Whenever I warm up my engine the red battery warning light always comes up. My rev. stays at 1K but when I rev it up a bit to 3k the warning light goes out but once the rev drops down to 500 the engine stops also. I need to warm it about 15 minutes for the light to be off otherwise if I warm it less than 10 minutes and take it out the engine stops very often when braking that is when the needle drops to about 500. Any advice?
Idle is too low. Cold, the engine should idle about 2-2.5K RPM during warm-up. Warm, about 1K, +-100.
The light should go out immediately when you start it, or at least after a tiny blip to trip the regulator off. Then, idle speed during warm up is controlled by an auxillary/throttle bypass air valve. To check this is working, clamp the hose with big pliers to close it. If it has no effect on idle when cold it is not working. This is quite common. It may be repairable, but possibly need a new one. To set the warm idle, even with a faulty air valve, just clamp the air pipe, and set the idle using the big bolt on the air by-pass body. DO NOT adjust the throttle butterfly screw. This should be sealed and locked once the butterfly gap has been set to 0.003" and NEVER touched. It's also possible you have a faulty control pressure regulator, meaning your fuel mixture is wrong. Make use of a gas analyser to check CO during warm up is about 4-5%, then drops back to about 1% when warm at 1000rpm with A/C off.. You may need to measure fuel pressure to verify.
Both my QV's and 328's light stayed on when cold started until you reved the motor to 1500-2000RPM. I think that's normal, but the motor dying is not. Dave
Our 88 328 GTS needs a blip of the throttle to about 2,000 rpm to make the charge light go out when you first start it. I assumed it was just a blip in the charging system amperage to trigger a regulator or something. Idle dropping to 500 rpm and stalling while warming up does not sound normal and sounds to me like the warm-up idle speed control system has issues. Steve
Took it to mechanics today and they said the problem is the CO mixture and it was about .4% and now it is 1.55%. Is this ok? I will try out tomorrow's morning when the engine is cold and see whether the symptom has been cured.
