Idling Problems

[madhatter]

My engine appears to loose the ability to idle when warm started. Cold starts no problems, but go to shops and when you start it again a quarter of an hour later, problem time.

She'll start and idle when you start her up. But once you've applied load, i.e. pulled out into traffic, any pretense at being able to idle disappears. The moment you drop out of gear when stopping the engine just dies. Most embarising.

After about 10 minutes of driving it starts to clear itself, catching and idle at about 400rpm. It then slowly gets better.

Anyone any thoughts.

[Big Al.]

Stepper motor? lambda's, butterfly,
I'd clean the SM first of all.

[madhatter]

SM does seem the most likely candidate, Lambda was only repalced 4k ago.

[zzr1200]

I've had a similar problem, cleaned the SM changed the HT leads, spark plugs and Dizzy cap, also checked the setting for the idle screw(the bible says Cat cars should be 1.5 turns out, from memory anyway. Mine was 3.5 turns out! Anyway running better now, although I think the coil might have to be replaced as the car hesitates when I slow down after a fast run.

Hope this helps.

[madhatter]

Great, thanks guys.

[philr]

Just got mine back from David Batty, who looked at a similar problem for me. I'd tried the basics (new plug leads, clean SM etc but no real improvement). It turned out to be that the base idle was way off. Not sure if this is controlled by the same idle screw as mentioned earlier, but it seems to have cured the problem.

[ktg1000]

Madhatter. Did you resolve this problem? If so what was it?

[Nick P]

zzr1200 said:

I've had a similar problem, cleaned the SM changed the HT leads, spark plugs and Dizzy cap, also checked the setting for the idle screw(the bible says Cat cars should be 1.5 turns out, from memory anyway. Mine was 3.5 turns out! Anyway running better now, although I think the coil might have to be replaced as the car hesitates when I slow down after a fast run. Hope this helps.

did mine today and the bible says 2.5 turns out