Well, fixing the vacuum leak really did nothing. It was pretty cold this morning, and took the car a bit longer to start. I did make a new observation though. The car will cold start, the idle is about 1k and then jumps up to 1.5k and then down to 500. That's when the engine stalls and you start it again. After a few times, the idle will jump back and forth from 1.5k to 500 and then finally settle at 1k and keep running. Any insight from this?

Edit: Also, unplugging the EHA when the engine is warm causes no change at all. Yet to determine if this is a faulty EHA, there is some shotty wiring running to it. There are some ugly solders on the EHA connectors and it is tied into the main harness with a wire nut.

that hose that you patched is not vacuum related. In the event the fuel reg. fails, it sends the fuel in to the intake and not on the hot engine.

Buy a mity vac and test while the car is running. 15hg is great. Just FYI vacuum (or lack of) will not solve a hard cold start.

I will admit, your engine may be different than my m103, but on my car the eha valve works when the car goes in to closed loop mode. ( the "E" in CIS-E). None of this magic happens when the car in cold. Once the car warms up, then the eha will (should) start to do something.

Either way, the eha will not help with a cold start problem.

Start with a bottle of redline fuel additive, then give the car a tune up. The problem is not one failed part. It is a lot of parts that are not quite good enough.

also, proper idle should be 550-650 rpm.

Well, I picked up a good, used EHA today. We'll see if that makes any difference.

Just while I'm at it, what's the correct timing for this engine?

this is exactly what my 103 engine does... have yet to figure it out.

I replaced the EHA yesterday and the car cold started on the first turn this morning. Still not sure if it was the EHA unit or not, but I don't feel like swapping the new one for the old one, since there's so much else to do. All the wires running to the EHA were just twisted together with a wire nut. I put it a splice on both wires and a new connector.

When I took the old EHA off, there was only one O-ring (Not sure if it's supposed to be like that), but it was spraying fuel everywhere when I put the new EHA on. So I had to get two O-rings that were close enough. So it's been a bit of an ordeal, running back and forth to get the car sorted.

The car still stumbles a bit on cold start, but starts on the first crank. It still doesn't idle perfectly or at the correct speed, so (as always) there is more to do. Yesterday, after the EHA was replaced, there was a bit of an episode. We stopped at the parts store to get oil and when we came out, the car started and had a miss. It was pretty alarming. We started it and turned it off a few times, and then it run normally. Not sure what happened. One of the wires for the EHA had come loose, but holding/twisting them together didn't help. I put the new connector in when we got home.

The engine seems to be purging some oil out of the valve cover vent, is this normal or something to be fixed? With the hose disconnected, it blows a little smoke from the hole also.

Any suggestions on getting this idle right?

New plugs, wires, cap, rotor. Make sure you have the right plugs. It will make a difference. After that new motor mounts will almost certainly make a difference too.

How would motor mounts effect the idle speed?

Motor mounts won't affect idle speed but they will smooth it up a bit. If the mounts are weak tiny imperfections in the idle seem to magnify.

The motor mounts definitely are old, but the idle swings pretty drastically. I replaced the plugs. Haven't done the cap, rotor, or wires yet. I dropped 60 bucks on that EHA to get one locally. Why are plug wires for these so damn expensive?

how is the car running now? Please update.