hootpie issues ...help!!

my yet to be riced 91 prelude has two issues that i need to sort oout before furthur rice-ing.

1. it idles at 2000RPM ... what could be the cause of that and how do i correct it?

2. i think something is wrong with the altinater... if i sit too long the idle RPM varies from 1500 - 2000 .. the drop in RPM is random. could that really be an altinater issue? also if i start the car then disconnect the battery lead while it is running it runs for a little (about 5 - 10 seconds) then shuts off.i was told that once the car starts if the battery leads are disconnected the car shold still run until you turn it off.

No disclaimer for this info. I am just offering a suggestion.

1. Buy some freaking huge cams and enjoy the high idle :). But otherwise, that is a problem and it needs to be fixed.

2. That does sound like a alternator problem. I had a friend whose car did something similar. And the battery, once the car is started, is unneccesary. The alternator will sense that the battery is full (disconnected) and won't feed any power to the battery. This says to me, that the car is half running off power from the battery. Go to the local junkyard and pull yourself a alternator.