car is a 90 civic wagon, auto.

the idle hunts from 1100-1900 but only when in park or neutral not in drive or reverse.

if this is a vacuum leak, from a search on here i read that if you spray carb cleaner and listen for the hiss you can narrow down the hose its leaking from, but do i spray down the hoses and listen or into the tb itself.

 

You spray lightly around the hoses. I'd take the iacv off and clean it with throttle body cleaner first , its a common issue in ef's.

 

thanks ill give it a try.

 

after you put the aicv back on dont forget to top off the coolant and bleed the air out of the coolant system via the bleeder screw ! Very Important !

 

thanks for that last bit of info, but heres an update:

before taking things off i thought it would be easier to just spary the vacuum hoses down with the tb cleaner, so i did it and i didnt find any vacuum leaks, but oddly the problem seemed to go away, idles at 1600 though. so i tried to move teh shifter from park to r to n the idle goes up to 16-1800 drops to 1100 then goes up to 1600 and stays there, so im assuming its the iac. ill try and adjust the idle and see if the problem goes away altogether.

 

No , its not the idle , clean or replace your iacv and call it a day !

 

Just to clear things up, using t/b cleaner is an old shade tree trick. The best way is to use a propane tester. its a propane canister with a button on top. You push the button once and it releases a small amount of propane. I have tried the carb cleaner way before and found nothing, then used the propane test and found it. Also another way you can detect vac leak is to hook a vac gauge to you engine and see what it is at idle. It should be between 17-22 .

-Chris

 

thanks ill do that!

 

cover the throttle body with your hand until it sucks it in hard. if the car dies, it is NOT a vacuum leak. if it stays running, it IS a vacuum leak.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Brick Top &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">cover the throttle body with your hand until it sucks it in hard. if the car dies, it is NOT a vacuum leak. if it stays running, it IS a vacuum leak.</TD></TR></TABLE>

anyone know if this is a true statement

 

first thing to check is that it is completely full of coolant with no air pockets - next, start it up, disconnect the EACV connector - the idle should drop to around 500rpm and remain steady - if it does, the problem is with the EACV - if it still fluctuates, look for a vacuum leak - if you can't find a vacuum leak, try a different MAP sensor - when you disconnect the EACV you will get Check Engine Light and code 14 - reset the ECU to clear the code