Need help from 98-01 Altima 5 speed owners!

[merc68k]

Hi guys,

Does anyone in the forum drive a 98-01 Altima 5 speed? I am trying to figure out if the way mine behaves is normal or not. If I am stopped in neutral, and I ease into the gas, and bring the revs up slowly past 1000 rpm, at around 1200 rpm, the engine revs up on its own to around 2000 rpm, without my moving the pedal at all. If I ease off the gas at this point, the revs will drop back down to 1200; I can not hold the revs anywhere between 1200 and 2000 rpm! Before this car I had a 94 Altima which never did this.

On its own this is not such a big deal, but when I am driving along around 2000 RPM on a flat road, I get a pretty abrupt jolt when I ease into or out of the gas because I can not ease off the gas below 2000 rpm; they just drop down to almost idle once I cross a certain threshold.

If I disconnect the IACV valve, then the revving up goes away, and the abrupt response while driving also goes away, so I am wondering if there is something screwy causing this to happen, or if it is just the way they programmed the ECU in this model. I can not think of any reason they would want the revs to rise when I am already pressing the gas manually, so I suspect there is something weird going on.

Can anyone with the same era car PLEASE let me know if yours works the same way or not?

Thanks!

[NISTECH]

Your TPS hard idle contacts are opening at that point. Try to fine tune your tps to reduce it. It is normal though.

[merc68k]

Thanks. Unfortunately, my TPS screws seem to be well seized in place so adjusting the TPS isn't a possibility until I can free them up somehow.

The heads of the screws are already a bit mangled from trying to loosen them so I'm a little afraid of trying to loosen them any more. I suppose if I took the throttle body off the car I might stand a better chance of getting them out, but then I would probably be looking at a fairly complicated job, wouldn't I? Are there coolant lines to the TB?

[NISTECH]

yea 2 small ones. The screws can be a pain to get out. You need to be sure you use a #2 phillips on the screws to get the best bite.

[merc68k]

Are you talking about the open/closed switch that's on the second connector at the TPS? Because there's no change in the behavior of the car when I unplug that connector.