Engine turned off on low idle

[inuvik]

Oh, the flooding thing definitely happens to Mirages. They run pretty rich when cold especially an early one like that. Then if you shut down and restart it a few times with it cold it will flood and it requires you to pin the throttle and crank it a while so it can clear itself out a bit.

Yes you can flood a Mirage and the owner's manual describes it. If the OP's Mirage is run so little and just basically idling then my vote is to drive it with a little authority for awhile.

[Fummins]

The turd bucket I have on the hoist with a dead cvt is flooded. It's more common on the older ones 2014 and 2015. They had a recall for it which helped a little but doesn't stop it from happening.

I had one mirage with a bad vent solenoid(vsv in toyota terms). It threw a code for the solenoid as well as a lean code. There is probably a thread about it here somewhere.

It's possible the op has that problem. But we'll likely never know. Especially if they never get the thing scanned with a proper tool

[7milesout]

I put an AFR gauge (an oxygen sensor) in my old Scamp and tuned it to perfection. Then I put the AFR gauge on my Honda Rebel. It is AMAZING just how rich that Honda Rebel 250 runs when choked. And it runs WELL when choked.

I have my Scamp tuned to run probably 11.0:1 when cold and manually choked. And a warm unchoked idle on the Scamp is about 13.0~13.5. Rich. And it needs to be, and runs very well.

The Rebel? Is a heckuva lot richer than that. It runs a cold choke at 8.0 or less (the gauge only reads to 8.0). And the gauge will read a solid 8.0. And that is the stock carburetor setup. Apples and oranges somewhat. But the Rebel engine runs very well that rich until it is fully warmed up.

Which makes me wonder ... when the Mirage engine is becoming flooded, just how friggin rich is it? It's hard for me to imagine that the ECU can read a signal from the O2 sensor correctly and still flood the engine. Makes me wonder if the O2 sensor could failing and be sending the wrong signal under these cold conditions. An interesting topic.

[Eggman]

Which makes me wonder ... when the Mirage engine is becoming flooded, just how friggin rich is it?

Isn’t the rich AFR at cold start supposed to help light off and heat up catalytic converters? I don’t know, I’m no engineer.

[7milesout]

It does that too. I'm guessing most engines aren't going to idle at stoich when cold. No way the Scamp or Rebel will idle at stoich when cold. They barely idle at stoich when warm. I suspect even modern day engines will work mostly the same way. But it is all taken care of by programming in the ECM.

[Fummins]

When the engine is cold, the fuel won't evaporate properly, so what would normally be a correct mixture on a hot engine will actually be a weak mixture when cold. To overcome this, more fuel is added when the engine is cold to give a more ideal mixture for starting.

I stole that from here https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/...ment-necessary