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Subject:Re: '86 idles rough with white smoke at start
Date:Fri, 10 Jan 1997 15:32:05 -0800

>| I'm looking at an '86 Weekender GL that has these symptoms. After the van
>| has been sitting for a long period of time (> 10 hours), the van will idle
>| rough and spew white smoke from the tail pipe. After letting it idle a
>| couple minutes, it smooths out, the white smoke disappears, and the van
>| runs fine.

	Is this different then the usual startup steam that is produced when
you fire up a cold engine? There is a lot of chilly pipes on the way from
head to the tail pipe and a long muffler which needs to heat up. If my
logic with regard to FI systems holds, I think a rich running engine (one
that needs to have the CO adjustment screw fiddled with) adds to the amount
of steam you get and would contribute to the rough idle because you get more
power out of the rich mixture then the brain expects which causes an increase
in the rpm which the brain then compensates for but it cannot compensate as
expected... Hopefuly the O2 sensor will take care of this, but if the O2
sensor is on its way out, or is gone, or the engine is real cold and it
runs open loop for an extended period of time, you are going to get more
steam... Anyone want to correct me where my understanding of the Digifant
system isn't quite right?

dave