Poor Idle

[Guest hughie]

:)

My 2.3 idles fine when cold and is fine when warmed up untill i come to restart after a short stop. I have to keep reving the car for 30 seconds before it will rest at the correct idle.

 

I have read you can clean the idle control valve.

Where is it and is it a d.i.y job.

[johnb80]

Whilst I can't tell you exactly where it's located on your car it's easy to find. There will be 2 hoses around 1" diameter connected to it, one that goes to the inlet manifold (or pipework associated with it) and one that goes to the pipework between the throttle butterfly and the air cleaner. Once you have removed the unit give it a good spray with carb cleaner, leave for a few minutes and another good spray, sometimes you can also get a small toothbrush inside to assist the cleaning process. It's worthwhile also cleaning the throttle body in the same way, carb cleaner & toothbrush. Don't forget to rinse the toothbrush well before replacing it in the bathroom for the missus to use !

[johnb80]

Just another thought, the symptoms you describe would also happen with a faulty Lambda sensor. When the engine is cold it runs open loop and therefore the lambda is ignored. When it's warm however it's closed loop straight away. If the lamda sensor is slow to start switching the mixture could be all over the place and hence the poor idle until you rev it, this warms up the sensor which then starts switching and controls correctly.

 

Regards - JB