We have a serious problem with our idle in our Civic. When we start the car, everything seems fine. We let it warm up until the engine is at normal operating temp (about 5 minutes in this weather) and then we start the hear the engine sound like it's going to stall but immediately brings itself back up to it's normal RPM (I don't know what it is because we don't have a tachometer... Need to get one installed). My dad put a screwdriver up to the injectors to listen to them and he says that they sound like they go dead when the engine sounds like it's going to die and then they come to life again. It waits about 10 seconds tops and does it again. Doesn't matter what gear we are in (Manual) as long as there is no throttle, it will do it. If we give it throttle, it acts normal. I've been told many things from different people but we think we have it narrowed down to the Throttle Position Sensor (TPS). We think the sensor may have gone bad and it's not reporting the right RPM to the ECU and the ECU is telling the engine to stall. Can anybody help me out with this? We really need to figure this out. If you need to know anything, let me know. I havn't worked on a Honda yet so don't expect me to know these terms i've been reading. -_-

 

It could be the TPS. You can check the voltage on those pretty easily. If you want a flow chart, send me a PM and I'll figure out a way to get it to you, either e-mail or snail mail.

It may also be the IAC (Idle Air Control) module. When they become dirty, they give the car a loopy idle. Sometimes a bottle of injector cleaner will solve this.(put in the gas tank with a full tank of fuel)

How many miles are on the car?
What have you done so far? (ie plugs, wires, cap+rotor, ect.???)
Have you tried resetting your ECU?

 

We will give the bottle of injector cleaner a shot.

The car only has about 70k miles on it.

The plugs, cap, rotor, wires, etc are in excellent condition and we saw no need to replace them.

Yes, We unplugged the positive battery cable for about 20 minutes and plug it back in. Now our SRS Airbag light comes on. -_-

Thanks very much for your reply!

 

The bottle of injector cleaner seemed to help it run smoother but the idle problem is still there. My dad's girlfriend wanted to take the Civic into Honda because the SRS light was on and she didn't like that. While it was at Honda, we asked them to just LOOK at the idle problem. They said it was the Idle Air Control Valve (IACV) and they wanted $300 to fix it. Rip-offs... Does anyone know of any places where I can get a new IACV and where I can find instructions for replacing it? Thank you very much.

 

not being a jackass here but mine did this when i was low on coolant, i really don't know how or why but it did, just check it out.

 

Trust me, we've checked everything :P Coolant is fine same with the oil and whatnot. Honda says it's the IACV so... I guess i should trust em.

 

I have the same exact problem but mine is on a first gen b16a....I was gonna order an iacv from a gsr, but I heard that the first gen minifold has a different bolt pattern for the iacv? any help would be appreciated.

 

BUMP

 

Ah ha! Someone in another post I made suggested unplugging the power to the IACV and seeing if the idle goes away. I unpluged it and the idle problem went away! Success! Now time to find a new one and some instructions...