Idleing when cold

[McNasty]

Could any one point me in the right direction please?
When i start the car it does not tick over very well when cold, infact it cuts out more often than not. Is it just a case of altering the throttle cable? I am worried that if i do this then when it is warm it will tick over on the high side. When warm it ticks over at just under 1000 revs and seems fine.
Any advice would be helpful.
Thanks again.
Andy.

[VPower]

Not much help, but mine ticks over at dead on 1000rpm when hot.

Just below 1000 when cold.

[McNasty]

I would say mine tries to tick over at 750 when cold which doesn't seem to be enough.

[sshenton1975]

I had this problem until recently. Got the car serviced and asked them to look at it. Turned out the injectors needed balancing across the the banks
Now idles from cold at around 900 rpm

Cheers

[Phil_Edge]

I had a similar problem in the recent weather... turned out to be the big fuse. Or at least - replacing it resolved the problem. It resolved a few little gremlin-esque issues which were slowly creeping in.

Fuse hadn't "gone", but was badly corroded on one end, and partially fractured, adversely impacting some random things on the car including idle

Tight as a nut now.

[hoppo4.2]

put the car on the diag softwear and reset the t-pots and balance both banks of bodies. mine did the same after i took the manifolds off to look at the cams. after i reset them its.

[SL500]

Yes re-balance throttle pots. Should work a treat. If they need replacing they are a Ford item I think.

[McNasty]

Thanks every one, it is due for a service before les Mans so i will get it soerted then. i was hoping for an easy fix that i could do my self.
thanks again

[plumAJP]

mine did this before stripping it.

i fear it will be the same on re-assembling it. before i took it off the road, i did reset the t.pots and the car just stalled straight away. after 5 minutes of keeping it idling with use of my foot on the gas it went back to normal which was a very lumpy low idle which would stall after about 15 seconds of trying to stay alive.

once warm the car would idle lovely. i resorted to adjusting the throttle linkage but when warm it would idle on 1100 rpm. so this was no good either.

the car was very kangarooy and jerky on low revs so could all this be due to a dicky lambda?

any advice on any other issues that could cause this?

[chim500nj]

If you start from cold you should use about an inch of throttle on start up and then keep it at around 1500 RPM for a full minute before then taking your foot off the throttle it should then idle at around 700-800 RPM unless it is really cold. This is standard Cerbera starting procedure from cold.

Once you have at least 70 c on the temp gauge it should idle nicely at around 800 RPM on the gauge and be pretty rock solid.

[dirty boy]

chim500nj said:

If you start from cold you should use about an inch of throttle on start up and then keep it at around 1500 RPM for a full minute before then taking your foot off the throttle it should then idle at around 700-800 RPM unless it is really cold. This is standard Cerbera starting procedure from cold.

Once you have at least 70 c on the temp gauge it should idle nicely at around 800 RPM on the gauge and be pretty rock solid.

From cold mine starts and idles 'around' 1,000rpm no problems whatsoever.

However, once hot, it idles as high as 1,500rpm! Any ideas?

[Steve_T]

Options are:
1) The throttles are slightly too far open.
2) The throttle pots are incorrectly set.
3) There's an air leak down stream of the butterflies, i.e. between the butterflies and the engine.

[dirty boy]

Steve_T said:

Options are:
1) The throttles are slightly too far open.
2) The throttle pots are incorrectly set.
3) There's an air leak down stream of the butterflies, i.e. between the butterflies and the engine.

Okay, I* will investigate, thanks.

• my mechanic best mate

[McNasty]

Thanks guys,
Just cheched last night and this morning. When warm she ticks over at exactly 1000 revs, and sounds spot on and smooth. When cold this morning she fluctuates between 500 and 600 which is too slow and often cuts out.
So i would suggest that perhaps when cold something needs to tell the engine to pick up a bit i.e. up to 1000.
My wife's Civic Type R when cold ticks over at 1200 then settles to about 900 when warm. So i was thinking that maybe the Cerbera should be in reverse order to what it is now i.e. should be faster when cold then slower when warm. Assuming that there is a brain some where to tell it to do so (ECU maybe?)

[Steve_T]

The AJP doesn't have idle control like your mrs' Honda, idle speed is set primarily by the amount the butterflies are open.

[plumAJP]

t pots balancing......... is this geting each back to a similar number (i cant remember the number now but i have it in the guide at home)

[itiejim]

Maybe a water temperature sender not feeding the ECU properly?

[McNasty]

Steve_T said:

The AJP doesn't have idle control like your mrs' Honda, idle speed is set primarily by the amount the butterflies are open.

Ah that explains a little then. So there is no Idle speed control valve on the AJP8 then.

[Steve_T]

McNasty said:

Steve_T said:

The AJP doesn't have idle control like your mrs' Honda, idle speed is set primarily by the amount the butterflies are open.

Ah that explains a little then. So there is no Idle speed control valve on the AJP8 then.

Yep, more difficult to do because of the 8 butterflies.

[VPower]

McNasty said:

Steve_T said:

The AJP doesn't have idle control like your mrs' Honda, idle speed is set primarily by the amount the butterflies are open.

Ah that explains a little then. So there is no Idle speed control valve on the AJP8 then.

Need an expert to confirm, but changing the ignition advance will speed up the tick over when cold, so another one for t-pots to be balanced!