My car will not idle. It will start up and go from 1200rpm to 200, back and forth, till it dies. If I'm cruising along I notice nothing, no misses, no problems. But then if I put it in neutral (T5) it stalls right out, doesn't even try to idle.

Chiltons ( ) says that it is a problem with the EGR system, or the ECM. Maybe cracked vacuum lines? I just don't know where to start.

I figured that maybe one of you have had this problem and know what to do!!!

 

Sounds like the IAC valve is bad. It controls the idle. Try cleaning it. I think if you had a vacuum problem you would have stuttering more often.

 

I've heard that before... but where is it? And, how do I go about cleaning/replacing it?

Thanks!

 

Located under the throttle body (a 4 prong electical connector from the harness plugs into it).

There are a few good posts on the boards about cleaning it and resetting it.

Search for IAC reset and it will bring you to the info you need.

 

if this just happened suddenly, its also possible that the pickup coil in the distributor is crapping out on you...had the same sort of problem with a bad idle, but would drive OK above like 700RPM. as a last resort, I swapped distributors(used same cap/rotor though), and that fixed the bad idle surge/stalling. Apparently in 1987(my car) it is a common problem, 88 is probably similar. Hope that helps.

 

I don't know if it happened suddenly to the guy who owned it before me, but I bought it last October, and it was doing it then lol