Sunday, February 11, 2007

Major problems with Idling

One of the diseases that plagues the fuel-injected 914 is the difficulty in getting the car to idle under all conditions. My 914 starts up just fine but then stalls most of the time at stoplights after cruising on the freeway for 30 minutes or more (heating up the engine). It's also started jerking around when first accelerating from a cold start, sometimes rather violently that the whole car shakes back and forth. That can't be good for the transmission.

Many thanks to the folks at Pelican Parts who have several technical articles on how to fix your own 914. :

See http://www.pelicanparts.com/914/914tech_articles.htm

I spent the weekend researching the fuel injection system and found the idle adjustment screw. After a half-hour cruise on the freeway back home, I pulled off at a rest area and let the stall. The idle adjustment screw was easy enough to turn by hand, so I raised the idle speed while the engine was hot until it ran without dying. As far as the violent jerking when the car first starts, I'm going to look into the electronic throttle switch to see if there's problems there. I find it funny that the car doesn't jerk around anymore once the engine is up to temperature. There must be some expansion going on. We'll keep you posted.

No comments: