THE Compleat Idiots Guide To Fixing My Rough Idle Problem

Thought you all might enjoy a laugh (at my expense).

As you all are painfully aware by now, I've been bellyaching for weeks about a cyclical idling problem I've had with my subaru powered vanagon. Well, it almost got me in trouble this weekend.

First off, I headed out to the Portland airport to pick up my wife who had been off visiting relatives in California. On the way back from the airport I was listening intently to every noise the subaru engine made when she (the engine, not my wife) started missing.

"Aha, you devil!" I screamed, certain that my idle problem had finally progressed into a much worse malady. It ran worse and worse and I was thinking about how it wouldn't be near as hard to rip the engine out this time around. I nursed it down the road a bit before just happening to notice that the bloody fuel gauge was way down below the "oh shit, you're in trouble" level. The engine died on the offramp and I coasted, I kid you not, coasted into a gas station just off of the freeway. Thanked the attendant who had commented on how quiet the van engine was and asked for a fillup.

Once home, I did an all out attack on the engine, snooping, pulling, and wiggling every wire and vacuum line. Finally, while checking the two vacuum line which run to the charcoal filter valve, I squeezed the larger one. The bad idle immediately smoothed out and quit cycling. I let go and it started in again. I took a look at KEP's instructions and sure enough I had run them the opposite of what KEP's instructions show. The difference being that they are fed on two different sides of the intake manifold and one has more vacuum than the other.

Anyway, after swapping them so that the purple one runs to the right side of the intake manifold and the white one runs to the small tee on the left side of the manifold, she's running like a champ.

Many of you had guessed that my problem was vacuum related and you were dead on. The vacuum that I call my brain had led me to install the vacuum lines incorrectly.

Thanks for the groups patience and help.