I had a engine rough idle and starting problem with my VR V8 SS 185i HSV. My car would start immediately when cold, but not when warm, unless I used the accelerator pedal. Sometimes I would turn the ignition key and leave on for about ten seconds (while listening to the fuel pump prime) before cranking the engine. This worked to start engine immediately for a while but then it got worse. Once the engine was running at idle, it would hunt and near stop. The engine under power seemed ok. But on deceleration the car seemed to be braking sharply. The cause turned out to be the fuel pressure regulator. Vacuum lines were checked and found that fuel was coming out of the vacuum port of the fuel pressure regulator. A Holden dealer took over seven hours to find the problem at great expense to me.
Nice to hear problem is solved and its always good to hear the fix. That is a long time though to find what is a fairly common problem. At least you know what to check for. Any fuel or fuel smell in that small vacuum line off the regulator is bad - the leaking fuel is sucked into the intake and effectively floods the engine. Symptoms are as you have described. You would probably find that a decent local mechanic would know about this one and should find the problem fairly quickly, if not walk up to the car and point straight to it. Particularly, because there is not a sensor or electrical component failing, there is no error code. The holden mechanics dont really see cars of this age in for repair that often and dont always know about the common problems. Its not a really common problem, I would say that the percentage of this model around still have the original regulators in, but it does come up every now and again, enough for the local mechanic to know about. Anyway the car is working, thats the main thing.
