Does anyone know if it's necessary to disconnect the battery (to have the computer re-learn the idle) after cleaning the throttle body? Reason I ask is I cleaned the TB yesterday but didn't drive the car at all. This morning when I started it, it had a very fast idle. It eventually slowed down and I drove it in to work but every time I pushed the clutch I could tell it was still too fast. Im guessing one of two things: 1) cleaning out the carbon that was built up around the plates created a larger gap and now the idle has to be re-learned. Or 2) I have a vacuum leak, but I don't think that's the case because I was very careful with cleaning up the gasket and putting everything back together properly. I'll go out in the parking lot as soon as I finish up my lunch and disconnect the battery to see what that does.

 

It is not absolutely necessary I don't think because mine did the same thing as yours and I did not disconnect the battery. After a few days it did get better, and was normal within 4-5 days of normal driving. If you can't wait, just disconnect the battery and it should reset everything and be back to normal quicker. Either way though, I don't think it is needed because the car will adapt and learn.

 

Yeah, and my Ford tech told me that disconnecting that battery and turning on the headlights for 10 minutes (with the batt disconnected) will clear any residual power in the system.

Just .02

 

Well it did start to get better, but slowly. It was too annoying to deal with so I disconnected the battery yesterday and that did the trick.