need advice/jumping idle,stalling

[stevd]

hello.
A friend has a 1992 318 with 125K. Other than regular oil changes, this car would pretty much fall into the 'neglected' category. I was trying to help him out with a bit of a tune-up, and we ran into a problem which is quite odd.

he had been driving around for about a year with a ripped cam cover breather hose and I assumed, rightly upon opening the intake hose, that all kinds of crap had gotten into his intake. there was black crud/dirt caked on in there and two bottles of intake cleaner and a toothbrush barely made a dent. I told him I would get him some redline si-1 and some more intake cleaner and he should go to BMW and get some oil filters, spark plugs, cap/rotor, and wires, and a pcv valve. he got the oil filters and the plugs but no pcv, cap/rotor or wires.--does this car not have a pcv and is it a coil on plug ignition?
he also got the cam cover breather hose and when we put that on the engine started acting like it's got a vacuum leak, the idle goes up and down until it stalls. take off the breather hose, and it runs fine.
what's going on? anybody experience anything like this?

thanks. sorry for the long post.

[jllphan]

My guess might be the ICV (Idle Control Valve), but with a neglected car, it could be a culmination of things that may not be completely fixed by one replaced part. I would also thoroughly clean the throttle body as this too would contribute to the problem.