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Have seen quite a few threads asking about these and blaming them for allsorts of faults, I guess not many actually have Haynes manuals these days? A very much maligned and over thought device, its a very simple rotary disc operated by a bimetallic spring, which has an electric heating element next to it, as well as being bolted to the side of the thermostat housing, there really isn't a lot to go wrong and they don't move fast and wear out like a more modern ICV/Idle control valve The Jetronic system is very much clockwork and has no idle control built in, the SAD purely reduces the amount of supplementary air that bypasses the Throttle butterfly the longer the ignition is on and the warmer the engine gets. So here's an extract from the Haynes manual. as you can see, very simple! here's the schematic - As you can see, its earthed through the starter solenoid, the very same wire that causes that oh so common 'click' and no chooch from the starter motor when you turn the key, so if that's causing voltage drop issues to the starter, it will also cause a high resistance on the earth side for the SAD so it'll take longer to close.

Just a quick question this one - as part of my upcoming mi16 conversion i will be fitting a gti6 inlet manifold and as such trying to find ways around mounting the icv and ign coil, all i want to know is will there be any adverse effect in having the mi16 idle control valve open to atmosphere, i.e, one end will connect into the inlet manifold as per usual operation the other would just be open to the engine bay and to intake air as needs be (with a little breather filter attached) - any problems there? I have done it with gti6's before but will the mi16 work also since in its standard set up it draws air from the pipe after the afm; hence metered, whereas it will be drawing unmetered air the way i want to use it.