Hey Scotty, My 02 Civic has a problem on cold start. When I start the engine, the car is sluggish and almost wants to die and it idle high and then goes back to normal. It could be the Throttle position sensor or faulty fuel pump or something else. This car has 65K miles. If it were to be the TPS sensor, What is the correct way to calibrate? Thanks.
Why are you guessing? Why not perform some diagnostics instead and find out what the problem is. Scan for codes and live data, and check obvious items fuel pressure, vacuum leaks, plugs, filters, maybe clean the throttle body and MAF sensor?
You can find a repair manual for that car here:
When I start the engine, the car is sluggish and almost wants to die and it idle high and then goes back to normal.
It's normal for a cold engine to idle high on initial start-up. The engine will also run slightly rich (more fuel than air is termed "running rich").
When you press the gas as it's warming up, does the car want to die, then "catch up" and start revving like normal again? This could likely be a vacuum leak. If the rubber tubing that controls vacuum is all original, the hoses most likely are starting to dry rot.
If your check engine light is on, scan the system with a scan tool and start troubleshooting possible causes. Scanning for codes isn't a shopping list. You have an excellent resource for it -this site!
@justin-shepherd only on the first cold start up.
Update here. I found out my Coolant temperature sensor was causing all of my cold start and starting problems. I replaced recently a new coolant temperature sensor but I over tightened and I thought of myself I’ll let it go and see what happens. It was a month later when things started to happen. First my temperature gauge was acting up, then my cold start problem, high idle at drive and then I had excessive cranking and that was the final straw and I saw my coolant temperature sensor was leaking coolant and I saw it was broken. I replaced with a Carquest brand and then all of my problems disappeared.