Car shudders on start, occasionally dies (and floods as a result)

[vishesh]

Whenever I start my J ('95, 115k miles) it does this weird thing where the tach jumps to 2000RPM or so then immediately drops down to 500 (or less) and nearly shuts off before steadying out at a little under 1000RPM and will idle there. Occasionally, the RPM's won't recover and the engine will just die. When it does that, I've gotta floor it while starting the engine the next time because it gets flooded when it shuts off like that. I've also noticed that shortly after starting (and before the car has really warmed up) the engine seems like it is faltering. For example, I just turn on the car, leaving the train station, and have to stop at a red light. As I'm braking, I can see on the tach that the RPM's are dropping and the engine seems like it is faltering. This has just started happening in the past few days (or maybe I've just started noticing it in the past few days). Any thoughts on what's causing this? Is this normal operation for a J30 of this age and with this many miles on it, or should I take it in?

Not sure if it is a factor, but I'm in Chicago and the winter has been unpredictable this season. Some days it is ridiculously cold and other days it is mild. Not much snow yet either.

Any advice would be appreciated.
Modified by vishesh at 8:32 PM 1/3/2007

[driverdriver]

Is your MAF blocked?

[vishesh]

I can check...where is the MAF?

[95-J30tt]

MAF is the mass air flow sensor, it is hooked up to the air cleaner box, check it out and clean it since you are there, use some electric circuit cleaner, hope this helps, good luck

[vishesh]

Thanks...I'll pull it out and see if anything is blocking it and clean it while I'm there.

Thanks.