Smoking clutch and stall on starting
 

Ok so I have two questions

1. I had a brand new clutch put in like 4 days ago. When I am harder on the clutch, like when I give it a bunch of gas to start off or hill start, I have noticed a distinct smoking smell. This was accentuated today by me practicing hill starts a few times and seeing a very small amount of white smoke out of the passenger side air intake/ engine port. I immediatly stopped and called the shop. They said it is probably residue due to replacing all the seals and ims etc, and that it should burn off in a week. I am just nervous due to not being a very good stick driver etc. is this normal? After calling them I let it cool off for a bit then drove it home without problems.. The clutch is very jerky and "tight" feeling, it takes some finece not to kill it but start out quick.

2. When I start the car, some of the time, like if it is warm, the car goes VROOOM them drops down low, what sounds like almost too low.. This was accentuated today by starting it when it was hot and it actually went low enough that it killed it. If it does get past this it idles mostly just fine. Is this normal? This could always be solved by giving it some gas.

I love my car and just don't want any harm to come to her :p

Can you get the car moving on flat land with no gas ? You may be over-reving the engine and burning clutch. You may need to over-rev if you have some idle problem. It should not die after startup, but drop to perfect rock solid idle. If it stalls after it drops, check / clean throttle body, check plugs. No CEL?

It is normal to have an acrid smoke odor after slipping the clutch as on a hill start or a quick getaway from a standing start. But I have never seen white smoke - that would be worrisome. I'd give it a short time to go away as the shop suggested, otherwise I'd follow up with them again.

A new clutch can be grabby when new. After a short break-in it should feel like normal (assuming that everything is ok with the installation). If not, I'd talk to the shop about it.

It is normal for the engine to rev up a bit on startup. The ECU is programmed to do this but it should ramp down to a nice even idle almost immediately. If the RPM's are dropping to the point where the engine dies, then there is something wrong. Could be the MAF, idle control, or a number of other things. It might be hard to diagnose without a CEL.

There are no indicator lights, I think I probably just need to clean the throttle body. I will probably do that eventually... It's not really bugging me to much.