• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

Accelleration Stuttering....

M

mrrockwood

CEG'er
Joined
Apr 30, 2007
Messages
158
Location
Orange County CA
So I bought the 1998 (post 98) Mercury Mystique LS with 85K miles on it about 3 months ago. It was stuttering in accelleration whenever it is over half throttle below 3900 RPM. I changed the spark plugs and wires and it fixed the problem for 24 hours. The IRMC cuts out when it is driven for more then 30 minutes at a time. I am planning on replacing the Fuel Filter this coming weekend. I really need some help dialing in this issue. There is no check engine light so I cannot run code on it. Please let me know if anyone has a similar problem.
 
It happens throughout the fuel range... doesn't matter how much or little fuel I have.... I replaced the plugs and wires with what the Haynes manual suggested and Gapped them all properly as well....
 
what about the coil pack, i heard they are prone to go on these cars as well, or i know its sounds obvious but are the leads connected tightly on the coil and on the sparkplugs, it only needs to be half on to cause some problems, but also the fuel filter could cause this, my friend has a diesel and his stuttered and stalled and he was complaining that it couldnt tow anything but we changed the fuel filter and it solved his problems, only a thought though hope u get it fixed buddy :)
 
mrrockwood said:
It happens throughout the fuel range... doesn't matter how much or little fuel I have.... I replaced the plugs and wires with what the Haynes manual suggested and Gapped them all properly as well....
Click to expand...



also what did u gap it to? i hope this helps in mm but i heard also that it needs to be gapped to 1mm, might help as well :)
 
I gapped the plugs to the specs on the hood and in the service manual.... I am thinking it is more then likely the fuel filter... I am gonna swap out that and throw in some injector cleaners into the mix too.... Thanks for the help! I will let you know what happens
 
yeah any info on the fix will be good because it will help other who are havin or might have the same problem in the future :)
 
fred22 said:
also what did u gap it to? i hope this helps in mm but i heard also that it needs to be gapped to 1mm, might help as well :)
Click to expand...

You "heard" that you should gap the plugs to a width of 1 millimeter?

that's way off...

The gap specs are .052 - .056 for stock applications.
 
well in england thats the measurements they use here, and im sure that people were havin problems with the plug gaps at 1.3 and they said to put it to 1mm gap to sort out the problems and that sorted out their problems, not causin any problems with this forum, just tryin to help :)
 
bookwyse said:
You say that it has just had it's 60k service. The 60k service sshould have included a points change and they come preset at 1.3mm however the V6 plugs should be set at 1mm. I would investigate this first.
Jeff
Click to expand...


this is what im referrin to buddy, its from the mondeo site here in england, just a thought to what could be wrong with the car :)
 
and by my converter on my mobile phone, its saying that 1mm is 0.03937 inches which if im right and i remember correctly the usa uses :)

and at 1.3 mm its readin as 0.051181, so pretty close to yur .052 u quoted, as said its worth a try :)
 
But if the gaps were the issue.... the problem would still occur when the IRMC kicks in.... The car runs amazing when the IRMC kicks in (which might push things through the fuel filter more efficiently.... I am gonna snag the fuel filter after work tonight and see what happens. I really appreciate all the help!

Thanks again
 
yeah it will be good to try the fuel filter its a cheap easy thing to do if it doesnt cure it, at least u know u changed it for a new one, maybe its only noticable on lower revs that the missfire occurs, as said if u find out what it is and let us know then it will help others who might have this problem as well, hope u sort it out buddy :)
 
I had a similar issue for a long time. My coil tested within specs, but it still was causing carbon tracking on my plugs/wires. I'd replace the plugs, it ran great for a bit (week), then would start again. Just said the heck with it and replaced the coil pack, even though the readings were marginally within the specified range. This seems to havee solved the problem.
 
Glad to hear that the problem was fixed and that I am not the only one that had it. I will definately swap out the coil pack if the fuel filter doesn't take care of business. Did your battery light flash when the IRMC kicked in?
 
mrrockwood said:
Glad to hear that the problem was fixed and that I am not the only one that had it. I will definately swap out the coil pack if the fuel filter doesn't take care of business. Did your battery light flash when the IRMC kicked in?
Click to expand...



ah that might also be a good idea, someone on the mondeo site was havin the same problems as well, he replaced his coil pack and presto its solved it, ive ordered one as well as im getting a stutter sometimes and im annoyed with it as well, i dont get it all the time but it does it when im low on autogas and its happened when im on gas as well but more noticible on autogas the autogas man said its either the plugs leads or coil pack, well ive not long changed my plugs to ngk on its service i did on it, i replaced the leads with magnecore red competition ones and now im gonna replace the coil pack as well just for the sake of it, im sure it will cure it as said it doesnt happen all the time but i want it to run good, and ive changed the fuel filter last year as well and thats a piss easy job to do :)
 
also will u let us know what the problem turned out to be, it would be interesting to know, when mine comes in which im guessin will be nxt week ill put mine on on my day off and see if it sorts it out, but it would be really helpful if u let us know what u did to fix it, it seems alot of people are havin the same problems on the mondeo site :(
 
mrrockwood said:
Did your battery light flash when the IRMC kicked in?
Click to expand...

No. Didn't even throw codes for months at a time. Drove me crazy for a long time. In my case, when the secondaries opened up, the motor was spinning fast enough that the misfire became less of a problem than at lower RPM's. It had nothing to do with the IMRC, though. Just a function of engine speed in relation to the coil firing.
 
hmmmm.... I might have to snag a coil pack then. I will price them out and see what we got. Thanks again for the input. It definately is frustrating when there aren't any codes to look into.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top