howdy all and hail again to you honda guru's
i find myself in need of your infinite knowledge once more.

a few weeks ago as it became cold outside my car would start right up, but rev itself up to about 3k rpm then drop to 1000, and repeat until warm when everything would be just fine.

now it wont stop doing that no matter what. if i have it in neutral it'll rev and drop and when in drive it tries to rev, taking the car with it - i'm fighting to keep it stopped at lights!
a few days ago i unplugged the idle control just to see if it was doing anything and it barely ran. i reattached it then pulled the ECU fuse to try to reset any error codes. immediately after that it ran fine for a few miles, but reverted back to this weirdness.
i have a tenzo cold air intake on the car and it does like to suck oil through the PCV valve so i've pulled everything apart and used a whole can of gumout on the throttle body, the idle control unit (that was horribly clogged), and the temperature regulating unit. nothing has helped.
the biggest clue so far:
it sucks! no, i mean its really sucking. the vacuum being heard through the intake is much louder than normal when this is going on as if there's a really big vacuum leak but i cant find any on the outside of the throttle body and when the problem goes away so does the sound. it sounds like its idling through a straw.

if the electronics on the idle control unit were fried would it revert to this random mapping? does this sound like anything anyones heard of? help?

 

have you bled the cooling system yet?
if not try that and let us know how it goes

 

i checked for bubbles at the thermostat with the bleeder nipple on the housing and didnt get any air - i'll crack the hoses at the throttle body to make sure they bleed green and let you know what happens.
working on the bike saturday, should be able to check it out sunday.
thanks for the suggestion.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by accord_2dr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">have you bled the cooling system yet?
if not try that and let us know how it goes</TD></TR></TABLE>


hmmm whats this abouit the cooling system, cuz my accord is idling stupid too

it was fine cold but warmed up REALLY quick then started revving

i had taken off the radiator cap for a little while and then put it back on,. but that was a on thanksgiving and this problem was today (car has not been started until today)

 

Right side of intake manifold there is a valve with two screws on top. Remove the screws,cover and screw in the pluger till it stops with a pair of needle nose pliers. Reinstall all in reverse order and let us know.

 

well i had the same problem..actually still do

but when there is air in the system, it can cause a jumpy idle. but also check for leaks and clean the throttle body

 

yup, i've already taken apart and cleaned inside the valve with the plunger assembly and made sure the retaining ring was secured all the way in - same time i pulled off the idle control assembly and cleaned it and cleaned the throttle body too - no change.
i'm going to pull the coolant hose off of the bottom of the plunger unit to make sure there's no air in the line because i did bleed the coolant at the thermostat but now that we're talking about it, it occurs to me that the plunger unit is higher than the thermostat and i want to make sure i dont have a big bubble up there.
theres also a coolant line that goes behind the throttlebody from the thermostat housing and i'll trace that and bleed the system there too just because. those are the highest points of the cooling system so if i have air, it should present itself there.
i'll post my results in a few days and thanks again to everyone for all the suggestions!

 

i love her, i really do. but she just isnt loving me back.

man, i pulled every coolant line everywhere and i'm getting flow all over. the thing that makes it real tough is that since its revving at idle when i try to bleed it, it squirts then sucks over and over and over. even though i replaced a few of the lines that were so dried out they broke as i was pulling them off, i'm still not getting any air coming out when i try to bleed it. i has occured to me in the last few days that i havent tried bleeding it with the heater on, so maybe if there's a bubble its around there somewhere. i dont have any idea why this would affect idle, but its a honda and they're weird that way
(i once had my stereo stolen and my dash clock and drivers automatic seatbelt quit working until i replaced the cd player!)
this weekend i'm going to try it redneck style and just let it idle with no radiator cap and spew coolant all over in an attempt the get any air in the system to be pushed out the front. if i cant get any results from that, i guess i'll just have to start replacing parts on the throttle body until its right.

 

check and make sure the throttle body itself isnt cracked. if it is, its letting in air and thats making your revs go up by itself. even a little gap will let in hella air.

 

i've sprayed gumout all over looking for potential vacuum leaks - BUT i wasnt looking for cracks in the throttle body itself, i was concentrating on all the attachment points that could be loose. thanks for the suggestion, i hadnt thought of that. i'll check that too.

