I tried this out at the General Tech section, maybe I should have posted here.

Hello. Swapped engine/all sensors/engine+body harness/ECM from an 88 to an 85. Engine sounds great when idling and while laying down 100+ foot patches of rubber in the road. I do have a question though after quite a bit of reading and trying to troubleshoot it my self... without actually shooting the car.. I came to the conclusion I needed to set the idle then clean the iac and reinstall and then set the tps.. Ok well I have no engine codes, had a 34 & 33, which were cleared up by playing with the plug to the maf. When I jump A & B at the diag port and unplug the IAC, the car will not start. It will try to but it will not fire up. When I do try to measure the voltage on the tps. no matter what position it is in, it wont give a voltage reading, I tried back probing and wiggling the probes to no avail. I did notice that in one position when I would move the throttle with my hand to diff positions, about half throttle the voltage meter would start doing the auto reading where it shows different numbers and it wouldnt settle at one number. I did get a few times where it would just give the number 1, which I believe means something is overloaded? I did have the voltage meter on 20 volts and 200 volts DC. Any idea why I can't get a proper reading? Again, I have crisp throttle response, the cars idle in park and neutral is around 700 to 1000 rpm, in gear around 500-600. So to sum that all up, why no engine with the IAC unplugged and why cant I get a read on the TPS?

Thanks to everyone.

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bump, does anyone have some thoughts on this, feel free to swear at me or give a as long as I can get the quirks ironed out so I can put this car on the road legally. I feel its been a long time coming, kind of like a tribute from one rodder/painter to another. The car is from an estate from a guy who owned an autoshop/paint shop did cars and boats that died in a house fire as I was told here in the Rochester area years ago, late 90's to 01'. So I want to finish what he started and hope wherever the guy is he sees what was his pride and joy burning some tires and disturbing the peace

 

The reason that your car dies when the iac is unpluged is the idle screw needs to be adjusted out. Try adjusting the idle screw out and then unpluging the iac and setting the idle. Also be sure your timing is set as this will also cause idle problems. As far as your tps sensor use and analog volt meter to read between the black and blue wires, it tends to be a little more accurate.

 

I greatly appreciate the response, I will try that tomorrow morning. One more thing I should note, when my Maf sensor plug isnt seated all the way, with engine light on... it keeps unseating after sitting for a few days... the car actually keeps a nice steady low idle while in park and sounds the way it should, lopey and a smooth idle that does not surge. Any idea why?