Bad warm startup

P51CrazyHorse

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I've tried searching, but most of the posts don't apply to what my car is doing...

When it starts up cold, it runs and idles great. When the engine is up to operating temperature and you shut it off, but start it back up again within ten to fifteen minutes, it idles horribly (and sometimes stalls out) for a little bit, but will eventually stop.

Occasionally, my CEL will come on, and the code it comes up with tells me I've got a "lean fuel mixture", but if I reset the codes and don't do a warm startup for a while, it doesn't come back.

I can feather the fuel pedal during this bad idle to keep it running, and within minutes it stabilizes, but it's really embarrassing to have this happen (especially at work with all the other "car guys" around...) I'm not too experienced with this type of fuel injection, so I'm not sure what to look for to correct this issue. A "lean mixture" would indicate not enough fuel being delivered, but the way it acts is more like a flooded carburetor... Holding the throttle down opens up the air valve (butterfly flap) allowing more air in, if that makes sense.

Has anyone else had this issue and corrected it, or has knowledge of what to look for? I'm hoping it's something simple like a bad O2 sensor or something, but I haven't had much time lately to go into any real in-depth troubleshooting on it. Usually it's not an issue, since it's normally just driven from home to work in the AM, to the drive-thru at lunch, and then from work to home in the evening... but if I'm doing a lot of running around on the weekends, it's kind of irritating.
 

ZachSav

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clean your MAF, Air Filter, and check your fuel pump. If none of that works, pull the injectors and get them tested
 

JerZeyStangz

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Do the easy things first. Clean the Maf with Maf Cleaner gently, Check the Air filter, fuel filter, check the fuel pump etc..

But it seems like to me, it could be a O2 sensor problem, a lot of people tend look there last and it can make you car respond horribly.
 

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