[T3] AAR woes

[Daniel Nohejl]

> There is also some amount of leakage from the outside (not the inlet) 
> because the sealing of the lid is minimal and there is also leakage up along 
> the shaft. All of this is normal.

But is it not abnormal that my motor stalled when I covered the hose b/w the AAR and IAD. I figure it’d have to be pulling loads of extra air for my thumb over the hose to stall out the motor.

> 
> The way to check them is to close off the inlet hose with your thumb and see 
> how much this effects the idle speed. There should be little or no effect if the 
> engine is FULLY WARMED UP.

It was definitely fully warmed up both in the morning (highway and traffic conditions) and in the PM I’d been driving for over an hour in traffic and 45 mph conditions which is always far more than enough for the idle to drop down. 

> That said, it sounds like I didn't get the calibration right when I did yours. If 
> your engine was fully warmed up when you did your tests, the idle speed 
> should not fall anywhere close to 260 rpm when you closed off the AAR inlet 
> hose. Feel free to send back as many as you want and I'll re-do them and 
> return them for free.

It seems I don’t understand something about the calibration. I’d assumed that the +/- adjustment simply determined how open the valve is on cold start and perhaps how long it takes to close. I didn’t think it’d determine whether the valve closed at all though. I say that understanding that generally when our AAR is working right there’s only a 50-75 rpm drop when I pull the hose and cover the end and that it’s never really entirely closed. 

> I know I've said this many times before, but it's worth repeating: The AAR 
> has absolutely NO EFFECT on the car when you're driving. It only effects 
> the idle speed. It does NOT change the richness/leanness of the FI at any 
> time.

Not that it matters and not to pit one person against another, but I recall Ray Greenwood admonishing me in the past on The Samba about making sure my AAR closed all the way. Allegedly if it doesn’t, there are a variety of timing, injection timing, and MPS related issues that follow from an AAR that won’t close.