2.3 Swap Advice

[scotts90ranger]

It could be that it is wanting the warm air on startup...did you install the small tube that that goes up from the exhaust manifold to the air intake? It has a vac line attached that controls the warm/cold air flow to the engine and it should be open when cold and closed when when the engine reaches operating temps...

Not that it is too cold right now, unless you are still in the low temps where you are...but my engine, although carbed, runs and idles great when it is warm...but getting the engine warm does involve a few rough idle symptoms...

Putting the block heater on mine cleared most of that up, but the colder the weather the longer the heater needs to be working...

my bet would be the coolant temp sensor would be the startup stumble

the return to idle thing is most likely the idle setting, mine was the same back in the day. Unplug the IAC valve and the engine should idle somewhere around 500rpm (if you dont have a tach, just see if it idles at all or doesn't change when you unplug the connector) then be around 8-900 normally, if the no IAC idle is low it won't catch itself well, screw the throttle stop screw in until it idles properly. You can do this with a volt meter on the TPS also, setting it to about .9V, but the idle speed thing doesn't require stabbing wires...

I haven't tried putting a distributor in a DIS engine, but the intake manifold is longer in the middle, sticks almost all the way to the alternator, so there isn't room for a distributor... Personally I like the DIS system better, when it works it works great and has a stronger spark. If you look at this pic:

you'll see how close the front of the intake manifold is to the alternator mount, I stole the pic from someone else's post...