okay, wtf is going on with my car... idle problems...

[darien28]

ok, so I decided to mess around and check my spark plugs today. pulled the #6 spark plug out and it was sorta wite-ish. as I recally that means the engine is running lean... so I open up the cap to my AFM and tighted then spring by one click. then put everything back together...

then I went ahead and removed my rear seats cuz they were sorta nsaty and I didn't really need them, so I put them in my storage.

not, I decided to go out and get some food... lo and behold when I start my car, I was having a surgine idle problem!! so I pop the hood and check all the plug wires to make sure I plugged everythng in tight... yes I did.

so WTF?? I just held my foor on the gas so it would stay at 2k... the engine didn't fluctuate when I did the tho. once the car warmed it, it was having a rough idle, so I opened up the icv a bit to let it idle ~ 950. I drive about a mile to food, then I notice the idle at ~ 1.1k... so I close the icv back to it's original setting and the idel was still sorta high, so I lower it to about 750~800 where it should be. idle didn't really move too much now, but I've got a feeling that something's wrong.

any suggestions? what could be the cause of a surging idle anyways? my icv is clean, and afm works fine... ??

[nando]

my bet is you put the spark plug wires in the wrong order.

[Kavkazia]

Thats really odd though, as they are numbered, and really hard to mess up, maybe when you were reinstalling spark plugs you bend the pointer, because I did something similar without even having clue how it happend.

[darien28]

that's impossible.. I only removed ONE wire, and ONE plug... and I put that ONE back..

I didn't unplug anything else.

plus, even if I did, they're on a harness and can't really be put in backwards...

[DaN]

Re: okay, wtf is going on with my car... idle problems...

... so I open up the cap to my AFM and tighted then spring by one click. then put everything back together...

That could be it, put it back to where it was, then see what happens.

[darien28]

i did... no change... still starts up sorta rough...

basically heres the full problem..

startup = rough as @#$% idle... going up and down.. up and down... to thepoint where it's about to stall.

next, after warming up... it'll be okay for a bit, then start to go shitty again... less variation but still erratic.

o.O i don't get it....

[Chris E30 Cab]

The cause of my surging idle was a corroded coolant temperature sensor....perhaps it was just a coincidence that it happened at the same time you tinkered with your plugs & AFM....just an idea but worth checking anyways......Good Luck!

[darien28]

ok, I fixed it... and you cannot guess HOW I solved the problem...

I opened up the AFM again, and looked at it... it was an erratic idle, so the arm inside just moved back and forth, back and forth...

I decided to manually push it open, and nope, engine started to stall... so I pushed it forward... ooooo engine idle pretty stable....

so I decided to loosen that set screw and move the arm forward a bit.... turned off the engine, and b4 I unscrewed the set screw, made a not of th erange of movement... WOW the arm actually went OFF the circuit board at "wide open AFM"... this can't be right... so I moved the arm so that at WOA, it was near the edge of the pcb, and at closed, it was near the front edge of the first square on the PCB... (if you look at the board, you'll know what I'm talking about).

then I started up the car again... no problems...

werid huh?

now to tune it to make sure it's at the correct a/f ratio... ^^