bad throttle response

[sticksdaman]

my car had got a lag in responsiveness when i give it gas it takes about half a second before the engine responds now my mechanic says that it is the throttle position sensor..... now my question is if i was to replace this throttle position sensors does it matter which car i get it from? my car is an 88325is and i have a 173 ecu can i pull the throttle position sensor off of say an 87 and be ok or does it have to be an 88 or later?

[sticksdaman]

bump

[Garageaholic]

have you cleaned your throttle body?

a TPS is a TPS (e to i bmw's different i believe though)... besides, it shouldn't be too hard to find a throttle position sensor... considering it's from a 325i....

[sticksdaman]

no i havent cleaned it i should try that first no?

[delatlanta1281]

Just me, but do you have an impuls wire coming from the ignition wires?
You may wanna check to see if thet is hooked up all the way. If it is loose, it can affect the throttle response as well. have you changed your wires recently?

[sticksdaman]

will do ill check them like next week when im back home

[Morrison]

I definitely wouldn't blame the TPS in this situation. When you open up the tps what you basically see it two switches. One switch activates at the closed position, it's a momentary push button style. The other switch activates from say 70-100% throttle; it is in contact throughout that range. It's a little hard to describe without a picture, but basically it brings a leaf of metal in contact with another leaf of metal and these two springy pieces of copper are in contact with each other beginning at around 70ish percent.

Just to be on the safe side, you can meter the switch out while working the throttle and see if they are making contact. I've seen two of them that would contact ad idle , but not the other one. It seems that the solder joints inside the unit needed re-soldered. It's a bit tricky to crack it open, but you can if you work at it.