In one of the technical Formula 1 websites recently there was an interview with the head of engine development at Renault.
As part of the interview they got onto the subject of throttle body design and he was asked if there were no restrictions in this area what system would the use, His answer was no throttle body at all.
Without the engine freeze, what would we be seeing now with regards to throttle design?
"Actually, without any regulations you probably would not have throttles any more. In 2011 when teams were using maps to power off throttle blown floors, throttles were left (more or less) open the entire lap to maintain exhaust flow, and torque and ignition maps alone were used to control the torque produced. If the rules had not been clarified, then the air intake would have been left fully opened and torque would have been controlled completely by ignition. This would have made very efficient cars."
Renault explains F1 engine throttles - F1technical.net
It peaked my interest in regards to Ecomodding with the last sentence.
My thoughts are that without the restriction the pumping loses would be reduced.
I do recall a conversion years ago with a guy who talked about experimenting with engine control by advancing and retarding the timing. That would be easy to try with a distributor based ignition system. I’m picturing a distributor that was rotated by the throttle pedal/cable.
Obviously someone with a better practical understanding of electronics and EFI could setup an ECU to shift the spark and fuel timing.
Has anyone else here done any experiments along these lines or had similar thoughts.