hecubus

back story & details:
it's a 1996 2.2 (non-vtec) accord LX 5-speed with 177k that I bought on the cheap since it was in pretty rough condition; I think the previous owner thought tune-ups were pointless...

right after I got it I went to work on a major tune-up including:
new plugs, plug wires, cap, rotor, replaced all vacuum hoses, fuel filter, oil & filter, valve cover & plug seals, adjusted valves, thermal idle control valve (one under throttle body) cleaned & flushed coolant, starter, battery, removed & cleaned throttle body & iacv, air filter, sea foamed intake, and cleaned all the egr ports.

it now runs great 99% of the time with one exception; every now and then the idle will inexplicably drop way down sometimes usually at very slow speed like around a parking lot or just after slowing down for a stop light etc... my girlfriend also drives the car & has said it has stalled on her while turning hard into parking spots.

the randomness of the problem leads me to think it's something electrical? could a failing TPS sensor causes this?

thanks in advance,
-hecubus

hecubus

fixed it... I used a small vac-pump to apply some vacuum to the egr valve at idle & it died; so the egr valve works & there is nothing blocking the flow. I then traced it back to miss-routed vacuum hoses between the egr vacuum solenoid & the vacuum pressure regulator thing next to it.

in short the miss-routing of the vac lines was causing the egr valve to be opened randomly & not released at idle causing it to stall. This was not happening when I got the car since all the egr manifold ports were clogged anyway so the errant opening wasn't causing it to stall. My guess is that the dumbass who installed the new egr valve when all that was needed was the ports to be cleaned screwed up the vacuum hoses.