wstar's Journal

wstar

Oh one other totally random technical note on our cars, maybe someone will Google this in a time of need someday:

Idle Air Volume Learning

The service manual details the pre-requisites for this, as well as the steps to accomplish it without any special tools (e.g. Consult-III), on pages EC-18 through EC-20. It's a good thing to do when you've made significant breathing changes (intake/exhaust work, etc), after changing the idle speeds via UpRev, or just anytime after a full ECU reset as well. I assume we all already know this. I've done it several times in the past without issue.

Yesterday after having my battery disconnected for an extended period, and fixing a minor intake problem (I had a leak between my filters and throttle plates, someone didn't fully hook up one of my PCV intake hoses properly last time they were in there... ), I tried to do Idle Air Volume Learning again like before.

For the life of me, I couldn't get it to work. I kept repeating the Service Manual's sequence over and over (the gas pedal timing, etc), but never got the blinking SES light that indicates you've done it all right.

I finally figured out the problem after a while, randomly: Having my PLX Kiwi Bluetooth adapter hooked up to the OBD-II port was preventing it. I wasn't even running any diagnostic software, I just had the adapter hooked up and powered on. Disconnected it and the procedure worked on the very next try.

My wild guess is that if it senses a CAN-capable device hooked to the OBD-II port, the "manual" procedures for things like Idle Air Volume Learning are disabled because it assumes you've got Consult-III available or something. Who knows. Bottom line: disconnect your OBD-II adapters before doing this procedure or it will never work.

__________________
7AT Track Car!
Journal thread / Car setup details