Raising Engine Idle Speed

[Pbadgley]

This will take some time to explain so please e patient.

I have a 2005 Vibe base DBW. here is a small list of mods I have done, K&N Typhoon SRI, Lightened Alt pully and 20% reduction underdirve crank pulley. Yeah I know not to many mods. These have served me very well. I installed them 5 yrs ago when the car had 70,000 kms on it and I now have 258,000 kms with no problems. I used to live in New Brunswick Canada with winter temps averaging -10c. I recently moved above the arctic circle where the average temps have been -30. Here is the problem I now have that I never had to deal with before and I know it is because of the underdrive crank pulley. Due to the cold temps I regularly leave my car idling with heater fan on medium to keep the car warm. Due to the underdrive pulley may alternator turns slower and my water pump does also. This has two down falls. #1 when I look at my output voltage of the alternator it drops to 12.4V this results in and under charged battery and you guessed it I sometimes need a boost in the morning. #2 The slower water pump results in cooler air from the heater cause the coolant gets cooled off to fast before fresh hot coolant is replenished.

The manufacture of the underdrive pulley stated that to maintain alternator output the engine would need to idle around 1000 rpm so I tried holding my RPMs at that level an noticed the alternator output would go back to an average of 14.2V and much warmer air was coming out of the vents. With s DBW system there is no way to turn up the idle. Is there a way to trick the ECUs response from the crank sensor to open up the IAC to in turn raise the idle speed? The one thing I did notice is that the power steering system raises the idle to about 1100 RPMs as well. Can I ground the sensor wire tricking tricking the ECU to raise engine RPMs? This would only be a winter mod that I would use in the very cold weather to keep the vehicle warm.

I should also note that I noticed the alternators lower output from day one of the mod but it was not an issue because with no electrical accessories on. the output was 14.2 even with the DRLs on. Only when I demand more power from the heater fan and rear window defroster did the voltage drop.

What would any of you recommend to get my RPMs higher? I like the thought of the power steering pressure switch mod cause I could simply install a rocker switch to ground the wire and very easy to disable in the spring.