'95 854T Intermittent rough start

[alschnertz]

230,000 miles
These two problems cropped up after my heater hose replacement.

1. Intermittent rough starting. Almost feels like the IAC is not working because if I just slightly rest my foot on the throttle, it'll smooth out. But other times it's fine - starts and idles down to a smooth 850-900 rpm or so. The plug is connected and the hoses are tight. I sprayed carb. cleaner around all the joints but did not notice any leaks.

2. Occasional weird downshifting. Sometimes when coasting - like down an off-ramp - the car will downshift 2 gears hard on it's own and then upshift back the 2 gears hard as you continue to come to a stop. It's not the usual single gear downshift.

During the heater hose replacement, I changed a vacuum hose that ran from the turbo to what I think is a Boost Control Valve (it hangs off the airbox).

I also pulled off the throttle body to clean it. I didn't change the gasket when I reinstalled, but a spray of carb cleaner doesn't show any leak. I suppose it could be leaking there, but would expect the problem all the time in that case. While the throttle body was off, I scraped out and vacuumed as much coked oil as I could from the EGR port.

My suspicion is that the EGR valve is coked as well and maybe I dislodged something in there and it now won't function properly. I've double checked the vacuum lines to see if any pulled off but they look ok.
This is too bad, because the car never had starting or shifting issues before. Any other thoughts out there?
Thanks

[phils94850]

did these problems start after you did the repairs ?

[alschnertz]

Yes. So I went back through and looked at everything that I removed during the heater hose replacement and couldn't find anything amiss. I have a feeling that I caused the problem by cleaning the throttle body and also that coked oil from the EGR passage.

I found a test on-line for the TPS switch and will try that over the weekend. Am also considering removing the EGR valve for a cleaning.