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Subject:Re: Idle Stabilizer Valve
From:David Beierl
Date:Thu, 26 Apr 2001 14:22:31 -0400

At 02:00 PM 4/26/2001, Karl Wolz wrote:
>Y'know David, it's not often that I get to correct you, so if I get the
>opportunity, I'm gonna damn well jump on it.

No, no, I'm going to wiggle out -- watch:

>The "auxiliary air regulator" does indeed sit on top of the 1.9 and just
>below and to the left of the AFM.

'Course it does.  But it's an aux air regulator, not an idle stabilizer
valve.  <g>

>  It's kind of an anvil shaped doohickey
>that allows extra air into the engine on cold starts (the logic of which
>escapes me as I thought you would want a richer mixture for a cold start).

The ECU takes care of richening the mixture -- the air valve simply gives
the effect of opening the throttle a little -- the air that goes through it
has already passed through the AFM so it doesn't affect the mixture.

>The hunting is probably from a too lean mixture at idle, but you know that.

Ah!  No, I probably should have, but I didn't.  My own experience of it has
been from having the idle set high enough that the stabilizer could barely
hold it down -- sometimes it would escape and then run into the cutoff at
1500 rpm, and bounce back and forth for awhile.  On the other engine I work
on (Universal Atomic Four) when the mix is too lean at idle it coughs and
quits.

>Most likely bypassing the idle stabilizer won't do much for him.

It will get that little busybody out of the loop -- it contaminates
everything else because it keeps messing with the timing.

:)
david

David Beierl - Providence, RI
  http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"