Ok...here's the history.

I've owned this car for about 6 months. All I want out of it at the moment is a decent occasional driver. Starting next winter I plan on doing a complete tear down and restore. So anyway...when I got the car one of the POs had removed or modified a lot of the FI parts. The air cleaner had been replaced with a paper "hi-proformance" model, the AAR had been removed, "non-essential" vacuum hoses had been removed or modified. For example both vacuum hoses on the distributor connected to a 'T' connection which ran back to the front of the throttle body. So I've gathered up the missing FI parts and picked up a bunch of vacuum hose and have been re-running things properly. I also had to clean and relube my distributor because the plates were stuck.

I completed all of that this weekend. The timing has only been statically set as I can't get it to idle so it's difficult to dynamically set it. The only "problem" I can find is that my battery has died since the car has sat for quite a while. It will start with a jump, but unless I keep the throttle open I cannot get it to idle.

I'm open for any ideas and suggestions. I'm right on the brink of being able to drive her, but I just can't quite get there.

BTW, before I started replacing FI parts and vacuum hoses it ran fine.

I bet your problem lies in that....

The alternators arent very good at charging a dead battery with 55A. In fact, I believe doing that isnt very good for the alternator.

WHat I have always done is to throw it on a charge overnight and then try to start it.

Thanks for the advice! Worked like a champ. Put the battery on the charger and got it a full change. When I put it back in...vrooom...away she goes! I need to adjust the idle settings as I have them all out of whack from messing with it when it had a low battery, but she lives again!

Who would have thought a low batter could cause an idle problem.

The D-Jet actually runs really rich when the battery is low.

The only reason that I knew about your situation is I daily drove a 914 project and went through EXACTLY what you described.

IF you need to borrow my battery tester (with load tester) let me know.