I used to be able to turn my car on and immediately drive away and shift with no problems smooth as could be.

A few months ago if I would start my car and not let it run for about 20 seconds before taking off (I wake up just in time to throw on clothes, brush teeth, and shoot out for work or school) when I would shift into second gear my RPMs would drop drastically from around 3000 to 500-750 causing a jerk in the car and then it would jump back up and not act up the rest of the day.

This would only happen in the mornings and I thought maybe it just needed a few seconds to warm up after sitting all night, it had just hit a little over 20k miles I figured maybe age had caught up to it or something.

Well progressively it got worst and now I can even leave the car running for a bit before leaving and it will stumble for probably a good minute or two when I shift if I don't shift very carefully and slowly. After the couple minutes it will act normal, but if I leave it sitting on campus for longer than a few hours or at work it seems to stumble on the first shift.

I have stage 2 and have had it for a few months before the problem originally started so I don't think that is it. Anyone have any ideas I don't have much time to drop my car off at the dealer and I'm hoping it can be an easy fix.

Any help is appreciated. *My intake is not on the car yet*

 

I had this same jerking problem. Its your sparkplugs. I changed mine and all the jerking went away.

 

ok thanks, I actually have a set of new spark plugs lying around I guess I'll gap em and put em in and see what happens.

 

when you get ready to put your intake on, pull the throttle body and give it a good cleaning, you'll be really surprised at how smooth she idles after that.

 

Alright, I changed out the plugs but since it hadn't been sitting long I couldn't really tell if the problem went away, however it did start up quicker and idle a lot smoother (idle wasn't bad before but it is definitely smoother). The plugs didn't look fouled but I dunno.

I guess tomorrow will be the big test and I'll be back with an update.

Thanks SScharged112 even if it doesn't fix the problem at least my car is running better overall lol.
Also, thanks arkkornkid I didn't even think of doing that so when I get some time to put the intake on I'll clean it out.

 

What plugs did you go with? Mine stumbles sometimes on upshifts, always has even since new. I was thinking of switching to the 1 step colder NGK BKR7E's.

 

I'm stage 2 and that's what I use, gapped at 38, but you might have to experiment...run with the highest possible gap that it'll run smooth at....start with either 40/42. and with copper you'll have to change or at least check them more often, but the cost and ease of changing is worth it

 

I had some Autolites one step colder and gapped em to 40.

 

you have to let your car warm up. problem solved. you shouldn't be just turning the car on and immediately driving, give the oil a chance to circulate a little bit, especially when it's cold. what you'r eexperiencing is totally normal in a manual car that is not warmed up at all. that's why it goes away mysteriously after a few minutes. so either deal with it, or let the car warm up. those are the 2 options. you should let the car get to about 100 degrees before driving at least.

 

You should be using the stock gap, which is .035 I believe.

 

stock gap is .038 for certain years and i think .039 for certain years. none of the cobalts come with a gap of .035

 

Yup. My 3rd brain fart of the day. *slams head against the wall*

Supposedly .035 is a good gap if you are staged and go with the 1 step colder. Not sure how true that statement is however since I have yet to change my stock plugs. I have a 3" pulley with 42's and a mildly modded stage 2 tune. It runs alright, seems to lag a bit in the low RPM's (below 2000) but other than that it runs fine.

 

you should always let your car warm up before moving it. if not, enjoy scoring your cylinder walls and creating unecessary wear on engine components and sludge build up

 

No this is not a normal "let the car warm up" as I said. None of my other cars did this after years of driving them.

At this point it would have to warm up for 5 minutes before driving, that is not normal.

I know the way I stated it seemed like I was cranking and racing off but thats not quite what I meant.

And I most definitely won't sit in my driveway for 5 minutes letting my car's engine warm up. Especially when the temp outside was almost 100 when the problem started so it wasn't a cold weather scenario, and it still isn't now. But, after it was sitting a work when it would normally stumble a little it still has yet to, but I still want to see in the morning.

 

it's normal, and that's what cobalts do. 100 degrees is nothing when you consider that engine temps are well into the thousands. if you don't want to let the car warm up, then you have to deal with the bucking and the car driving shitty. that's just the way it is.

 

the problem is completely gone now. My car never did that until recently, and after changing the plugs it stopped. The only thing I can see is that it was the plugs. Thanks for the help.