1984,170K
Just bought the car and while attempting a “tune up” for rough idle and poor acceleration symptoms I became puzzled about the wiring to both the throttle switch and the air control solenoid (idle valve): are the two sets of wires switched? a) Would the car run if this were true, and b) if they are not reversed but I do switch them to see if performance improves, do I risk blowing the ECU? Each set of three wires has the same type of connector, and the wires can reach either component.

Evidence:
The Haynes and Chilton manuals show three wires to each component. Of the six wire colors, my car matches five, but every matching color goes to the opposite component than that shown in the wiring diagrams. For example, ECU slots 12 (white/black wire) and 30 (orange wire) should connect to the throttle, but instead mine go to the air control solenoid. And ECU slots 10 (white wire) and 23 (green/red wire) should connect to the solenoid but mine connect to the throttle. In addition, the third solenoid wire should be brown, but the third throttle wire of mine is brown. The only nonmatching wire is the third wire connected to my solenoid: rather than being a black wire that should be connected to the throttle, it is a blue/yellow wire.

The wires to the air control solenoid make a sharp turn just before they connect to it, and the rubber boot over the end of my wires does have that characteristic sharp bend to it. So, if the wires were switched, it has been that way for a while.

Another alternative to the performance problems is that I simply have a bad throttle switch. But I haven’t been able to adjust it properly because I don’t have an orange wire at the connector behind the engine.

Thanks for any advice.
Brian