Ideling, and now Starting causing problems

OK 1stly,
Its in the UK
87 Camaro Z28 - 305ci Carb LG4 engine.
Everything stock

Ok here's the first problem, the car will not idle when its cold, ever. its smokey to start off with (fine after a little while).
The guy i bought it off has also turned up the idle speed but it still cuts out, I have to run it at about 3000RPMs to warm the engine up so that it will idle, also the car shakes noticably at low RPMs when its cold like this (is this normal?)

Does anyone know what could be causing these problems (theres probably lots of reasons!)

Then yesterday & today I've tried to start the car & the starter is turning the engine but its not firing. I did stall it yesterday trying to warm it up (lifted off to see if it would idle & it didn't) thinking i'de probably flooded the engine after a couple more goes I left it a day to try again. Today the same happened except it sounded like it was trying to fire (1 cylinder maybe) but the others weren't following its example :disappoin.

So now the car is stuck in the garage...

FUBAR

Welcome to the forum. When was the last time you gave the car a tune up? abd have the motor mounts ever been replaced?.

John

I've only just got the car so I don't know about when it was last tuned, when i bought it I had it inspected & the guy did recommend a "good service & a tune up" but as yet I haven't been able to arrange anything.

As for the motor mounts I have no idea.

Im at the bottom of a very steep car mechanics learning curve at the moment, having done very little with car engines before & never owned an American car before either.

FUBAR

oh and thanks for the welcome too

the smoke you see at start up is most likely caused by oil leaking past the valve seals, it burns up, and then the smoke goes away, unless you want to get the heads redone, it's not worth worrying about...

the smoke you see at start up is most likely caused by oil leaking past the valve seals, it burns up, and then the smoke goes away, unless you want to get the heads redone, it's not worth worrying about...Its getting into the cylinders somehow.
On the not starting issue, I had a friend look at the car who is a mechanic & we came to the conclusion that the car was choking itself & trying to fire with almost no air. With that held open it fires up fine & runs ok (even in zero degree weather) with a lot less warming up than before. Its a temporary bodge until we can get it sorted properly but that wont be long so it should be ok.

I also discovered it has a coolant leak coming from somewhere as the drip pan i put underneath had bluish liquid on it this evening when I moved the car.

Not that I knew buying this car was going to be a walk in the park but things keep coming up...

FUB

A coolant leak is most likely coming from one of three places. 1) water pump (an indication that the water pump is still working, but about to go) 2) a radiator, heater core, or bypass hose or 3) the radiator itself.

I managed to get the car up on a lift the other day to Have a look round underneath. The coolant leak is dripping onto the crossmember under the engine (think thats what its called) so its not coming from the radiator.

I also got emissions testing done on the car prior to its MOT & much to my suprise it was running a perfect (so im told) 14.75:1 air / fuel ratio & only 1% carbon particulates (pass rate is 3.5% in the UK for an '87 Car) This pleased me as I thought it was being crap!
Some problems remaining are:

Engine is knocking slightly
Oil Leak on top of the engine somewhere (possibly coming out of a disconnected breather pipe) but more likely rocker gaskets.
Coolant Leak
Some welding needs doing to pass its MOT (being done soon) due to its proximity to the rear suspension mounts. this was hiding behind the plastic body kit pieces on the side (£200 max)
Seatbelts need replacing to pass MOT (on order via eBay)
Handbrake only locks 1 rear wheel & not very well (is it supposed to do both?) again an MOT item

Probably more i've forgotten / haven't noticed yet

FUB