Dodgy cold start today

[Digsy]

My car chose today to do it's 2005 dodgy start. Seems to do this roughy once per year. It put the wind right up me the first time, but it always returns to normal. I thought I'd just bounce the symptoms off you this time around.

Key on: It runs on maybe 4 or 5 cylinders, lumpy as hell. Quick key-off, pop the hood and have a look around for obvious things amiss.

Key on again, running rough. Give it slight throttle and it picks up with a big cough of white smoke out the back. Now running on all six at the normal NA fast idle. Loud ticking noise coming from the intake side of the head. Engine will stumble if you blip the throttle but won't stall. Running gradually smooths out over about a minute. As the engine smooths out, the ticking noise subsides.

Blip the throttle again and the ticking noise comes back at higher revs (approx 3000), but soon dissappears. Engine runs as normal from there on. Key off to check hot start. All OK. Go for a run. All OK. Key off, leave for a few hours, cold start. All OK.

I'd put my money on a stuck open / closed injector, but I'm not sure why that would make a ticking noise. The noise certianly did sound like it was coming from the fuel rail area. The nly other things to note were that the last run before I started her up today was a key on, move a few feet, key off driveway shunt. Also it was bloody humid and foggy round my way last night so I was wondering whether something electrical might have got condensed up.

The only other thing to note - probably unrelated - was that I discovered that my HVAC fan was in the OFF position some hours later. Odd because I never switch it off and I don't go anywhere near the off button when adjusting the HVAC controls.

Thoughts, anyone?

[Alex]

I've had a similar experience with mine coughatlemansremembercough 1 injector open and it ran on 5....

Maybe one of your injectors has been letting fuel drip into a cylinder and so when you came to start it had flooded a chamber?

[Ian C]

I'm guessing HVAC = Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning? :)

Dude, if it doesn't keep doing it you can't troubleshoot it so don't worry about the problem until it gets worse :D

Sounds like a stroppy engine - moisture on electrics due to that crazy warm mist we had Friday night?

-Ian

[Digsy]

I'm guessing HVAC = Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning? :)Spot on :thumbs:

Dude, if it doesn't keep doing it you can't troubleshoot it so don't worry about the problem until it gets worse :D

Sounds like a stroppy engine - moisture on electrics due to that crazy warm mist we had Friday night?

-IanYep, probably. The car was stood all night in it. Started fine again this morning, so I'll watch this space...

[Pixelfill]

Sorry for the Tony Robinson style Archaeological dig, but I've just had this happen to me today on my TT, and I have to say it scared the bejesus out of me.

Key on, and didn't notice anything really amiss as I pulled away, but whilst stopped at the junction at the end of the street I could feel it was running really lumpy, felt like it was running on 4 or 5 cylinders as Digsy said. It was also backfiring as well, but after about a minute, or a mile or so of tentative driving it seemed to sort itself out, by which time the highly accurate engine temp gauge was registering normal.

Now I've never seen this before, but similarly to Digsy the last 3 cold starts have been ignition on drive out of/into garage, ignition off. I also washed the car yesterday (plenty of moisture, and there was a fair amount of water which had found its way to just inside the engine bay, on the fusebox (!) and on the air filter box).

Spark plugs (Denso IK24s) were changed in January this year, these should be okay for a while yet shouldn't they?

It has been spewing white smoke for a short while when starting, but reading up on smoke I've assumed this is okay - condensation, as the coolant level looks okay so I've ruled out the internal coolant leak, and it clears itself quite quickly.

I just want to make sure that nothing more fundamental could be responsible, ie Digsy's car is still on the road, and hasn't developed a terminal condition. It also might help to identify the cause of his annual dodgy start :)

I'll be paying much closer attention to the start from now on though - hopefully it won't recur.

Thanks

Mike

[heckler]

today was the first time i started mine in 2 and a bit months - started first time, purrs like a kitten ;) - now it had a functioning radiator in!

[Soonto"HAS"soop]

What rad did you go for Si? I saw you had you power enterprise cap for sale, did you go Koyo, Fluidyne???

[heckler]

What rad did you go for Si? I saw you had you power enterprise cap for sale, did you go Koyo, Fluidyne???


OEM - it was free :D

[Digsy]

My car's still very much alive and well. No reoccurance of the problem so far :)