Hello All, I've had my Volvo for about three years now and I really enjoy it! It's an '82 and it is so clean and so nice... Anyways I have been having problems with it and recently got a major one fixed. I'm not really good a auto lingo so please bear with me. I had a problem where I would lose power while driving. That was a loose wire/wires connecting to the ICU. That problem is probably on the board somewhere... So that is taken care of.

So the next thing I would like to fix is how the car starts when cold. How I get it to start now is that I will turn the key until I hear the fuel pump turn on. Then I'll crank it. Note: I'll describe how it feels and maybe you can get a sense of what I am working with.

Once I crank it I am hoping that I can get some "start" (initial revving) and then I'll gently juice the gas pedal (for about two seconds) so I can keep the car from stalling out. Then I gently keep the rpms at around 2000 to "clear the cobwebs". What I mean but that is I'll give it a little gas and then come off and then repeat for about 15-30 seconds.

Then I'll not juice the pedal anymore. The tach will drop to well under 500 rpms and then the car will shudder and sputter only to have the rpms go back to just under 1000. And once she's warmed up she's ready to go! (Once she been warmed up she kinda idles high, between 1100 and 1500, dunno if that helps or not)

If I do not do this correctly or not at all, what happens is the car will get that initial revving and then she kinda sputters, shudders and cuts out. And then after about 3, 4, 5 tries I'll get her going and we are on our way!

What would be the first thing I should check? I've recently replaced the wires and distributor cap, I've heard that my coil? looks good, like I said before I'm not very technical with cars, but i am handy and can follow directions. Thanks in advance!