2 days ago I washed my engine. It was fine that whole day after. Then yesterday my idle got jumpy! So I cleaned my iacv and my plugs and plug wires. There was a little moisture on the plug wires inside the cylinder. It idles fine expect whn I come to a stop. Also my idle is correct when my ac is on!! Any ideas or suggestions will help! Also could me driving around with no hood effect this? Thanks sky

 

check for codes. even if the light isnt on. for some reason integras a known to do this and them fix themselves miraculously. at least thats my experience with a jumpy idle issue after nothing happened

 

what exactly do you mean by jumpy? can you be more descriptive? is the idle loping? if so, is it a steady lope? and what range is the lope?
any other issues? misfiring?

as mentioned, codes would be a good place to start.
pull the cap off the distributor. see if its moist/corroding

 

ahh it is jumpy from about 1500 to 3000 and its pretty steady but a lot of the time it idles low and is random

 

when the problem is occurring, disconnect the iacv. idle should drop to rughly 500rpm and stay steady there foras long as it's disconnected. see if it does this

 

when i unplug it the car just goes dead

 

take ur finger and plug one of the bypass port on the TB ,if it evens out u might have a bad iactv , under the tb ieasy fix if u do some search

 

if car dies with the iacv disconnected, the idle is incorrectly adjusted.
with the engine off, turn the idle screw clockwise about half a turn. start vehicle and disconnect iacv. if still unable to maintain idle, repeat.

once the car is capable of idling with the iacv disconnected, adjust the idle screw until you're sitting at about 500rpm. reconnect iacv. idle should now be at roughly 750rpm. if so, clear the code and allow vehicle to idle for 5 minutes.

follow those directions. follow them to a tee. your idle is incorrectly set

 

so how would me washing my engine incorrectly set my idle?

 

and not to menton im getting about 14 miles a gallon

 

Make sure everything is dry before you drive your car clean those spark plugs and wires with compressed air.I just recently posted a tread about washing my engine bay and I fried my ignition coil.

 

I say this because my car was running on 2 cylinders because the other two had moisture and the idle was really rough.

 

alright. grab some popcorn cuz im gonna go into depth with some explainations here.
firstly, you're absolutely correct. idle adjustment is completely mechanical and wouldn't have been effected by this. but let me explain why i'd come to that conclusion. since that led me to another conclusion.
the iacv opens and closes to allow air past the throttle plate. the ONLY othere air source is through the small gap at the throttle plate, adjusted by the idle screw.
with the iacv disconnected, at operating temp, it should be almost full closed. so, the only other means of air entry is the throttle gap. for the engine to die, that would have meant that the gap was set too small. ie, not enough air to maintain idle at 500rpm as it should. HOWEVER, i did forgot one thing. the stalling may not only be because of a lack of air, but possibly an excess of fuel. so, that leads me to conclude that this is the problem. excess of fuel. now, one very possible culprit here would be the ect sensor. it is what's called an NTC sensor. negative temperature coefficient. this means as heat raises, it's resistance goes down. opposite of typical electrical theory. that tidbit of info is extremely important. here's why; as your coolant temp rises, the resistance of the sensor goes down. we covered that. guess what happens as the coolant temp rises. fuel delivery goes way down. so, if we have added resistance, this equates to a "colder" reading by the ecm. and therefore, higher fuel delivery. guess what a corroded connection does to resistance. drives it up.
even if this isn't the exact culprit, i'm certain it is an overfuelling issue, due to an incorrect reading of one of the sensors. ect is high priority for fuel demand through the ecm. it's location makes it inherant to bad connection. it's a great first guess. check the resistance of the ect cold, then hot. see if it falls within spec.
another thing you can do is disconnect the o2 sensor. i'm positive the loping idle will be gone. this certainly does not indicate an issue with o2 sensor though. as the o2 is only reading your fuel mixture and that's where your loping idle is coming from. the o2 readings. all disconnecting it will do is prove that this is a fuel related issue. that's not to say it isn't the o2 sensor. o2 sensor is extremely high priority in fuel delivery. testing the sensor would be the next place i'd move.
i also know this is an excess fuel delivery issue because you say with the ac on, idle is smooth. idle is smooth because with ac engaged, iacv is commanded open, allowing more air. this makes up for the excess fuel that you have and smooths out the idle. i'll bet if you pulled a vacuum line off, the thing would idle dead smooth. go ahead and try that if you like.

another thing you can try, since the problem is clearly a bad connection, is disconnect each sensor one by one. disconnecting and reconnecting will make a better connection for the time being and could help you find which sensor is throwing bad readings.

ok. hope you were able to digest all that. it's good stuff. your problem isn't far from being found

 

lol. but check for codes first. always

 

what you just said ive done for the most part but ik this will be a completely dumb question but is the idle screw attached to the throttle cable? cus if thats it i got it but otherwise i cant find it.. thanks for helping me

 

no, the idle screw is on the throttlebody. it's a flat slot

 

for the most part? what exactly did you do?

 

I have the same issue in my 91 accord but its goes from 1k to 2k. I replaced the tps and it still does it. When the idle is acting up like that i unplug the tps wait a second then plug it back in. Then its a steady idle at 2k. And ideas? Also i have a problome with the fuel pump wiring. It basicly works when it wants to. So i wired it strait to the battery and put a toggle switch on the dash. It worked fine for a day or so the it just quit working completly. Havent had the time to drop the tank again.

 

i fixed it!! it was the tps

 

you probably burned the pump out. these pumps don't run off 12v. only for start up, then voltage is dropped to 5, i believe.

 

 

Well the reason i ran it strait to the battery is because it wasnt mainting power. Is there any ideas u could give me for the new fuel pump?

 

have you checked the ground? an intermittent issue is commonly synonymous with a poor ground

 

I took a the fuel pump back to the store and got another one incase it was defictive. I put it all bck together taking as many precautions as i possibly could. It works fine now. I still have an issue with my idle tho. Ran the check engine codes and it said the tps was bad so i replaced it. My idle steady jumps from 1000 to 2000 then back down and back up. While its running if i unplug it wait 10 seconds then plug it back in it maintains an idle at 2000. I cant figure out what the problome is. Since i bought the car a month ago i have to pop the clutch to start it. The key turns the eninge over perfectly fine but it wont start. If i hold the gas petal to the floor when i turn the key it almost starts but wont. This problome bugs me really bad because everytime i park i have to find a hill. I hope someone has had this problome and resolved it so we can figure it out. And thank you for the advice with the fuel pump. I really appreciate it.

 

^^start with a fuel pressure/flow test.
with a fuel pressure gauge installed, start the vehicle. pressure should read approximately 35-40psi. that's a simple pressure test. now, pinch off the vac line to the fuel pressure regulator. pressure should increase by roughly 10psi. this is a regulator system test. what you're actually doing here is simulating WOT. since at WOT we have zero vacuum. no need to even touch the pedal. now, with the line pinched, snap the throttle 3 times while observing pressure. if pressure drops more than 2 psi, you have a flow issue. either worn pump or fuel filter restriction.