Is it bad to start car with gas pedal to floor?

Not if you release the pedal in time to prevent high revs with the engine cold.

FWIW its likely you have a problem with flooding -- possibly caused by an injector leaking down.

Don

Your Lumina should start without touching the throttle. If you are having to floor it to start, you are putting the PCM into flood clear mode which suggest the engine is flooded. As don indicated, this is frequently an injector leakage problem which needs attention.

Lugnut

If a vehicle has a carburetor with an automatic choke, one must move the throttle to allow it to reset, or floor it to force it open. If one needs to force the choke open, too much fuel entering the carburetor. Moving the throttle on a modern EFI equipped vehicle is not necessary, or advisable, since the microprocessor sets the fuel/air ratio as needed.

mike

I guess my 1978 Dodge van is cold natured.In cold weather,the way I crank it up is to press the gas pedal to the floor twice and switch on the ignition,it won't start the first time or second time,but on the third try it always cranks up.When it does crank it runs kind of raggity untill the engine warms up.If I sit there and let it warm up for about five minutes and then shut it off and wait a few more minutes and then crank it up again,it cranks right up and runs ok.I know it needs a new choke spring,but new choke springs have been unavailable for years.I probally should install a manual choke on there. cuhulin

How old is this Lumina and does it have fuel injection or a carb (some very early ones did actually use a Rochester E2SE 2-barrel carb with electronic mixture control)?

To amplify what Mike said, if it is injected, if you push and hold the throttle past the 90% point during cranking the ECM will not pulse the fuel injectors. The fact that the car starts under those conditions tells me you have an injector that is leaky, and the engine needs the extra airflow to have a fireable mixture. As long as you let up on the throttle as soon as the engine starts, starting the car this way should not harm it, but you would be better off having it looked at and having the underlying problem resolved.

Regards, Bill Bowen Sacramento, CA

"Mike Hunter" wrote:

My little sister's (in her late 20's) car blew up about 5 years ago. So I loaned her my beloved '72 Plymouth Valiant 4 door (225 slant 6, 904 TorqueFlite tranny, it used to be a municipal car -- simple, white, had radio delete, plastic floormats/no carpet, only had like 70K miles, etc.). It DID run great. When I was at her house one day, she left to go to the store in my Valiant. She started it by flooring it all the way to the ground and then turning the ingition. So it was screaming! Here, it was cold and not properly lubed internally, and she starts it up at full throttle! I ran out and asked her not to do that. Long story, short. The Valiant blew up under her 'care'. :-( Lesson learned/moral of the story: when loaning out your car to someone, go over starting procedures.

In what country? In the US the Lumina started it's life with a 700 TBI unit on the 4 cylinder and multiport fuel injection on the V6. The Celebrity was the closest thing to a Lumina and they only had carbs through 1986. The Lumina was introduced in 1990 MY.

Opening the throttle also increases "running compresion" but I agree that the clear flood mode is likely why it starts and the cause is excessive fueling. If it's really cold where the OP is right now then excessive fuel on startup might just help the engine *to* start!

Toyota MDT in MO

In your case, with a normally asperated engine, pushing the pedal the first time will set (close) the choke. Any more pushing on the pedal will pump a small amount of fuel into the engine from the accelerator pump which is built into your carb.

Hank

Probably a leaky fuel injector allowing fuel to "pool" in the intake plumbing, necessitating a lot of air flow through the open throttle to clear it out.

Tends to wash oil off the cylinder walls accelerating wear, and also probably means its idling too rich (if its a leaky injector or injectors). But nothing immediately harmful.

But a '78 Dodge van is carbureted and therein lies the difference. That behavior is perfectly normal for a carbureted car... but when an EFI car like the OP's Lumina does anything but start right up with your feet flat on the floor, it indicates a problem developing.

A carbureted LUMINA? Nope. Don't think so. The very early Cavalier and Citation were carb'd, but not a Lumina.

Steve,

You're partially right - I was thinking 1982-84 vintage, which is of course the Celebrity, not the Lumina.

That's what I get for trying to reply to posts at 3 in the morning.

Bill

The choke needs to be working properly and properly adjusted for best cold weather starting. When you press the pedal to the floor twice, you are giving it a little extra shot of gas via the accelerator pump.

A manual choke conversion is normally pretty easy.

Seems that I have seen some electric conversions too, but never used one, and havent owned a carbureted car in years.