Cold engine start, high idle reduction mod

[Phantom]

To keep it from stalling a bit when backing out of the drive way you could back in to the driveway when the engine is not and just drive forward when leaving.

[saand]

Thank you all for your reply’s and suggestions.
For those interested. I already have a grill block which I put in for aero improvement rather than keeping in heat. I didn't notice much change in idle reduction. As brucepick suggests it looks like the high idle was designed into the car for some reason probably for the very worst case situation it might need the high idle. The thermo device that reduces the idle at temperature runs off a coolant line so the coolant has to get warm before the idle reduces which means the whole engine block has to get warm. This takes more than a few minutes even with a grill block unfortunately. I also toyed with the idea of a block heater but I don’t think I could ever be bothered turning it on in the morning and at a guess the money used on electricity to heat up the engine would be comparable to the fuel saved.

Yes I could kill the engine at lights which would also get around my high idle problem but I don’t want to risk having my car not start at the lights. It has been temperamental at times and I would hate to hold up traffic. But I did still think about this and I guess for those prepared to take the risk it would be worthwhile and if your worried about wear on your starter, brushes are cheap to get. From reports on various threads it seems not much else wears out (I could be wrong though).

I had also thought about backing into my drive which would help somewhat however im on a main road so very difficult to do and would waist more petrol waiting for cars to pass so I could back it in.

[Phantom]

I'm not sure how the Throttle body (TB) is set up on your car but there should be an idle air stop screw, the screw will adjust how far back the TB plate will close since the arm the throttle cable if connected to rests on the screw.

With this you have two options tighten or loosen it.
If you tighten it the TB plate will not close as much this can help your stalling problem when cold and a 1/4 turn might be all it needs, but this will slightly raise the idle speed as the TB will let more air in at 0% throttle.
You could loosen the screw (possibly) and that will close the TB more with 0% throttle. That could make the stalling problem a little worse but as you said that could be fixed by making the popcan hole larger. The good thing with this is it can slightly drop the idle speed at all temps after correction has ended. One issue that could come with this is the TB plate might stick a little when starting the car cold but a small turn of the screw can correct that if you backed it out to much.