Hi everyone! Now that I've been driving my 1974 Series 3 Roadster for a few weeks, I think I'm getting to grips with the paradigm of driving a vintage classic and the eccentricities of our E Types in general. One thing that continues to vex me, however, is starting my Roadster up from cold. Both the owners manual and my mechanic warn against running the engine with the choke on for any length of time. But, I need the choke or else the engine will die. What I've been doing for the past week or so is:
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1. pull the choke out all the way
2. turn the key into the power on position just before cranking, wait 10-15 seconds for the fuel pump to do its thing, and crank the engine on
3. wait ~5 seconds, push the choke in halfway, and lightly press the accelerator to keep the revs up ~1500RPM
4. wait ~5 seconds again, push the choke in all the way, and continue to press the accelerator trying to keep the revs ~1500RPM
5. wait a few minutes until the temperature gauge moves about 1 needles width
6. put her into gear and head out of the garage

She's really choppy when she's cold and it's a challenging balancing act to keep the revs even until she warms up. More often than not I'll lose that balance and the engine will die. I typically have to crank her 4 or 5 times until I can get her to even out. I live in Los Angeles so will never really be in weather colder than 50 degrees F. When she's warmed up she idles really nicely at 750RPM exactly.

Is this the right way to do things when starting from cold? Is there anything that I can do to make the startup process less fiddly? Are there any modern quality of life upgrades aside from EFI that might help?

 

Your cold start routine sounds about right but you can leave the choke at the first click on for a while until things warm up a bit. If the cables are adjusted as they should be the first click of choke just increases the idle a bit, but it doesn't actually actuate the choke. The next two clicks apply the choke. As you start driving try leaving the choke on the first click for a while until the engine is closer to half way up to normal on the temp gauge. That should make a big difference. I'm in SF so have similar ambient temps and don't need the actual choke on for more than a minute or two before I start driving.

I'll also mention that I found I was cranking my '73 a fair bit when starting cold but found after replacing my fuel pump the starts were much faster and smoother. I put this down to the fuel flow being inadequate at cold for the carbs to work properly. The V12 has a double sided SU fuel pump so it's possible for one side to fail or start to fail but the car will appear to run relatively normally. When you turn the key for a cold start, but before starting, you should hear the pump run fairly rapidly but as the pressure builds (in a few seconds) the pump should slow down to hearing it click just once a second or so. If yours keeps running fast then your pump is starting to fail and is likely contributing to your cold start issues. If you do have a failing pump when you replace it you'll be surprised how much power you've been missing when accelerating!

 

Thanks, @lgridly! I appreciate your insight

I can confirm that my fuel pump also clicks rapidly for 3-4 seconds before it slows down. What's different in my car is that the choke only seems to have two clicks: one that's centered and and one that's the full-out click. I'll fettle with it when I leave work today; it's possible that the other clicks could just be subtle.