cold weather idle and power issues

[roadrcr82]

ok ive looked for a while now but cant find anyone haveing the same problems. the idle thing maybe but not the power issue.

ok my problem is normally only bad when its cold outside. when i start the car it doesnt want to idle worth crap but im not to worried about that because i can find the problem with that pretty easy. now the big problem i have is the lack of power i get when i go on the gas before the care warms up. when i go on the gas and its cold the car doesnt want to go anywhere. it just kinda jerks after about 2 seconds and drives fine when its warm. i dont know how well i explained it but ill try to explain it beter if you guys need me too.

 

[turbotalon1g]

I have this same problem, please help

 

[Mike Marnik]

well for one you shouldnt be getting on it before the car warms up. Could you explain the idle problem more??? Is it just idleing very high or is it surging. if its just idling high thats common mine does it but come down after its warmed up if its surging check you iac or tps according to your manual if you have one.

 

[toybreaker]

I live at 9200' so I know a little about cold mornings....

I've had some problems with the coolant temp. sender for the ecu. The harness seems to break coming out of the sender. They don't have to break all the way to be a problem. Just losing connectivity on some strands of the wire can cause cold starting/running issues.

It can be a little confusing to figure out which sender is which. The one we're interested in is the sender for the ecu. On my 1g, it's located on the lower part of the t-stat housing. When it came from the factory, it had a little bootie on it. Now it's just a two prong plastic connector, but you can identify by the two prongs. one is perpendicular to the other like a tee.

Coolant leaks can corrode the connector. Clean any spurf off the connector. Electrical parts cleaner, used sparingly will do the trick.

There's resistance tests in the factory service manual for testing the sender.

I've been finding a lot of broken wires on these cars, the coolant sensor in particular. A quick visual inspection of the harness will catch most of them. Just follow the wires from the sender to the harness bundle. Most are broken in the first couple inches...A little solder and some heat shrink and you're good to go.

There's also an Intake Air Temp sensor in the airflow meter on 1g cars. It provides air temp correction to the ecu for fine tuning the calculated cold start/run requirements.. I don't have much experience troubleshooting these, maybe someone else can share what they know??

Hope that helps.