Intake Manifold Runner Control (IMRC)

[12Ounce]

I personally think the whole IMRC idea on a minivan is ridiculous. It affects performance only on the margins ... and it costs a lot to manufacture and is proving to be a maintenance nightmare.

[dandi]

Originally Posted by bear_1961

If these clips break (which they do easily) it will effect your idle and can effect yor mileage. It "WILL" run seemingly fine without them but it will effect your mileage and top end power.

Well, after picking up the car, it DOES run much more smoothly and feels more powerful, so I suspect that the performance was degrading over time (I don't drive the van a lot). I also noticed that the last tankful gave is 14.48 mpg, worse than it's usual lousy 17 mpg (my wife does 90% in-town driving). So, hopefully it will improve as well - off to Washington DC tomorrow so we'll check out the highway mpg....

Thanks, all....

Dan D

[webworks]

Originally Posted by bear_1961

If these clips break (which they do easily) it will effect your idle and can effect your mileage. It "WILL" run seemingly fine without them but it will effect your mileage and top end power.

Yes! Exactly!

One broke on mine and one Intake manifold runner was working and the other was not.

I first noticed a small ping around 3000 RPM mild/moderate acceleration and since i never heard that before I looked around but found nothing...
We have a small camp trailer and when we towed it it sounded like we had a rod knock and I was real worried... was not long after that the check engine light came on and we got to the root of the problem.

Will this problem be completely obvious? Nope. my wife and kids could not hear the ping until we were hauling the trailer.

If you have a broken retainer you are not getting the proper air fuel mixture and I suppose that could result in a costly repair bill... burned valves? Or worse? I am not sure but it is obvious that the knock under a load was a BAD THING!

[dandi]

Well, after running to DC and back, we got 20.5 mpg, which was the best highway gas mileage we've gotten in a while. I'm thinking it's about 3 mpg higher than in the recent past. That was with a LOT of stop-n-go traffic on the way home Sunday, too - not much steady-state running..... Now we need to check the in-town mileage this week, as my wife goes back and forth to work. Hopefully it will beat the 14.5 on the last (pre-repair) tankful!

Dan D

[dandi]

Just a follow-up on the in-town gas mileage - disappointing, to say the least - 15.5 mpg, vs 14.5 before.... I'm not convinced this is correct and am thinking that perhaps the tank wasn't filled all the way when I last got gas (here in NJ, no self-serve).... It seemed like we went longer than normal, about 10 days, so I will check it again next time.

Dan D

[586bryanh]

I have a 2000 windstar engine lights on codes po171/po174 come up. The shop said i need to replace the imrc were is it and how do you fix it. I am only getting 13 miles per gallon so i need to fixs it. Thanks