Audi 5000s Idle Stabilizer Valve

["John \"Magnus\" Altinger" <altinger@max-net.com>]

Hey there.

This Audi's brain (one of them) is damn odd.
 
Okay, when I bought the car, we noticed the idle stabilizer valve was 
unplugged. We tried plugging it in when the car was running, and the 
RPM's almost doubled instantly! We pretty much agreed the valve was 
fucked, so just left it off.
 
Until this morning, I pretty much left it alone. I wanted to see how it 
would act if the valve was plugged in, from a cold start! So I plugged it 
in, (But just losely, since its got a clip on it which I need a tool tol 
pop it off again, in case something went wrong.) fired up the car, and 
started like a brand new car! WOAH!!! Not only that, but the RPMs were 
only a little higher than I'm used to seeing. BITCHIN!! IT WORKS! HAH! I 
was happy as hell, so I took it for a test drive. I drove down to the 
beach, where the traffic was high (as usual at White Rock beach on a nice 
day), and all of a sudden the RPM's jumped to almost double, and the 
engine torque REALLY pulled the car foward. I pulled into a parking lot 
thinking maybe the plug fell off, so I parked the car and shut it off. 
When I popped the hood, the plug was still in place, so I crossed my 
fingers and plugged it all the way in. When I fired up the car, it was 
still idling FAST, so I drove the car home as is. I needed something 
pointy to get the plug off so I had to get to my garage. With all the 
engine torque, I had to use heavy braking everywhere.
 
>From the obvious, I'd say the valve is for smooth idling when the engine 
is cold. The thing obviously works, but I'm thinking its supposed to shut 
off when the engine is warm, and its just not doing that. If I were to 
keep this sucker plugged in (as is), I'd wear out my brakes in no time, 
and I'd have to wonder what it would do to fuel economy. 

Think its simply a matter of adjusting something, or is the valve dead?