Car shutting off when put into gear

87gninpa

Active Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2003
The car starts fine and idles fine, but when it is cold and i put it into gear, it stumbles and either dies or nearly dies and recovers. either way the car starts right back up and is fine. it doesnt do this when warm though. any ideas on what it might be? it just started happening all of the sudden, no changes or anything
 
Have you set the your TPS and checked where your IAC numbers are at? Sounds like the IAC is maxed out at cold idle and not able to keep the idle high enough when put into gear.
 
Originally posted by 87gninpa
The car starts fine and idles fine, but when it is cold and i put it into gear, it stumbles and either dies or nearly dies and recovers. either way the car starts right back up and is fine. it doesnt do this when warm though. any ideas on what it might be? it just started happening all of the sudden, no changes or anything


This is a stretch, but do you know what torque converter you have?
 
Its definately not the tps or iac, i have just relaced both with new gm units and set to correct settings about a month ago.

about the converter, i know it was replaced about a year ago when the previous owner had the trans redone, and i assume it was with a stock unit being it is a stock car, but i cannot be 100% sure on that.

any other suggestions?>
 
Just wondering. Some of the older 7 disc vigillante's would kill the motor when shifted into gear cold. Too many discs, that's why they went to a 5 disc unit.
 
Thats a good possibility as it has only started happening when its severly cold out. also, today, it was about 30 deg out and i started the car quickly and put it into gear just to move it a bit and the car wouldnt move in drive, just rev up. so i took it out of drive for a second, let it warm up and then it was fine, no problems at all with the transmission. Has this happened to anyone before, is the tranny ok?
 
Mine does the exactly same thing when it's cold, but you should let your car warm up at least a minute or two. When I let it warm up it never will die with my thrasher chip. Now the hypertech chip was a little different, it would die all the time.
 
Mine does the samething. I have to let it warm up for about 20 minutes when its warm or cold outside. Plus i have a 5 disk vigillante.
 
Originally posted by JCSTTA
My TTA does the exact same thing. Make me look really bad in the office parking lot.
I know what you mean. Try being at the track when it dies out in front of everyone.
 
Anyone know anything about the tranny problem ive been having? where it wont move in D when cold, but is fine after it warms up?
 
I had this problem (cold stall when you put it in gear and rough idle while warming up). If I started it cold (40F coolant for example) and just sat there, it would go into high idle fine and then about 30-60 seconds later it would start sagging off dropping RPM, recover and do that 4 times. Until the coolant hit about 140, it would be rough and sag. After that is was fine.

I finally went into the chip (I use BBKJ as the starting point) and raised the closed loop coolant enable from 90 to 130F and changed the coolant vs AFR table from 13.1-13.6 to 12.3 from 90-132F coolant.

This way it stays out of closed loop while the engine gets more fuel as it warms up. No more sagging, stalling and rough warm up. I can start it and drive or let it warm up and it wil just follow the idle warm up curve without the sagging and roughness.

I've also lowered the TCC unlock to move it further way from 4-3 downshift. They used to be just about on top of each other. Very annoying when climbing hills. I believe the Art Carr kit moved 4-3downshift up to the same throttle position as TCC unlock. Not sure. But now I can unlock the TCC without getting a 4-3 downshift at the exact same time. A bit more throttle does the downshift. Nice. I wish these were E trans......

Finally, after trying different methods for fixing the very subtle part throttle miss (TCC locked), I finally just dropped the EGR flow down some. Now I don't get that little miss when you are cruising and the engine load increases (like on a hill). I tried combo's of spark and fuel and could make it better but I think there is just too much EGR when the TCC is locked. Having octane over 91 might have helped too.

The car is now very civilized when it's cold and smooth when I cruise around.

TK
 
Hate to say this, but mine was doing the same thing, then shortly after, the MAF died:( Mark
 
Originally posted by Buick Mark
Hate to say this, but mine was doing the same thing, then shortly after, the MAF died:( Mark

Mine did it with both the stock mass and LS1/Translator. I threw the WB-O2 on there and noticed the big change in AFR. I searched here and found several people that commenting that it was too lean on cold start so I decided to try it.

I assume GM had a good reason for doing it (I haven't compared it to the first release of the eproms to see if it's that way). Maybe an emissions fix for BBKJ? Also, we had 94 octane back in 86. Maybe that helped but I'd be surprised....
 
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