Home plate

I've never liked all the plastic on new engines I'm an old school hot rodder so one of the changes to the wagon will be to clean up the engine bay and remove all the ugly plastic ,. That said what is the purpose of home plate ? Vettes and Camaros do not have this set up . I've enclosed a picture of my Solstice if any of you are familiar with these cars the whole top of the engine is covered in plastic this is after I got rid of the junk ,added a turbo,and a lot of detailing . I will be doing the same detail to the wagon .   [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

""That said what is the purpose of home plate""

It eliminates the "droning" or "booming" type noise some vehicles were experiencing at certain speeds during testing. It is as necessary as the damping weight on the starboard exhaust pipe.

Whatever opinion you have of the damper carries over to the intake resonator.

Like Rev Bob said it's just to control intake noise. Typically people who bought a Caprice or Roadmaster wanted a nice quiet car. People who bought a Corvette or Camaro expected a louder engine noise so they have a less restrictive intake system.

"" less restrictive intake system.""

If you look at how the triangular resonator is constructed, and how it is plumbed, it offers no restriction at all.

I think the resonators in the intake system can affect air flow negatively because they disrupt the flow smoothness as they fill and unfill with pulses and throttle plate movement. How much, who knows.

The extra volume can affect the throttle response some in MAF systems as the MAF sensor is remote so the dampers slow down how quick it sees changes in airflow. This causes fuel and spark changes to lag a bit from optimum. MAP and TPS change rates can cover some of this in the programming if done well and the settings allow it. Many of the folks that did the autocross type stuff where throttle response is very important moved the MAF sensor right up and put it on the throttle body to shorten the amount of airflow lag.

Speed density setups wouldn't have the MAF delay issues so the home plate and other intake volume would not affect them as much for throttle response.

I'm not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination just don't understand the disruption of air flow to silence intake noise why not just create a large plastic cover like they have done on so many of the newer cars . So does removing the home plate and plugging the intake hole adversely affect engine performance ? I would think not as now you have a direct unobstructed path which is why CAI systems seem to be a popular modification and one I will be doing in the future .

Just pontificating here, but it seems you guys are way overthinking throttle response and air intake path disruption issues on a two ton luxury vehicle that seldom sees over 3000 RPM.

Not really just wondering why GM put this on B bodies and not Vettes and Camaros with the same engine anyway thanks for the responses .

Rev Bob wrote:

Just pontificating here, but it seems you guys are way overthinking throttle response and air intake path disruption issues on a two ton luxury vehicle that seldom sees over 3000 RPM.

I totally agree, in daily driving I doubt any of us would notice a difference in throttle response performance. That is why I referenced the autocross guys. Would you notice the difference in a manual transmission Vette. Maybe, I think, if you were doing twisties with a lot of on/off the throttle at high output.

Some people also claim the intake setup is a tuned air path to increase low rpm power, but I really wonder about that as the throttle body will break up any favorable pulses you might be able to generate plus it is coming out of a full plenum intake so very damping itself.

I didn't really notice more noise either, at least at the normal under 3000 rpm driving range, when I removed ours. Have a 3" duct from the original air cleaner and throttle body.