What is this connector for? It hooks into a small black box that has two hoses coming out of it: one goes to the top of the throttle body, and the other goes back toward the firewall into a large black cylinder (which I thought was a fuel filter but now that doesn't make sense considering the other hose goes to the TB). What's that cylinder, and what is the purpose of the black box and hoses? Just curious, I can't find a pic showing what this stuff is for.

Edit: for clarification, the black box and connector are attached to a bracket that sits in a rubber sleeve attached to the cruise control.

 

Is your car an automatic?

 

My first guess is it's part of the evaporative system, if the other hose goes to the charcoal cannister.

 

Nope it's a manual, sorry I thought it said that in my sig.

The reason I'm asking is because while I was removing the fitv/iacv today, I noticed that connector wasn't plugged in. It must have been left unplugged by a mechanic years ago (or somehow fell out on its own) and I never noticed. It never caused any problems as far as I can tell, and it never threw a fault code so I was curious what it was.

 

EVAP Purge valve.

 

That is the connector for the EVAP purge control solenoid valve.

 

So has the evap canister purge valve been stuck open, or stuck closed the whole time this connector has been unplugged? Is it normal for the CEL to stay off when the connector isn't hooked up? I would've thought it would throw a fault code.

Any foreseeable issues that could be caused by this connector being unplugged for a very long period of time? It's possible I knocked it off while screwing around with the TB/FITV/IACV but I really don't think I did, and the last time anyone was under the hood was almost a year ago, so it was probably like that for quite awhile.