A hello and a cry for help

Hi all, have been aware and using the wealth of knowledge of this site for a while now, but now it is time I took the plunge, said hello and burden you guys with my woes.

IMG_20180609_172539 by Christian Williams, on Flickr

There is (providing the new picture hosting works) is the bain of my life, mk1 jetta 2 door. Abf lump dropped in about 4 years ago, runs well, goes like a stabbed rat but has always had niggles and from reading on this forum seemingly is just engine character but here goes.

Has anyone had an issue connecting vcds while engine running? Mine connects with ignition on but when engine going doesn't. While on the subject of Vcds, is there a way of checking the throttle switch? I know there is a 8 digit binary on measuring block 4 but as it doesn't connect when running (and is more of an engine condition indication) is there a check when engine is not running? Also is there a reading/measuring block for the map sensor?
I have the obligatory high, slow to drop idle issue, the idle switch has been replaced and set up numerous times using RBs infinite array of VW pdfs, I have remade that part of the loom, one pin goes to ground OK and the other with ignition on shows 12v so is connected to ECU but I want to see vcds register the state of the switch. TPS shows 0-70 ish degrees so happy with that. Next check is the map sensor which seems as though has a tenancy to clog.

Also now ai have signed up I will finally shamelessly download the vcds label file for this car, nice work

I finally swapped over to mk2 ignition yesterday after putting it off for nearly 2 years. There's half the problem with this car, life gets in the way. It leaves the garage 3 times a year, once for the likes of santa pod, once for MOT and one day of tinkering where I spend half of that time remembering where I got to last time.

Any help greatly received

 

Cheers for the reply, yeah the immo is still in place and I have the halo over the ignition and transponder in key.

Power is still present at obd socket, light is on the dongle, I am going to verify the earth feed next time I manage to negotiate some tinkering time. I was going to ask if the immo box could be bypassed, I would of tried it but all the wiring is wrapped up in loom tape so slightly reluctant to start unwrapping needlessly. Or ideally can the obd and immo box be wired in parallel?

Isv does buzz yes, this is the third one I've tried and remarkabley is the best of the bunch as in it starts on the button but once warm idle has a mind of its own.