500 Cold Idle

[Captain Crimson]

At first junction after setting off, idle drops momentarily to 100rpm ish. If I''m lucky it picks up to 900rpm, if I''m unlucky it stalls. As soon as it warms up all is fine. I have cleaned the stepper motor recently - no improvement. Any ideas to prevent me feeling a right chump at the first set of lights??

[tractorboy]

Try cleaning out you air flow meter with some carb cleaner..it might help

[Captain Crimson]

Excuse my ignorance, but where is the air flow meter and what is carb cleaner?!

[Saturn 5]

Try letting it warm up a bit more before setting off. Airflow meter is the silver thing on the passanger side, inside wing under the bonnet, connected to a 3" diameter air intake hose. Carb cleaner is carburettor cleaner which is good for cleaning dirty fuel and air intake parts. Take off either end and clean well with cloth and the carb cleaner. White spirit also works but make sure you wipe it all away. Try also cleaning your butterfly which is inside the intake of the plenum chamber. This is at the other end of the air intake pipe after the airflow meter. Again carb cleaner or white spirit is good. Also buy steve heaths book. The Griffith and chimera handbook from the TVR Car Club. Very handy for tinkering. Good luck.

[deanb]

I used to have that problem on the Griff. Asked my dealer & they said that the best way to avoid it was blip the throttle two or three times when I first fired the car up. Don't overdo it, but 2500-3000rpm blips or so were recommended. Apparently this tells the ECU to go to "fast idle" mode or some such.

[Captain Crimson]

Thanks for the help. The blip trick seems to work a treat (and now I know where the airflow meter is - learning by the minute!)