant amount of horsepower or fuel mileage, then factories would probably be install this device in the production line. Automotive builders need to be competitive so that they can gain success in today’s market, especially for fuel economy, and not a single one of them will ignore good technology. The idea of a vortex of air that could help air and fuel mix is not really bad, but with the modern fuel injected engine, the air and the fuel do not get mixed until both are in the cylinder just before combustion.

A spacer like this might benefit the older throttle body injection and other forms of fuel injection in which fuel goes directly to the throttle body where it mixes with air prior to combustion in the cylinders. It might also help on carbureted engines. However, this type of spacer will absolutely have no effect on the more cutting-edge multi-point fuel injection system that Tundra uses. There is a very little chance that the vortex will even make it to the cylinder.

Here’s the bottom line; I don’t endorse the usage of a throttle body spacer on any truck with a modern fuel injected engine. It’s better to just save money and put it on something else that’s more effective. For instance, a K&N performance air filter costs only half the price, but it will, for sure, improve the engine’s performance and fuel economy a great deal.