 

<U>FINALLY, a worthwile UPDATE</U>

so, i've removed and cleaned EVERYTHING with no change.


meanwhile, i came out to the car one day to find the drivers window completely shattered (not gone, but ruined, some SOB tried to get in and set off the alarm scaring himself away. thankfully nothings gone but my window was only still in place because of the tint) - what does that have to do with the story? nothing, except - i get on the phone to a friend of mine because i'm on the road with a completely spider-webbed window in the rain on a sunday afternoon and i need help. he finds a guy, who happens to be a mechanic, parting out the same year accord wagon including drivers door glass. long story short, we buy glass and replace it for a fraction of what it would have otherwise cost me BUT my friend, who is really a friend, mentions my idle problems and mechanic guy says he thinks its the IAC. thats three reasonably intelligent opinions leaning towards that module being bad, so i'm thinking its the IAC.

i replaced the IAC - idle air control valve - the one with the electrical plug that goes to it, and that did exactly nothing for me. now, i have NO idea what's wrong

a few days later, after glass is in and good, i call mechanic guy looking for a drivers door window control panel because i need one and i've been updating my door panels while they're out of the car because of the glass. we get to talking and i mention he was wrong about the IAC and he says bring it 'round and i'll have a look. well, i'm fresh out of ideas so i take it to him and together we discover the root of my problem.

months ago, MY car would revv up and down until it warmed up, then settle. after a while of this, it just kept revving all the time warm or cold. a bit later, as i couldnt find the problem, it would just revv to about 2200 rpm and hold there. the one symptom that i could trace through the entire evolution was a very strong hissing sound coming from the intake - as i said before, it sounded like the whole engine was breathing through a straw. upon investigation i found that that sound seemed to be coming from the top of two air channels just inside the throttlebody, in front of the butterfly valve and that air channel leads to the starting air valve - thats the little thing hanging off the drivers side of the of the intake manifold, looking all innocent like it doesnt make that big a difference. that tricky little beeotch only has one dinky vacuum line going to it from the exterior, with no coolant lines or anything and is the easiest part of the throttle body to change so you're thinking, 'theres no way it could be THAT, it doesnt do anything'. i replaced mine with one that i bought from mechinic guy and my baby just leveled out in an idle that i havent seen for quite some time and just seemed to look at me and say 'yes, it was just that easy - so what took you so long?!'.

so even though i had had the starting air valve apart, cleaned it all out and made sure the rubber diaphragm inside was intact and it was moving freely with no obstructions, something about it was bad and completely messing with my idle. i hope this helps someone because believe me, i know how frustrating it is to chase a problem down with these cars - i love my honda, but sometimes i think it may be just a bit over-engineered!

 

Hah... Good thread man. Unfortunately, it had to be a lesson learned the hard way. It's funny how that happens with hondas.. or all cars, rather. My friend who also drive's an accord, is having a similer problem. I will show this to him and we'll have a crack at it. Hopefully this works. Nice thread, again. By the way.

 

holy ****.. i have an h22a7 swap in my car. with the same problems and have screwed with a bunch of stuff to..and it is doing the same thing sounds horrible at idle my car souns like it had a v8 at idle. i have the exact same symtoms as you. i was thinking something withnthe euro swap was screwed up. i hope this is it . can just describe better which part you changed..i thank you, you are a godsend

a for you

 

ok, so im having the same issues, and I went through the same steps as you but still have not found it yet. Additionally, it doesn't whistle. So I'm checking sensors on the throttle body and pulled the map sensor and the revving stops. When I plug it back in the car still has check engine until i turn it off and restart it. Then the revving starts up again. So it leaves me to think that it may be map sensor but correct me if I am wrong.

 

ok as i stated before my h22 accord has the same problem.... but i do not have this "starting air valve" well not in the same spot atleast.. any one have some info on the euro r swap as to where this may be..... it is the same exact problems..
thanks guys...

 

zjigg2k:
i dont know any specifics, but i do know that euro cars have way different emissions controls so airflow could be completely different. honestly, i dont even know what the euro setup looks like -can you post pics? the intake i got my part from was even different from mine - it had a bypass valve and mine doesnt. from what i've heard, they changed stuff around a few times during 1990 and 1991, before deciding on a setup and kept it for 1992 and 1993.

kidfrost:
mine would settle down when i unplugged my IAC and throw the check engine light too. (once the check engine light is tripped, it will stay on until the ECU is reset by disconnecting power, or turning the car off) but i replaced the IAC and it didnt do anything for me. i'm far from being an expert but looking back it makes sense that if you unplug a component that trips the check engine light, that component not working should have tripped the light in the first place. the haynes manual for my car says that any failure in the MAP sensor will trip an error code. it gives testing procedures for the MAP sensor if you need them, and anyone with a car thats not under warranty need a haynes repair manual for that car!

good luck - keep us posted

 

oh, and kid:
i'm pretty sure that if you pull your MAP sensor connector, the ECU just goes into a baseline default program that doesnt vary because it doesnt know whats going on. if your problem is something else doing something erratic, the ECU was constantly trying to adjust to whatever wrong was happening. without input from the MAP sensor it probably just cuts fuel so even if your problem was like mine with too much airflow, the car wouldnt have the fuel to burn and the idle would level out.

i think.