I have 2001 Accord with roughly 88,000 miles on it. The car ran great, however, I reconnected the battery with the key in the on position and now it won't start or idle at all unless I give it gas. If I give it gas, it starts and idles fine. If I let off the gas, the car dies immediately. The car was fully warmed up before and after.

I'm assuming I damaged something in the electrical system, but I am not sure what (burned contacts decreasing voltage somewhere, sensor damage, computer damage). The car was running perfectly before this happened and the engine sounds great when I give it gas. Does anybody have any ideas on what I may have damaged doing this? I'm not getting a check engine light.

I stacked about 6-7 small strips of duct tape over the throttle stop screw as a temporary fix to make the car drivable (idles just barely around 400 RPM). I didn't want to adjust the stop screw since it is still locked (with paint) in its factory position and is not intended for idle adjustment anyways.

I haven't played with the idle adjust screw since the car was running great immediately before the battery disconnect/connect event and I'm assuming this is an electrical failure.

I have noticed that with the car idling (with duct tape on the throttle stop screw), engine speed decreases slightly (~100 rpm) with head lights on and increases slightly with them off. Not sure if this should be noticeable with functioning IAC valve.

I pulled out the ECU fuse on the driver side fuse panel, but this didn't seem to help.

I also assume that cleaning valves, throttle body, etc.. is not the issue since the car was running great moments before the incident.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

With luck the idle-control system is just confused. Not damaged.

Look for my thread in DIY about setting the base idle. Check out that stuff, it also talks about throttle adjustment. Then reset & force it to "re-learn" the idle as posted in that thread.

 

Update:

Jim you are correct, I think the system was just confused. Thanks.

I started the car this morning and it was barely idling even after warm up. It did this on the freeway in stop-and-go traffic for about 30 minutes and then I noticed that the idle picked up a little right before I got to work. This evening when I started the car cold, I had a normal high idle. I removed the tape and the car seems to be back to normal. I guess system information was lost which the vehicle was able to relearn. I'm just surprised that the default values weren't enough to even idle the car at all. I'm glad I didn't adjust the idle air screw or the throttle stop which are still in their factory positions.

 

Well, you can check the idle-air screw with the procedure in that other post. Unplug the IACV & go through that base-idle procedure.

 

Thanks Jim. Your DIY is very informative. The idle air screw still has the factory wax(?) over it, so I'm assuming it's still in the factory position. I'm reasoning that the air by pass might be dirty and that is why I didn't have a low or any idle. Since the car is back to running great, I probably won't pursue it any further. Too many other issues to tackle first. Thanks again.

 

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