Coolant through throttle body ?

[HandySmurf]

I currently have my V6 Mighty Max ripped apart to change the headgaskets, and while I have everything apart I was looking at the throttle body. It has inlet and outlet coolant ports on the throttle body that connect to ports on the intake manifold, meaning it is circulating engine coolant through the throttle body ...



My question is, why are they circulating warm engine ccolant through the intake when it would suck in much cooler fresh air if the coolant flow was eliminated. I could just cap the intake ports to close them off, and I'd just put little B.S. vacuum caps on the TB to close off the system from moisture or dirt or whatever. Is this a reasonable idea as far as bringing cooler, denser air into the engine, or is the coolant flow through the throttle body needed to cool it because it's aluminum. I'm not sure what to think.
Any thoughts ?

[DroppedMitsu]

Its not there for cooling but for cold startup. It raises the idle on startup becausr there is a spring with a end that partially blocks an air port and when the coolant warms the spring contracts and opens the air port and the idle lowers. I know on my 2.0 turbo 4g63t you can get rid of the FIAV(fast idle air valve) because it unscrews from the throttle body and can be blocked, but i cant tell from the pic if you're able to do that on your throttle body.

[camoit]

It also stops freezing of the throttle body. At the right temperature it will freeze behind the throttle plate and get covered with ice.