'89 4cyl wet manifold delete?

1989 MJ, 4cyl, man, 2wd, shortbed

So it appears as though the manifold on the 4cyl models was a wet setup. I presume to aid in cold weather startup and running. I know on late model GMs the throttle body was wet for the same reasons. The waterneck and heater valve look just like a 4.0 so I was considering deleting the flow through the intake manifold. It was 85deg down here before it hit 10:00 so if cold starts are the reason for this I see no reason not to. I am wondering if there is a good reason not to, other than "the factory designed it that way" I figured it might go a bit towards cooling the intake air charge.

Thoughts?

I always figured it was to help heat/vaporize/mix the air and fuel since the RENIX 4cyl was (in all cases? some cases? not sure) TBI, but I could be wrong. I am also completely talking out my arse here :eyes: I have zero evidence to support this, just my reasoning.

Route around it, cap it off, and see how it does?

If I do it, I will just take the longer line from the back of the manifold and connect it between the Water outlet and heater valve, just like the 4.o.

I have no idea what it will do performance wise. I would not expect much. It would help some with system maintenance by reducing the amount of dissimilar metals in the system I would think.

Mainly I am going through the cooling system bit by bit and wondered what the reasoning behind the wet manifold was.