‘74 1.8L L-Jetronic Cold Start Low Idle, Mystery solved! Options

[Van B]

Ok fellas, here’s the run down Aux Air Regulator (AAR) and Cold Start Valve (CSV)/injector both work fine. Many of you have also been keeping up with my high idle issue that we figured out.

But yet, when the car is cold, i.e. room temp, I don’t get the high idle I should on start-up. Instead she cranks a bit and then lumbers to life. Idle lopes around 700-800rpm and then smooths out as it warms.

In all other aspects of operation, the engine seems to be pretty happy.

Thoughts? Experience? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

-Van

See post #419 on page 14 for a synopsis of the outcome.

[Van B]

Hello all,
I figured this was worth adding to the conversation even though I don’t yet know if it will result in anything toward achieving the cold start high idle.
Last night Wonkipop and I were messaging and he sent me a thread post by legend Capt Krusty. Which I then cross referenced with the manual, also provided by Wonkipop; thank you kind Sir!

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...p;#entry1170393

This morning I came out to try some cold start stuff and to my surprise, the car wouldn’t start. I thought about it and the only thing I did after the whole spark plug fiasco was make an 1/8th turn in on the air screw after a 20min drive.
The way it went down this morning is that I pulled the retard line from the distributor and left it open while capping the end at the throttle body. Car wouldn’t even try to start so I said, “guess that didn’t work” and put it all back together. However, when I tried again, the car still wouldn’t start. I got it going by adding 25-50% throttle and it stumbled to life. I left it running until it came up to temp and by that point everything was fine.
Then I pulled the retard line and idle came up… but I don’t want that when it’s warm! I spent the whole other thread figuring out how to fix that lol!

Soooo, I put my two brain cells two work and came up with the theory that the plugs have affected timing. Or more specifically, having incorrect plugs not installed correctly, required some messed up timing. I drove the car around a bit today here and there and noticed that even on hot starts, throttle was required to get it to kick over… which wasn’t an issue before.
Which brings me to right now. I bought a timing light, set it to zero advance and followed the procedure in the manual, with the added details from Krusty i.e. plugging the distributor ports and NOT leaving them open. Yeah, timing was off a fair bit. Took about an inch of clockwise rotation in total with a few trips back to the air screw to keep the car from dropping so low it would die. In the end I was able to set 800rpm and get the red line centered. Then I reconnected and adjusted the air screw to get 850rpm for idle. That step is thanks to Krusty.
I’m now waiting on the car to cool completely before I try starting again and see what/if anything changes.

Van