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WEIRD EJ22 Idle Behavior, Any Thoughts?


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Many months ago, I serviced the IACV, cleaned MAF and intake etc. What happens now in warm/hot weather is idle will creep up and I can often clear it by blipping accelerator pedal to floor and idle will drop back down - sometimes, if I am not agressive enough in flooring pedal to clear, idle will actually climb higher! Yesterday, weather here in California was 100 degree plus and as a result, engine was idling up to over 2,000! Yesterday, I floored pedal hard to clear and engine rpm's shot way up to almost redline and I shut down engine immediately. What happened is accelerator linkage slid off it's pivot (this is a vanagon conversion) I was able to drive home with a droopy accelerator pedal that allowed me to get vehicle up to speed but that was it. Interestingly and this is where my curiousity kicks in,with the extra slack in accelerator cable due to sloppy linkage, van idle never climbed in spite of hot weather! How could this be? What is different about cable under tension vs slack that would create this? This is a OB-1 engine and I have been assuming that idle is controlled by ECU. Engine does not overheat, fan kicks in on hot days, etc. Any ideas EJ22 experts? My IACV is clean, in fact, it was quite clean when I pulled it. it is the old style IACV. Thanks Forum!

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The throttle cable should not be under tension. There should always be slack in the cable or it will pull on the throttle lever and pull the throttle plate open.

 

Hook the cable back on the lever properly. Adjust the cable tension so its just a little floppy.

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Great suggestions, it only seems to act up when warm/hot outside - when I repair linkage this am I will first check tension and then provide a little slack if it is under constant tension -hopefully this will be the silver bullet -thanks again!

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You should also clean the butterfly in the throttle body and lube up all the linkage on the outside of the throttle body..

Cleaned butterfly when I cleaned intake but suppose a quick check and relube a good idea - perhaps it wants to bind with increased engine heat?

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Looks like a twist in the cable created the issue, possibly where a subie cable spliced into vanagon cable? Found the twist and upon untwisting housing, pedal returned to normal and noticed too much tension so I will create a little slack here as suggested -thanks!

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Now I have a high idle after cleaning the throttle body - did I miss something here? I unhooked a few electrical connections    - reset the ECU? Its weird because I cannot imagine that I created any air leaks -everything appears to be tight. Even with accelerator cable completely disconnected I have a high idle

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