help, strange idle

Will do a full write up when I get to my laptop but I've had a strange idle today twice almost 3 times, I let it up warm up to 56C coolant temp and drove out the parkade, when I got to the lights down the block and was waiting for the light to change and the engine sputtered or idle dropped or fluttered w/e u wanna call it, almost to stall, at the first 2 lights within a block of each other, I touched the gas to get 2000rpm and ensure no stall, then it was fine the rest of the day, then it tried to do it again but caught it right away 2000rpm for 5 seconds and let go and it was fine, I've had a missfire randomly time to time but GM never finds anything when I take it in........clogged cat? Injector? Spark plug gap? All I have is a muffler delete and airbox mod with k&n and I checked it and the filter is good, ideas anyone?

My lancer used to do that when I first bought it.

At every light I had to rev it to make sure it didn't stall. Ricers thought I was trying to race them.

Mine does that sometimes if its REALLY cold, like in the teens

They call me godly said:

Mine does that sometimes if its REALLY cold, like in the teens

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yea it's between -10F and +10F outside lately, is that all it's from?

1WhiteSSTC said:

yea it's between -10F and +10F outside lately, is that all it's from?

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Yeah i'd say thats it, I wouldn't worry about it. My old SS/SC did the same thing if it was really cold.

common culprits:
dirty maf, throttle position sensor (sometimes it will throw a p2135 code and render the sensor useless if you start the car with a low battery, not exactly sure why but it does this. it would throw a mil light and you would know), dirty throttle body, clogging cat or dirty air filter.

my guess is it's just the cold weather, but you should do a routine check on these things anyway.

Are you tuned for the airbox mod & K&N drop in? It skews LTFT's ~7% and may affect your drivability when it's cold out. Try the stock filter and see if it goes away. Just the airbox mod skews the stock filter a % or two.

^good point

Iam Broke said:

Are you tuned for the airbox mod & K&N drop in? It skews LTFT's ~7% and may affect your drivability when it's cold out. Try the stock filter and see if it goes away. Just the airbox mod skews the stock filter a % or two.

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Not tuned at all, first thing I did last night when I had a moment was put the stock filter back in, so far nothing but we'll see how it goes, I will have the other things checked in the next month or 2 when I do all my spring tune-up stuff(LONG LIST) beyond that all I can do is monitor it, otherwise all performance is available and I continue testing everyday to ensure it runs solid as it has since day 1

Nate, it's due to moisture

the + temps then - temps are causing moisture to get stuck on the maf sensor

I had the same problem a few weeks ago, i cleaned up the intake, the tb and cleaned the sensor... the problems been gone for 6 weeks now.