Carina E Wont Idle Without "throttle Help" At Start

[stian90]

Hello and merry christmas to all of you!

Im new here as you can see.. Just buyed my very first Toyota after numbers of Fords and got fed up with them really..

I have a minor problem with it, as you guys might help me with.

First off the car is a 94 Carina 1,6 XLi (4A-FE engine).

It seems that the problem is only when its getting colder than around -10c so its not always, and only when coldstarting.

When I am about to start it, it fires but stalls imidietly before it even reaches idle. Nomatter how many tries you give it it wont run. So you have to use the gas pedal to start it and hold it in for maybe 10 seconds or so, then you can release the pedal and it runs at idle.

As its started and kept idling with the gas pedal, it produces very much smoke at startup (only the first seconds), it goes very rough and the engine "vibrates" a bit and making som "knackering" noises, as it would go on 3 cylinders or so - but after a halv minute or so, it goes like a dream like nothing ever happend.

I do not suspect the headgasket as the oil is fine, coolant water is fine, its does not use water/oil and does either produce smoke when hot and only normal anmout of smoke when cold.

What can this be? I've suspected ignition parts like plugs, HT leads, distributor cap and rotor, coil and something in that sort. Also heard that these models struggle with bad injectors?

[igormus]

Hello and merry christmas to all of you!

Im new here as you can see.. Just buyed my very first Toyota after numbers of Fords and got fed up with them really..

I have a minor problem with it, as you guys might help me with.

First off the car is a 94 Carina 1,6 XLi (4A-FE engine).

It seems that the problem is only when its getting colder than around -10c so its not always, and only when coldstarting.

When I am about to start it, it fires but stalls imidietly before it even reaches idle. Nomatter how many tries you give it it wont run. So you have to use the gas pedal to start it and hold it in for maybe 10 seconds or so, then you can release the pedal and it runs at idle.

As its started and kept idling with the gas pedal, it produces very much smoke at startup (only the first seconds), it goes very rough and the engine "vibrates" a bit and making som "knackering" noises, as it would go on 3 cylinders or so - but after a halv minute or so, it goes like a dream like nothing ever happend.

I do not suspect the headgasket as the oil is fine, coolant water is fine, its does not use water/oil and does either produce smoke when hot and only normal anmout of smoke when cold.

What can this be? I've suspected ignition parts like plugs, HT leads, distributor cap and rotor, coil and something in that sort. Also heard that these models struggle with bad injectors?

hi mAte

Merry Christmas !!!

Check with MAF sensor -- it looks like it is dirty with carbon giving a false signal to ECU.

Cheers/Igor

[stian90]

Thank you.

Do you know where the MAF sensor is located at the 4A-FE engine?

[trev3635]

Its an air flow meter so it should be in the box that houses the air filter. Should be a plug with electrical wires coming out of it.

[toerant1]

I have /had this problem with my 1990 Carina 2 and I had my dealer to look at it . They replaced the distributor cap and rotor arm and this has improved the situation but the car will still stall on a cold start if I dont pull off immediately ( when the car runs smoothly) but if I dont pull off straight away then I have to use the throttle to maintain the idle.

They said that if I take the car in overnight they will check the fuel mixture?

They didnt say whether they considered the sensor?

Raymond

[BALIKBAYAN]

As far as I know the 4A-FE engines has Manifold Air Pressure sensor (MAP-sensor) not MAF-sensor. It sounds like Trev described the airtemp sensor. The ECU use both temp sensor and airpressuresensor to calcuate how much air is coming to the cylinders. Then the ECU can decide how much fuel the engine would like. The O2 sensor will make minor corrections to be sure the combustion is ok.

The lean burn engines do get bad injectors. My experience is that you notice that fault when the engine is warm, not cold. I had to change 2 injectors last summer.

[nz_aj]

I had a problem with the same symptoms on my leanburn 7A-FE, it was caused by a dirty idle air control valve which would stick in position or only allow operation over a limited range.

This is located below the throttlebody, it has an electrical plug for the solenoid, and two small coolant hoses. 4 bolts hold it to the throttlebody.

I swapped mine out for a second hand part but I could probably have just cleaned out the original.

Now runs perfectly.