1.4 sri running problems

[clemo]

hi im having a few running issues with my nova i had similar problems last year around the same time so im thinking its temperature related the main problem being the last couple of weeks when we have a cold morning which is getting more and more often now :-) lol it starts up and then misses like mad for a minute before clearing itself it did the same last year and then in febuary this year the head gasket gave up so i replaced the head gasket head bolts and thermostat now before the gasket went i did have the usual signs for a few weeks before hand like loss of water temperature gauge reading high lots of pressure in coolant system etc. this year i have non of these symptoms so im not thinking its the head again the other thing is when i go round the back to see if exhaust is steaming the smoke out of the back smells heavily of fuel, which leads me on to the other problem that ive had with the car for a while (which also happened last year but then cured itself)
the revs when the engine warms up are too high up at about 1100 - 1200 rpm which coincide with the engine cutting out when the wipers park these 2 faults seem to come and go together ive tried earthings points idle control valve, map sensor and recently ive put an engine coolant temp sensor on so im running out of ideas.

i was wondering what controls the cold start mechanism as its obviously auto choke as the fault seems to be as if the choke is stuck on constantly

[waynes sri]

mines very rich on 1st start up but i fort would be cause the cat is out.and if i leave mine a few days it misfires for a while on start up must be all same lol

[clemo]

yeah thats exactly the same as mine and guess what i have no cat either :S maybe its a back pressure thing?

[novasrikev]

mine is the same must just be the sri's haha

[phazer]

Cold start fuel is added by the ECU as required depending on the readins from the CTS. If you've changed this then it's highly likely to be the lambda sensor. I had to change mine twice when I ran the C14 engine.

[clemo]

just an update ive inadvertedly fixed the high idle speed problem lol. i was stripping the central locking out today as it packed up a while ago and am getting replacement kit this week and while i was down under the passenger side of dash taking off the c/l relay i gave the wiring to the ecu a waggle in case a connection had been knocked when someone sitting in passenger side and low and behold when i grabbed the harness the revs came down from 1200 rpm to where it should be so hopefully this might have cured the wiper problem too as these faults tend to come and go together. im going to start it in the morning and hope that it has fixed the poor starting/overfueling too as if a bad connection to the ecu it might have been running in base settings but if it is still crap in the morning i might try lambda sensor next as that makes sense cheers.