Engine Shudder

[Moloch]

We had a very cold mornings for the past couple of days and this is when this started to happen.
Only happened in the morning I go to start my engine up it cracks tries to run shudders really bad and dies, I restart it and it runs. I could really feel the vibration it was pretty strong.
its a 2.0 Eclipse engine. 92 non turbo manual transmission. Yes the transmission was in neutral. Right now it has Castrol GTX W5-30.

 

[wavinwayne]

My '00 VW GTI 1.8T does that when it's cold......always has. It ONLY happens when it's cold & it doesn't really bother me.

 

[Curious Kid]

I can't say it's not related to the increased viscosity of the oil causing rotation restance via pump and bearing faces, hydralic lifter refill, poor fuel vaporization and the like. There's also part fitment issues due to further material contraction within the engine from their designed optimum (full operating temperature). Also consider the stiffening of the motor and transmission mounts as well, which will make them more likely to transmit rather than absorb the torque pulses from each cylinder's firing to the rest of the vehicle's frame.

From my experience concerning motor mounts, I replaced an upper mount that ties the engine to the firewall. Not giving the siffness of the new insert (poly vs. factory rubber) much though and how cold might effect it, I have come to terms with the cold-start feel as the engine jars itself to high idle, and throbing the dash. Once warmed however, everything smooths out. This might explaing the surprising vibrations that I noticed when first seating myself in a used BMW M3 at the dealer - the steering wheel was noticeably vibrating right there infront of me as the car idled. Now that I think about it, it wasn't really that cold out. I suppose things were more "sport" in it's fitment, so something approaching solid mounts may have been causing such transfer (beam resonance in the steering wheel's case).