Please include a picture of startup barometer & temp sensor

[nitroman]

These are the parts which we are supposed the set the ignition key to "ON" for 3-5 seconds before turning the key to the "START" position, so an accurate reading of barometric-pressure and air temperature is made.

I know I will find these by trolling through the manual, but plese, won't someone make my life easier?

I suspect one of these parts as when it's both very hot & very humid the car sometimes feels like it's missing A LOT until you let it idle about 90 seconds, and then it "rights" itself.

Anyone else ever have this happen? If so, how'd you solve it?

The WORST it ever happened was for like 5 minutes. That time whilst stopped at a light I moved the fascia-fan to 4 (high), which made it run even worse, so I shut the fan off and in that twinkling of an eye the car resumed a proper idle and ran great the rest of the day! What happened? Did I energize the alternator?

[GeoffSmith]

Matt, the ambient barometric pressure and temperature are just the first (few) reading(s) from the MAP and MAT sensors respectively. An ElanScan run should show what's happening.

The 90 second recovery time may be a clue as this is about the time it takes for the O2 sensor to warm up and go closed loop. I had really bad startup problems on a VW Polo when cold which sorted itself out after a couple of minutes: The CTS had gone low impedance so the ECU thought it was hot and underfuelled to start, then when it went closed loop, the fuelling was corrected. A temporary fix was to disconnect the CTS so the ECU thought it was -40°C and it ran a bit rich on startup.

[nitroman]

Muchas gracias Geoff! I have a spare CTS sensor so I'll replace that first and hope it does the trick. If not I'll have to buy a MAT sensor. Does anyone know if the MAT sensor xrefs to a non-Lotus part?

PS - However, if it gets much colder before I do these things, then it'll start fine all winter until it hits 75 or 80 fahrenheit again. It always starts fine when the ECU decides to richen the startup mixture.