so now that i have my car going ive ran into a few problems. the only one i keep having trouble with is the engine likes to die at random times. it does it when i push in the clutch and take it out of gear and brake around a curve or something about once a day. if you turn the key it will start right back up though. sitting at an idle it does have some quirks, it doesnt keep a perfect idle, it speeds up and slows down a little, but its nothing bad. any ideas what could be going on? im almost wondering if its the battery, i bought a real cheap battery that has crap for amps, do you think it could be causing this? or whats the deal with the isc on these?

talk to awd4kicks

as far as the surging goes it could be the ISC and AWD4KICKS is the person to talk to for a reman... you can also check his website (there is a link on this site sometimes). or you might want to check how far down the screw is set on the ISC connection into the TB. i was haveing a similar issue with my car and i just needed to back that screw out a but. under the ISC connection (wire coming from the ISC connected to a male spade on the back side of the TB) there is a 14mm nut. let the car warm up losen the 14mm lock nut and then twist the plastic peice with the spade in and out to see if the idle smooths out. there is a groove for a flat head screw driver in the plastic peice.

what is your idle currently set at? mine was set around 600rpm and was dieing when i would come to a stop. raised the idle to 900rmp and it hasn't died since. that back screw will also raise your idle but for fine tuning i would use the regular idle set screw on the front side of the TB.

ISC's don't generally cause a vehicle to stall. Just annoy the crap out of you with reving between 1000-1500RPM when you are at a stop light!

My car used to stall all the time when I would push in the clutch on decelleration and some times right before I came to a stop. This occured most notibly after I installed the Fidanza Flywheel though. The engine would just drop revs faster than the ECU could keep-up to keep the engine running. I ended up just slowing down very carefully in times like that.

So I'm not sure if any of this applies to your problem, but those are my experiences. Good luck Zack

I don't mean to argue with awd4kicks, especially since he probably knows a lot more about this than I do, but my was doing something similar a few years ago. It started out with the idle doing strange things but after a couple of weeks it degraded to dying whenever I put in the clutch. After getting a new ISC, it hasn't died since. It now idles at 600-750 rpm.

I didnt see anyone else post this, But are you Venting your Blow off valve to the atmosphere?

its a non turbo, so no blow off valve. i replaced the spark plugs this morning, and drove it to work and back with no problems. i dont know if that fixed it, or if i was just lucky and it didnt happen today. the idle is smooth most of the time, but i've had it jump around on me a few times, especially with the a/c on. how do you set the idle with the screw on the TB? aren't you supposed to ground a wire first?

if you look on the front side of the TB there is a screw. there is a sleeve around the screw. take a philips head screw driver and bring it in to raise the idle or out to lower the idle (i might have that backwards). and no there is nothing to ground. i would just make sure the car is up to operating temp before messing with the idle because cold idle can be different that op. temp. idle.

Actually, if you want to set your base idle correctly you do have to short a couple of wires. One is the underhood pin that you also short to adjust base timing. The other is one of the pins on the diagnostic connector.

Here's the vfaq:

http://www.vfaq.com/mods/BISS-1G.html

it seems to be running better where i have BISS screw at now, i'll see what its like after a few days

You might want to replace the biss screw oring. I had problems with my idle and it was because the oring was dried out and the screw kept backing out with engine vibration.