Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

It was a cold day in November, the temperature was 8 degC.
I drove my car to a nearby lake, 3 miles away, parked up and walked around the lake, which took 40 minutes.
On my return journey, my car was miss-firing as I accelerated through the gears for about 1 mile, and then ran normally.
The next day, the exact same thing happened again.
At this point I realised what was going on:
When starting the engine from cold, there is a ‘choke-function’ which idles the engine at 1700 rpm, and the car then drives normally.
But, after leaving the car parked for 40 minutes at an outside temperature of 8degC, the engine starts and idles at 1000 rpm, and the ‘temperature gauge’ indicates zero.
I let the engine idle for 3 minutes, after which the ‘temperature gauge’ indicated one quarter, and the car then drove normally.

The Honda PGMFI is a clever system. When starting from cold, it will run richer and increase the idle, as pulling the old choke used to do. It shouldn't misfire though...

I would have a look at 'ignitor' inside the distributor. It might be worth fitting a new one and see if the problem goes away. In fact, it's worth keeping one in your glove box, just in case it fails an an awkward moment. This is the part - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/135986673940

Aside: If you watch the rev counter while it warms up, it's easy to spot the steps from 1700->1500->1300->1100 and down to the normal 'warm' of about 800rpm.