Intentional Vacuum leak to resolve rich idle?

FastDriver

My dad had a bra
SN Certified Technician
Sep 5, 2001
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Alright, I know the first reaction is, "that's stupid!", but hear me out at least and then go ahead and say it.

If an MAF car drives perfectly fine, except for a rich idle, then inducing a small vacuum leak and resetting the TB to the desired Idle RPM would, in theory, reduce metered air while keeping the same amount of total air. The result is a lower signal from your MAF which should command less fuel. So long as this is a sufficiently small vacuum leak, then under load in closed loop, your computer will compensate to achieve the desired AFRs, and under maximum load (WOT) the vacuum leak is also sufficiently small enough to have no impact on AFRs, as 1) there's far less vacuum in the manifold at WOT causing a drastic reduction of air flow through the vacuum port, and 2) the proportion of total air from the open vacuum port is insignificant compared to an open 65-75 mm hole (TB).

Obviously, if you had a tuner, you could just change the transfer function or otherwise command a lower AFR, but with the stock computer, would this method be a safe solution? Is closed-loop simply going to return my idle to its currently rich condition? Perhaps it's already doing everything it can to lean the idle out and has reached it's limit...

Ok... *braces against the "you're dumb!" responses*
 
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I did a similar thing many years ago with my OEM SD and E303 cam combo. I used a brass "T" valve in a vacuum line to make small adjustments. Never tried it in a MAF system.
 
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That's what I was kinda thinkin... something like you mentioned so you can manage the air you let in. On an SD setup, since it's not metering air, I'd think just adjusting the TB stop would get you there, so long as your TPS is still within operating parameters. Might be missing something.
 
I'd still like to hear the thoughts of self-tuners and maybe @a91what will chime in, but I found a quarterhorse with Binary Editor dongle (license) on the market for $250 shipped today. Couldn't pass up the ability to both datalog and tune any stock fox computer in my future for that price. Seems like a good dude, so my hopes are high that it'll come in good working order and as described.

Therefore, I won't be doing any vacuum leak shenanigans on Black Jack.
 
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