July 3, 201312 yr Recently, my Legacy has stopped idling cold. Once fully warmed up, it is better (though still somewhat erratic, more than I would like)...but during cold-mode operation, I have to keep on the throttle or it will just die.Suggestions on a course of action? I'm pretty lost on these fuel-injected cars...makes me want to go back to an EA81 or EA82.
July 3, 201312 yr Might try cleaning the idle control valve first. And look for any loose or broken vacuum hoses that could cause a leak. I don't know the nitty gritty details but I seem to remember there being some issues with the 90-91? Idle control valves. There's a common swap to a newer style valve. I'm sure you can find info on LegacyCentral. Maybe Legacy777 will post. I'm 99.999997% positive he'll know the deal.
July 3, 201312 yr Might try cleaning the idle control valve first. And look for any loose or broken vacuum hoses that could cause a leak. I don't know the nitty gritty details but I seem to remember there being some issues with the 90-91? Idle control valves. There's a common swap to a newer style valve. I'm sure you can find info on LegacyCentral. Maybe Legacy777 will post. I'm 99.999997% positive he'll know the deal. I think it has something to do with the 90 - 91 IAC being a two-wire affair while the facelift 92 - 93 model was a 3-wire. I believe you may have to swap the ECU for it to work with the later style IAC but I've been reading about the later style injectors and may have them confused if someone could clarify. Might also want to try swapping out your coolant temp sensor (CTS) - these have a pretty big impact on both cold and hot idling as they control the amount of fuel used at idle. They're relatively cheap so it's not a bad idea to replace them as just a maintenance item.
July 4, 201312 yr check air filter? check compression? check spark plugs? check for vacuum leaks 5 times then have someone else do it. some are very hard to see and require uv gasses to find. I know when I did my air intake muffler swap to the new generation from the old single tube style one of the vacuum hose connecters was somewhat cracked where it mounted to the plastic box. I just epoxied it but thats a good example of a phantom leak that would be hard to find. \ I have heard alot of sticky iac stories....
July 5, 201312 yr 90 MT cars have a four wire IACV and the rest are three wire IIRC +1 on cleaning/checking the IACV and checking for vaccumme leaks Edited July 5, 201312 yr by mikaleda
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