When I start my car up from cold, I always seem to be fighting between wanting to pull the choke out to get a richer mixture, and pushing it in because the engine is running too fast. The issue is particularly apparent in colder weather. Is there anything I can do to get the choke action to give me more mixture and less fast idle? Or is there something else wrong that I'm not aware of?
For reference, yesterday I ran the car up to temp. Idle with the choke off is about 800 rpm. (Fast idle screw is not touching the cam). Pulling the choke out one notch bumps the idle to about 1100 rpm, with presumeably no change to the mixture. Pulling the choke to the second notch cranks the engine up to about 3400 rpm. I thought about grinding the fast idle cam down a bit, but that seems drastic.
Edit: I just noticed that there is some slack in my choke cable. Not sure how that happened, must be the pixies that work on my car when I'm asleep. Could certainly explain at least some of the issue. I'll take the slack out, which should allow me to back the fast idle screw off some and still get the correct speed at the first choke detent.
2nd edit: That made a big difference. Runs a lot better in the cold now.
For reference, yesterday I ran the car up to temp. Idle with the choke off is about 800 rpm. (Fast idle screw is not touching the cam). Pulling the choke out one notch bumps the idle to about 1100 rpm, with presumeably no change to the mixture. Pulling the choke to the second notch cranks the engine up to about 3400 rpm. I thought about grinding the fast idle cam down a bit, but that seems drastic.
Edit: I just noticed that there is some slack in my choke cable. Not sure how that happened, must be the pixies that work on my car when I'm asleep. Could certainly explain at least some of the issue. I'll take the slack out, which should allow me to back the fast idle screw off some and still get the correct speed at the first choke detent.
2nd edit: That made a big difference. Runs a lot better in the cold now.
Last edited: