Disconnected My Cold Start Injector - Do I Really Need It?

[Captain Obvious]

I disabled my cold start injector a little while ago by pulling off the electrical connector. Just to see how the car would perform on cold starts without it, and decide if I really needed it or if I could do without.

I've not used the car much since I disabled it, but the results are not that dramatic. The cranking times when "Pennsylvania cold" are definitely longer than with it connected, but they are not "objectionable". I'm assuming that if I were in Canada or Wisconsin, I wouldn't be able to get away with this, but here in PA it seems to be OK without.

This is a fair weather car for me anyway and I don't expect it will get a lot of winter usage. I'm thinking I may remove it completely and get rid of that complexity. Pull it off and cap the holes.

What say you? Anyone else disabled theirs and have advice to share?

I guess I could use a switch to temporarily insert a fixed resistor in series with the CTS to fool the ECU into adding extra fuel through the injectors if I find the cranking times unacceptable. This winter hasn't really been a good test of cold weather starts...

[FastWoman]

... or add a normally closed pushbutton in series with the CTS sensor. If you push it, fuel will come.

[sblake01]

I guess I could use a switch to temporarily insert a fixed resistor in series with the CTS to fool the ECU into adding extra fuel through the injectors if I find the cranking times unacceptable. This winter hasn't really been a good test of cold weather starts...

... or add a normally closed pushbutton in series with the CTS sensor. If you push it, fuel will come.

If the oem stuff is working as it should, why would you do either of those, why bother??

[Captain Obvious]

If the oem stuff is working as it should, why would you do either of those, why bother??

Why? Because I can.

Seriously though... I'm not sure my OEM stuff IS working as it should. I'm running rich and for all I know it might be a leaky cold start injector. Honestly, I don't think that's the problem, but if I didn't even HAVE a cold start injector, I could cross that off my list, right? It would just be one less potential leak source, and a little less plumbing and complexity. Just a slightly simpler, cleaner system without it. Granted, not a huge difference, but every little bit helps.

Thinking about it some more, the truly elegant solution to fooling the ECU into sending more fuel would be to use the thermotime switch to actuate a NC relay in series with the CTS. That way, it would energize and open the NC relay under the same conditions that it would previously have actuated the cold start injector. (Did I say that right?)