Is this normal? I usually have it in first gear when in parked. I'll turn on the car, take it out of 1st and into nutruel and the RPMs will quickly go from 1500 and drop down (fast) to about 750. It normally doesn't do that, esp. when the car is cold. Most of the time, it'll idle at 3k, radatior will come on and drop slowly down to 750-1500.

Any ideas? Just being cauious over here.

 

tap the gas during ignition and it should idle at 2500 rpms until it warms up then it should idle at 5-800rpms

 

It is normal for the car to idle higher when starting due to what is called open-loop opertion. It is designed to help the engine reach proper operating temperature faster. It will also always rev higher when the shifter is in the neutral position than in any gear until after it gets warmed a bit (I'm not sure why it does this but they all do). The high rev is actually caused by a rich start which is necessary to ensure combustion in a cold engine (equivalent of a choke on a carburetor). A lot of the hard restart when warm after running problems are caused by the car going back into open-loop when the engine is turned off. The car does not realize that the engine is warm so it creates a rich start again and can flood the engine easily. I have this problem a lot and it is usally overcome by holding the gas all the way to the floor if the engine does not start after the first couple of spins. You should not hold the pedal down on a cold start in a fuel injected car nor should you touch the pedal until the R's drop down to around 1000-1500. The ECU will set and maintain the proper mixture (usually) for a cold start. If you hit the pedal during this phase, you can throw off the mixture and possibly flood the engine if it becomes necessary to restart it within the next few minutes. Be kind to your 7 and she will be kind to you. I always give my T2 an encouraging word right before any start. ---Jeremy