I wasn’t aware that “to open up the engine” apparently means to start it.
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To me ‘open up’ suggests some kind of internal surgery!
Alan
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I think it means ‘to increase the r.p.m’ as in "Gus opened the engine up to 6000 r.p.m.’. I’ll find the other passage in a book I read where it clearly meant ‘start the car’.
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I’ve just found the sentence: “He glanced around the street and pulled the open for Eden. I watched as he got in and opened up the engine immediately, barely checking the street before he pulled out.”
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Yes, it is pretty common in the US. As you said, it doesn’t mean to start the car, but instead to accelerate or increase the rpm. Like when you are taking a test drive and the salesman sales “Feel free to open her up on this highway.” A similar term is “rev the engine up” or “rev up the engine”, but that is when you are stopped and in neutral, so the car is not actually moving, though the RPMs are increasing.
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