[Bertoni1980]

Paul, you are absolutely right that the CPR (control pressure regulator) provides the necessary enrichment of fuel for cold starting. I spent a few hours yesterday researching on the internet about it. It is apparently used by many brands of cars (Audi, VW, Porsche) besides Volvo and it is more commonly called as WUR (warm up regulator). I have read quite a few discussions on other web forums talking about how to dismantle it, clean it up or even calibration of it. I decided to give it a try and I took it apart.

The CPR on my 1980 Bertone is a little more complicated than simple WURs on other cars. I was able to take the discs (the actual part that does the pressure regulation) out and clean them up. I also cleaned up the fuel inlet and outlet to make sure there is no blockage. There is really nothing that can be damaged by doing this. It took me no more than an hour and I had it back in the car again.

It seems to have made some improvement although I can't say it's perfect. I have the Haynes manual too. Its description of the idle adjustment procedure is far too simple. But it lays the ground of the basic of the adjustment. After an hour of tweaking the idle air adjustment screw and the CO adjustment (the hidden screw between the fuel distributor and the air intake I was able to get the idle reasonably stable at 900 - 1000 RPM. Iit could warm start without any problems. I then tried to cold start it 3 hours later. It did not start in my first attempt. But it started on the 2nd and with a little bit of pedal. I think this is quite acceptable. I will try it again tomorrow morning after it sits through the night.

The bottom line of these adjustment will have to result in a good exhaust that will pass California's SMOG check. I think I will have to send it to a shop that can make a final tweaking so that it will pass the SMOG check. The shop is likely to redo everything in their way with CO meter hooked up. For me I just need to make sure the Auxiliary air valve, thermo time switch and CPR are not defective. I believe they are in reasonable good shape.

I actually took it to a spin around the block today. It ran very smoothly. It shows plenty of push and the engine is very quiet. I did hear a little bit of pinging upon a little hard acceleration. I had the ignition timing set to -10 degree. This is probably too much. I will back it down to -8 degree and see if the pinging will go away.

Many thanks, Paul. I will let you know if I still need anything. By the way, I did clean my ignition distributor cap before I reinstalled the intake and fuel system. On the B27/28 engine there is no way to reach the distributor cap without removing the fuel distributor. This is a pain in the neck to do. So I made sure it was checked and cleaned before installing it. I also had new Bosch plugs installed. So the ignition system should be in good shape. Thanks for sharing your experience about it.