Technical This is Strange......

[Drumrboy]

Had the car painted. When I jumped in after the process, the car ran very poorly.....zero power....seemed like it was missing etc. Turned out to be a ground wire that had not been reconnected. Sanded the area, attached the ground and voila, the car ran perfectly.

One year later, the car now does the same thing....upon starting, it misses, will idle well but under any load the power drops off.

UNTIL......

the car warms up. Once the temp gets to normal, the thing runs fine. Ground wires aren't likely affected by engine temp ;-) so I have no idea why this symptom is temperature related.:bang:

If anyone's run into this before.....save me the forensics.....tell me what's amiss!

 

[Drumrboy]

Sorry, forgot to mention, its a 1981 with fuel injection. No carb-has-to-warm-up-issue. Any ideas?

 

[spannerdude]

If the temperature sensor is faulty then there might not be any cold start enrichment.
In the current ambient temperatures I imagine it would start but not run particularly well until warm.

 

[Drumrboy]

Thanks for the idea. I'll indeed check that (you were very helpful with the brakes/MC issue, thx).

However, if the sensor is bad wouldn't it run poorly (or at least not optimally) when warm? Perhaps the sensor is there only for detecting cold (condition upon start up) and is ignored when the engine temp is normal.

Hmmm. I clearly don't know my Fiat - but I'll check the sensor to see what's up.

Thx again