Ok

1) Er... do Vitara's have a choke? If so, where the hell is it?? (its a 1990 JLX 3door)

2) Where the heck is the thingy to pop the bonnet?

   

Your Vitara should have EFI (electronic Fuel Injection) I think all of them did after a few 1.3L, 89 models. I think the 'choke' is computer controled on EFI motors, but I'm not sure.

To open your hood (bonet), the lever is in the top of the glove box.

Zig

thanks mate.

the guy i bought it from popped the hood open while I was checking the back tires, so i didn't see what he did.
Spent a very frustrating half hour scouring the dashboard for the blessed thing  

there is no choke like a carb............

the computer just tells the injector to spray more fuel in when the motor is cold..............

there is no choke like a carb............

the computer just tells the injector to spray more fuel in when the motor is cold..............

Is that true on all EFI?
Thanks,
Zig

NO, they have an idle air bypass which is kinda like a vacuum leak which makes the engine speed go up then the injectors give it more fuel untill the exhaust reaches 400-500 deg. to get the qubic zirconia (like a cheap ring)hot enought to make electricity to turn on the ecm to make proper adjustments to the fuel. when the engine is cold it is in like a limp mode or kida like guessing at the correct fuel amount! correct me if i am wrong it has been a few years! Dennis.

All the answers here are more or less correct.
EFI has no choke, just some sort of fuel
enrichment and fast idle device, in the case of
a TBI 89 Kick it has a "kicker" that opens the
throttle a little bit more than when warm.

And that hood release is a bugger to find ain't it?

Well, the engine looks great. No oil spills, and its still clean. The guy I bought it from reckons his old lady only used it for ferrying the kids on the school run, so its not had any major stress    (yet!)

One thing though, on the,...ach, whats that bloody thing called? the big black circular jobbie on top with the air intake?  
It looks like there's supposed to be a hose/pipe leading from there to another pipe over the passenger side front wheel arch; at the moment theres nothing there, its just sucking air straight in from the engine compartment.. is this a problem to worry about?  

I mean, its no biggie to find a suitable pipe, but if it isn't broken, don't fix it!

Your air intake should have a tube coming from the motor over towards the drivers side to a box containing the air filter, then from there it comes out of the bottom of the air box and attaches to a plastic chanel that is inside the drivers side fender. That chanel runs above the wheel well towards the front of the vehicle.
Zig

so basically at the moment I don't have an air filter?  

yikes!

ACtually there are two modes of operation on EFI vehicles.

First is "open loop". This is where the ECM, PCM, or whatever you call it, does not read inputs from the O2 sensors; it will receive inputs from the TPS, the coolant sensor, the Crank sensor, and the cam sensor, if it has one.  It runs the engine from a pre mapped program.
There is cold start, warm up, and normal op temp in the phases.

Once the engine temp reaches a pre programed range, the PCM will then go into "closed loop" mode where it begins to receive inputs from the O2 sensors.  Newer rigs have an upstream O2 sensor and a downstream O2 sensor to more carefully monitor the A/F ratio and help the ECM keep it within range.