i never said remove them from your oil/water cooler.

but, there's honestly no good reason to remove them from the TB.

its a straight through from the oil cooler to the TB, then from the TB to the mixing at the front.

all you need is a coupler to join the two and then just seal off the two nipples at the TB.

I never really removed mine...which is odd considering those things are the two ------- biggest pains in the asses. Especially if you want to take your intake manifold out.

Coupler? Can't you just loop one of the two lines? It's times like this I wish I would get off my ass and put more lights in the garage so I can work at night.

This is really the only good reason! For the short length of the throttle body, any heat that air passing through might collect would be negligible at best.

It would have been nice to remove my throttle body completely when I pulled the top half of the manifold! The Miata is only for summer use for me (damned road salt!) so I won't reap any benefit from a heated TB. Hmm...

no, then you'd effectively remove the flow through the lines. and they are important for allowing the coolant to flow through the block when the thermostat is closed.

fwiw, the coolant only really flows through the idle valve itself, and the coolant should be around 180° which is more or less the same temperature the inside of your engine bay will reach. There's going to be inmeasureable differences in "performance" with or without. Nearly every car in world has coolant running through the idle valve/TB.

nearly every car but One Brains. :) I guess I'll remain on my ass.