rough idle, up/down, 2cyl on start

998cc EFI MPV

last year the van was lumpy when i pulled away from a stop. a mate and i replaced the plugs and rotor arm. fixed problem.
2 months later (mid winter with snow) every time i start the van from cold, not all the cylinders were firing, after half a min all 3 were going good. so i then replaced the HT leads with new non-OEM ones. this didnt fix the problem so i put it down to being too cold.

well now its warmer (just) and it still starts on 2 then goes on 3 after a short while.

last few days i have noticed the idle speed higher than normal on cold starts. goes down when i start driving.
this afternoon i left work at midday as got left over BMF stuff to do.. started on 2cyl as usual! pulled up at 1st junction and i noticed the idle was up..down..up..down! if it were a bike.. id say get your carbs balanced! it did this for a few miles while i got out of town. then was fine 5 mins later.
the van went to BMF and home with no problems, did get near hot on temp while sat waiting to get out the showground, i put the heater on full blast which cooled the van after a min.
the van has an automatic choke, wondering if this is playing up.

Mine did that to a certain extent and it was cloging the plugs up rotten and it was the fact that is was burning water which made it run rich till the plugs clogged so if you have a slight weep at the head gasket its a possibility if you can pull the lead off the cylinder to identify it then do a compression test to check if it is that, but back to the auto choke as far as I know it's ECU controled rather than a wax stat which are renound as tempramental but wouldn't give you a cylinder down at start up have you checked the dizzy cap?

i'll see what i can do when i get some time.. back on bike this week :0)

I agree with Rich, that "hunting" revs up down up down while trying to idle is another common sign I've noticed with charades with head gasket or head failure. I cannot tell you the factual reason but my guess is that the water temp sensors in the cylinder head keeps picking up boiling bubbles of air causing the ecu to irratically alter the fueling. A major tell tale symptom is the water level in the header tank bottle rises really high and air locks bubble out, you can get a chemical to test for sulpher from the burnt petrol in the coolant.

On the charades I've tried: cleaning the throttle body assembly, cleaning the idle up solenoid, replacing map sensor, tps sensor, O2 sensor, vacume hoses to the sensors. A combination of which has usually made them better but still never quite perfect. I suspect its just a symptom of another issue.

That ignition fault is probally your best direction. Rich said pull HT leads and move the parts round to see if the fault moves. Hopefully this will just be a dizzy cap issue!

Hi to Highlyjetted thought you had disappeared hope the missus and the baby are well if out of hospital.

Thanks, nothing yet Rich. Yesterday was the due day (D-day) but no signs of life yet. Its all a bit to much!

its not done it again since that day.