Just use a function called by setInterval to do the actual API querying ?
Simple example:
var ids = [ /* big array here */ ];
function queryAllIds(ids, callback) {
var processedIds = [];
var lastProcessedId = 0;
var processedIdCount = 0;
var intervalId;
function queryApi() {
var idToProcess = lastProcessedId++;
doActualQuery(ids[idToProcess], function(result) {
processedIds[idToProcess] = result;
processedIdCount++;
if (processedIdCount === ids.length) {
nextTick(callback, processedIds);
}
});
}
if (intervalId && lastProcessedId === ids.length)
clearInterval(intervalId);
}
intervalId = setInterval(queryApi, 1000/6);
}
queryAllIds(ids, function (processedIds) {
// Do stuff here
});