Is there a section in the FSM that talks about checking/adjusting these?

 

Sort of,sect 4B-61(for a turbo).What it doesn't tell you is that the thermowax element can be removed and tested.It's easy to do--2 screws,makesure you don't damage the o-ring in there.The element is common(N/A,TII)so you can get a spare cheap at the wreckers.Mazda do not supply it separately.

 

TONY TURBO ....I just replied to your other post, and I see what you are up to. Can I make a suggestion? Ok. This is not my original idea but here goes.........Take the intercooler off and set it to the side. Go to Home Depot and buy a piece of pvc and an elbow, 90 degrees. The pvc needs to be sized to fit in the outlet hose from the turbo and the two 90 degree elbows are to connect to the inlet hose on the throttle body. You get the idea. What I did with the 90 degree elbow was to grind it down to fit the throttle body inlet hose. It was just a tad large. What you have now is access to the fast idle screw while the engine is running, and the ability to take a small mirror and look at the fast idle cam and its relationship to the roller it rides on to make sure its coming off the cam. Did any of that make sense? If the cam does not come off the roller it can make a mess of trying to set the tps.

 

Yeah, that's why I recommend that you simply take the spring off that linkage when you're trying to set the TPS. Then the thermovalve can't get in the way. If you want the thermovalve back, simply reattach the spring.

 

MYKL....Duh! I had'nt thought of that. Sometimes the obvious is too obvious. Can't help but thinking that there's a few folk having tps problems(repeatability) due to not checking that the thermowax, fast idle cam etc, are set right first and the engine is completly warmed up.

 

Exactly, it took me a month of frustration and fiddling around with adjustments on my throttle body to realize that.

In the end I realized that there's something blocking water flow to the thermowax, so I just left the thing disconnected until I can tear my intake down to find it. I'm attributing the cause of the problem to be a crappy Mazda dealership engine install that occured before I bought the car.

So now my car idles steady, although the speed isn't always the same depending on how warm the car it is. Sometimes it'll idle at 600 RPM's, sometimes 800, but it always picks a speed and doesn't waiver.

I still need to fine tune it a bit. I still have a bit of popping in the exhaust at idle and an off-throttle to on-throttle lurch which is really annoying.