'84 Olds Cutlass Ciera has issues when engine is cold

[HabRob]

I have a 1984 Cutlass Ciera 3.0L 6 cycl. 2bbl. A few years back I had a Jasper rebuild put into the car. It runs great......once it gets hot.

When I first start the car the idle is very high(fast) and if you get out and go to the rear of the vehicle there is a white vapor coming from the exhaust pipe and the fuel mixture smells very rich. After starting I can drop the idle by tapping the accelerator. If I don't let the car get hot for at least 15 minutes and start to drive it the car will start to lose power and try to stall. If I floor the accelerator I can prevent the stall but the engine has no power and while floored I have a cloud of black smoke(carbon?) coming out of the exhaust. I have a black build up on the tailpipe from doing this. The gas mileage is horrible as well. Once the car gets hot it runs incredibly well but I want to correct this problem to avoid having to pre-heat my car and to get my money's worth out of the high priced fuel. I should also note that I have recently changed the air filter, PCV valve, canister filter, breather filter and fuel filter but the problem was present before I changed those filters.

I'm think its a choke or EGR issue but I would greatly appreciate any input someone could offer me that might solve or narrow the issue as I am only guessing. I'd like to do a complete tune up on the car but would rather wait till I solve this issue. Thanks for reading this and for your input.

Rob

[2Olds]

The white smoke is often a sign of a head gasket problem. You don't necessarily have to change change the gasket to fix the leak. I cant remember what the thing is called, but you run it through your engine and It seals up all of those leaks. It works fantastic, have used it twice on different vehicles.

[HabRob]

Its not the head gasket or I would smell burning coolant. I'm pretty sure its from the rich fuel mixture.

[HabRob]

I started to mess around with the vaccum lines going to the EGR valve and broke one(it was the hard plastic type) and couldn't re-attach it. I started the car and no white vapor and the car didn't try to stall out while cold. I'm going to replace the EGR and fix the vacuum lines and see what happens. It ran good but didn't have much immediate acceleration....it would pick up speed and gain high speed but at a more "relaxed" rate than normal when the engine is hot. I found some posts on google groups that indicated that a bad EGR valve and/or carbon build-up in the lines of the EGR caused similar problems that I've experienced in my year/engine.