The issue currently only occurs right after coming off the throttle; as in when I'm coming to a stop it will drop down lower than usual, settle in for a few seconds, then hop back up to ~900rpm after a few seconds (the time taken to come back up seems to be getting longer). Once it goes back to the normal RPM it will remain nice and steady until I open the throttle again, then rinse repeat...
Anyway, on to the troubleshooting!
I see what you mean about those wires. Not the best design if I do say so myself...Gave them a good jiggle around while it was idling and it did nothing; idled nice and steady the whole time.
Back to the IACV though, something clicked in my head while I was under the hood a second ago; from my (limited) understanding, *I think* this part essentially opens up a bypass around the main air inlet (probably not the correct terminology... I mean main part of the throttle body that opens and closes from the throttle cable) and is automatically controlled by the ECU to open just enough to keep the revs steady at idle. Correct me if I'm wrong here, because I'm basing the next thing on that being how it works...
I disconnected the leads to the IACV and then turned on the car to see what happened... sure enough it idled exactly as it does when it droops after coming off throttle. Reconnecting it brought it back to normal. I'm thinking from this there's a good chance it might be sticking shut or the solenoid is no good, ie, the IACV is indeed the culprit
Please tell me this is a possibility and I'm not making pie in the sky assumptions here...
