Throttle Body Connections

[Johnny G]

Last night I buttoned the top end back up after replacing all the gaskets in there with new Fel-Pros. This morning, the car fired up fine and I drove all six or seven miles to Wal Mart. When I left there, it would die immediately after I turned the key. Well, I got a whole thirty feet through the parking lot and opened the hood to find that I had forgotten to hook up the TPS and that other 4 post terminal on the throttle body last night.
Can someone tell me how the car even started up this morning?

[irocbsa]

The ECM probably reverted to limp home mode. This is a set of default parameters in the ECM that allows the engine to continue running in the event of the loss of a data sensor. Since it didn't see input from the TPS or the IAC (that's the 4 wire connector) it defaulted to limp home. I'm surprised you didn't notice the car was running weird. A TPI car without a TPS plugged in runs really strange. Also, in limp home mode, the puter runs the car pig rich and at full spark retard, its very obvious. But that's the reason it ran. Thank you, drive through. :D

[WS6 VERT]

Your check engine light never came on?
BTW, the "four post" thingy is the IAC.

[Johnny G]

The only thing I noticed wierd was that it was idling at around 400 rpm. I got out on the main road in front of my house and hit 95mph real quick. I think it's just over 1/3 mile straight till the curve at the end. It wasn't sluggish or anything.