Wassis??

[basher]

Can anyone tell me what this is or does?
When we originally got the car you couldn't redirect the heater fan and it was stuck to blowing around your feet- the vacuum feed pipe for the heater control was plugged into this and its quite small and I don't think it was powerful enough to move the venting. After a bit of tinkering we found another more substantial port on the manifold which was blanked off and so we swapped the pipe over and the heater was fully operational again. The outlet pictured we blanked off instead and all was fine until I noticed the bit of pipe I used to block it had come off, which I have since replaced ( I have uncovered it again for the sake of the picture), it just bothers me that I don't know what it is.

Can anyone help?

PS. I only came across this whilst I was trying to find the IAC valve which I still haven't managed to find. The car stalls for no reason occasionally when I come to a stop and I was checking to see if this was correctly set before looking at anything else. So if anyone could help direct me to this I'd be grateful too..

Thanks in advance..

[cliff]

Hi,

not sure what is is either but it was open on my car, guess I need to find out as well.

This is the idle air valve, also seen in the parts catalogue 42-07A, item 15. They were available on the after sales list for a reasonable price.

[Simon_P]

IAC sounds right - they either clog-up or loose their marbles - You can diagnose it with elanscan - Create a vac leak or adjust the idle screw and the IAC might keep-up but the count is either unreasonable or inconsistent.

[Giniw]

Hello,
That is not the IAC. The IAC does not take air from outside, it just bypass the throttle plate.
The IAC valve is located behind the engine, just follow the red arrow cliff has painted on his photo.
As for the plug circled here , it is used to connect the charcoal canister on the catalysed cars (Elan S2). You can clearly see it in the late parts manual.

My car being a SE, it does not have any hose connected to it (similar to your photo), and it was leaking quite a lot of air: it was impossible to inflate the intake with a pump.
While I have read nothing about it, I am almost 100% sure that it was a defect, because :
1 : it lets enter unfiltered air to the intake through the hole which can be seen just beneath the closed throttle (it's the other end of the tube)
2 : it lets escape the precious boost pressure the turbo tries to put in the intake... (so the turbo spins faster to try to compensate the leak and which might result in a premature wear)
So I have put a little cap on it and my intake is now airtight. (for your info, my intake pressure is now around 0.30~0.31 bar when idling)

(Everyone > I would be curious to know whether it leaks air through that on your cars as well ... Thanks in advance !)

[John_W]

Mine was also naked, so I put a sealing cap on it. I didn't take the time to establish whether or not air was passing through it, or in which direction. However, it doesn't seem like a good idea to have it open.
John