Sounds like a flooding. And tends to happens to the Civics. An injector or two
freezes and the start injections are dirty/irregular. This will cause flooding
to the rest of the cylinders ending up with a pile of WHITE smoke usually
at the tailpipe.

After it sputters and die, you can prove the sticky injector problem by
opening the throttle part way for the vapor or WHITE smoke to clear. Or
remove the ECU+fuel pump fuse, crank for 10 seconds then put the fuse back
in and try again. Then ship out the injectors for cleaning. Or try fuel antifreeze.
Sorry, can't CC a copy, I've no working email in at the time. Someone do
him a favor?

--
Burt

"Ryan Radford" <rrradford@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:6040a2a3.0410172247.1dd6a302@posting.google.c om...
> I've been having some problems over the past few years with my 1992
> Honda Prelude not liking to start as the weather gets colder. In the
> Spring/Summer/Early Fall (Vancouver, Canada), I never have problems
> with it starting. However as the weather starts to cool down and the
> car is sitting (overnight for example) it is a real struggle getting
> it to start. It's only Fall now, so I'm worried that by winter I'll
> be lucky if I can get it going at all.
> In the past 2 years I've had a tune-up, new battery, new fuel filter,
> new thermostat & upper radiator hose, and a new oxygen sensor done on
> the vehicle. Each time, it seems to be starting better, although I am
> inclined to think that maybe the weather was just getting warmer once
> they finished the work so it would have started fine anyway. Bottom
> line, it's still having the problem now that the cold weather is
> starting, so I am still stuck with it.
> When I try to start it, it cranks over fine (not slow or anything) and
> it usually starts to cough and sputter a little (like it's really
> close to starting but it just can't quite make it). At that point,
> depending on how much it was sputtering, I get a cloud of WHITE SMOKE
> coming from the under hood on the driver side (right below the
> windshield). If I leave it for a minute or so and then play around a
> little more, it eventually starts up. Once it starts up, it runs
> totally fine. In fact, the wierd part, is that once I've got it
> started, there's no more problems starting at all. I can shut it off,
> start it again, drive around for as long as I need to; it will start
> up instantly everytime. It's only when I leave it for a long period
> of time (overnight typically) and it's cold that it has big troubles.
> Any ideas at all? Specifically the white smoke seems to be a flag
> about something. I just don't know what it is.
> Thanks, Ryan Radford rrradford@yahoo.com
> Please CC a copy of your reply to the abovee address. Thank you.