Rep Power: 812

After my recent experiences trying this, I'll let you know the proper way to do this.

IDLE ADJUST. First off this can be done without taking the stock airbox off. You're looking for a nut and hex screw that the throttle lever rests on when closed. What you do is loosen the nut a little bit. Then with your fingers (or a hex wrench), turn the screw. Clockwise raises the idle, while the reverse lowers it. You can do this when the car is running. Now it is VERY useful to have an rpm monitor of some sort. A vafcII works great to get a digital readout.

Now I had a problem with the idle being too low, which would make the car shake back and forth. The correct idle range is 700 +/- 50 rpms when the car is in neutral with NO accessories on. Mine was at the very low range all the time. Now unfortunately, I couldn't turn the idle up past 750 without getting a check engine light. So I settled at raising it to 700 rpms. This is the optimal point you want the engine idleing at. Too low could cause bogging and incorrect gearing ratios. Too high and the car just feels like it doesn't wanna go when you hit the gas. In the middle is a good compromise that gives the best performance.


THROTTLE CABLE. No doubt this is old news. But there is a correct way of doing this without messing up your car. Now from the factory, the cable is VERY loose. This is no good, because the car will never be able to reach WOT (wide open throttle). Now if you tighten it too much, the throttle may stay open and cause the rpms to get stuck. You want it as tight as possible without this happening. If you look in the back of the TB, you'll see the cable towards the end. Now there are two throttle levers that can be pushed to open the throttle plate or butterfly. One is black, and the other is bronze. The bronze lever can be pushed about 1/2 to 1 inch before it contacts the actual black lever to open the TB. When you tighten the cable, you want to make sure that the bronze lever sits flat on the metal base. If it is hanging in the middle, you're gonna have the problem of sticking rpms when revving. You want the cable tight enough so that pushing down on it causes the bronze plate to immediately start moving.

I'll try and take some pics for you guys if you need to do this.

Now here's a shot of the throttle cable. The blue box shows you the correct cable to adjust. Basically there is a holder in the middle and a nut on each side. First you need to loosen the right side nut so the cable assembly can be taken out of the holder. Once free, look for the nut that was on the left (sorta hiding in this pic) and turn it so that when you put the assembly back in the holder, it should make the cable tighter. In my pic, the left adjusting nut is almost to the edge to make it tight enough. Yours WILL be different. Just make sure there's enough slack that the metal throttle lever is in resting position. The manual recommends 0.5 inches of slack when you push the cable before the TB will start to move the lever. Once the adjustment is made, put the throttle assembly back onto the holder and tighten the right side nut. Go for a drive and make sure everything is fine.



This thread is for information purposes only!