so i cleaned my idle control valve b/c my car was doing this erradic idle thing when cold (1600-2200) and sometimes it idles high when warm too, sometimes not.

problem not solved.

the piston seems to move easily enough in the icv.
and the mechinism seems simple enough, it the piston moving freely enough to eliminate it as a possibility?

If the problem is primarily occurring at low temperatures, check your Engine Coolant Temperature sensor. If it's a 5SFE, it'll be the green connector on the water neck. Resistance across the sensor's terminals at 20C/68F should be between 2 kilo ohm and 3.5 k ohm. At operating temperature of 80C/176F resistance should read above 0.2 k ohm and below 0.4 k ohm.

This is a photo of the fifth-gen's 5SFE. The tan connector at the bottom left is the cold start injector time switch, for the cold start injection system which is NOT present on later 5SFEs.


That said, twitchy idle is often an issue of a vacuum leak.

it's a 3s-ge 3rd, but the coolant temp sensor is on my list of things to look at. thanks.

did the coolant temp sensor just because it was easy and only 20bucks.
still idles weird, but sounds a little a little different to my ear, maybe just my imagination.

the temp gauge still bottoms out occasionally, so i hope i don't have a short....
but i probably do, because it tends to bottom out if i stomp on the gas in neutral, then it pops back up.

weirdness.

cleaned the iacv again just for the heck of it, no help.

the coolant temp sensor and the temp sensor for your gauge are different.

the gauge sensor is a single pin sensor.

In the picture above, the reddish connector to the left of the ECT sensor is the temperature gauge sender.

well......

my car was doing this "occasional stall when warm thing" and that's what brought this on.

and i changed the col temp sens, and cleaned the eicv and the problem *seems* to be gone.

at idle, or at a light waiting the thing would just die with no warning and wouldn't restart for a time, but then the f*kn thing would start right up like nothing was wrong.

still don't get it, but *maybe* i got it with blind faith.

also, i turned up the idle so that when it's warm and idling correctly it idles at about 1100 instead of 900.
may have something to do with it too.

hmhmhmmhmhmhmhn...
don't know.

Idling at 900 is normal when warm.

i bumped it up to 1100 b/c of the stalling, which i shouldn't have done purely from a diagnosis standpoint.
(two changes at once)