What year Astra and what size engine? Really need to know this before commenting
intrade,
Jul 25, 12:18am
i dont know but you want to start it and when it runs rough pull the plugs. You are inscribing a leaking headgasket in to combustion chamber and over time the cilinder will be scored if thats the case. as per above we need to know what you got The z18-xe has the ecu on the engine it wont ever be wet.
mrfxit,
Jul 25, 12:42am
Classic case of dampness or failing electrical connection
Right. so, this could be a lot of things but appears to be clearly something effected by dampness & resolved by heat.
Son had a car that started rough 1st thing in the mornings but came right about 10 seconds later = proven leaking head gasket. Another car had the same symptoms but was proven to be a tiny fracture in an ignition coil.
Failing plug lead Weeping headgasket Cracked coil Dying plug lead Cracked dizzy cap (if it has one) Poor earth in the ign system somewhere Injector pump failing Seeping injector pipe letting air in/ weak pressure on a single injector Failing injector. Failing injector power lead
Seriously, look at anything that gives trouble when cold but is ok once warmed up & yes that includes electrical items.
poppy62,
Jul 25, 1:40am
I think these were prone to corrosion around the cylinders. The "land" between the bore and water galleries is quite narrow and with the head gasket deteriorating as well it's prone to coolant seeping into the combustion chamber/bore. Happened on Son's 1998 Astra.
intrade,
Jul 25, 2:02am
the problem is if you ditch it anything new is the exact same. carjam it if its the x18 -xe there is 2 versions one with drive by wire and one with cable throttle .
intrade,
Jul 25, 2:11am
coolant problem are becase one does not change the coolant every 24 month as it should be. or if not changed mesured with refractometer i like to change it in the lower 30°- and its shot if it reaches -26° most new coolant is -38 we used to bump it to -42 in the 1990s in europe.
fishb8,
Jul 25, 3:01am
Does it have hydraulic tappets? I had a 2.0L corona that used to make a small noise on start up and worse the colder it was. Put in some Castrol synthetic 5-20 oil for winter running and the sticky tapped cured itself.
mrfxit,
Jul 25, 3:07am
Blown yes Seepage not so much
clark20,
Jul 25, 4:45am
Make sure the spark plug holes are dry, with the seals on the spark plug leads can leave moisture down there and may need drying off
casualobserver,
Jul 25, 5:23am
We just had the same problem - turned out to be the ignition coil in our case.
franc123,
Jul 25, 9:38am
You did the spark plugs at the same time?
rovercitroen,
Jul 25, 11:59am
My Citroen C4 would run like a hairy goat and throw a check engine light when it was a wet or damp day. Coil pack had a crack in it and the spark plug gaps were huge. New plugs, new coil pack. Runs like a charm now wet or dry.
nice_lady,
Jul 25, 6:20pm
Hubby reckons in the old days of carburettor engines his first thought would be perhaps a stuck autochoke ?
Not sure if that would apply in this situation ?
intrade,
Jul 25, 6:21pm
we need to know what engine and what version and where the ecu is. or it be like guessing game in the dark. The symptoms discription match unless you have the other version who has a egr valve. as the z18-xe with drive by wire has no egr valve.
yz490,
Jul 25, 8:35pm
Had a very similar sounding thing happen on my mazda glx coupe "82 single cam 2 liter. Would start on 3 in the morning & come right in a few seconds then be ok. Took a long time to get worse & got so bad it would hydraulic on first start then get over tdc & start on 3 & take longer to come right [poor old car]. Went looking in the end & took plug out of number 3 & water shot out on turning over. Funny thing is it never used to pressurise the radiator until near the end. Head off & had etched the bore real bad but new rings fixed it until i sold it about 10 years later as a fixer-upper as was getting rusty but still went well. Carburetted motor by the way.
kazbanz,
Jul 26, 12:11am
My thinking exactly. Im betting on a breaking down coil
intrade,
Jul 26, 1:10am
its another engine code . look on the engine intake is there a computer and do you have a gas cable or drive by wire diiiii noise with ignition on when you slowly move gas pedal.
intrade,
Jul 26, 1:14am
thats the emgine i have had in my astra XE-20BG3204 this is yours
well do you get air come out the exhaust when you rev it more?
tamarillo,
Aug 11, 6:38am
Why do you think it’s the cat? Swaptronics unlikely to fix it. Shouldn’t original mechanic who cleaned sensors be back to find what’s wrong?
intrade,
Aug 11, 6:45am
missfires can melt down the cat.
yz490,
Aug 11, 6:47am
Unlikely--but I wonder if the mechanic that change the plugs might've got a couple of plug leads crossed if it ran better than 'that' prior to plug change--better than 'that' after getting past the initial warm up problem you mentioned in post #1.
yz490,
Aug 11, 6:52am
I smacked the cat out of my toyota grande years ago & didn't go any better, just lacked useful torque that my year earlier model had. In the end i decided it was a JDM low horsepower output car so lived with it. Rusted off its wheel in the end like the earlier one. But destroying the cat just left a hollow sound under the floor. Regretted that lol.
intrade,
Dec 9, 9:52pm
the danger are emissions can set limp home for cat inefficiency = you then go and buy and fit a new cat if you went and destroyed it. or you have to completely edit the engines fueling map. you be regretting having to pay for a new cat if there was nothing wrong with it before you destroyed it.
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