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Help me fix my car

I

iBrent

Veteran CEG'er
Joined
Oct 13, 2005
Messages
568
Location
Northborough, MA
So I've been having this reoccurring problem in my SVT for probably a few years. It got progressively worse but now I think its reached is peak of annoy-ability.

In all gears, but most noticeably 3rd, between 1500 and secondaries the car will buck as it accelerates. This isn't a misfire, I know what a misfire feels like. I've changed plus and wires several times, as well as the coil, neither of which changed the problem (for better or worse).

I took it to a shop, and they had it on a dyno and replicated the problem. They said the engine was physically moving as the car was "bucking". They suggested changing the engine/tranny mounts. I replaced the roll restrictors to poly-filled by pole120 and with the help of turbofox we put them in. At first I was excited because I thought it had fixed the problem. But here it is a month later and its still there and still extremely annoying.

The car idles low and rough as well, not sure if that's related. No codes, neither pending nor stored. Oh, the shop who had it on the dyno said there was a fuel-trim issue but said it would be really expensive for them to track it down because it wasn't dropping any codes.

I've replaced the following parts within the last 10k miles (car currently has 60k)

Fuel pump
Fuel filter
spark plugs
plug wires
ignition coil
TPS
intake cleaning (off car) with new gaskets
MAF removed from car and cleaned with electrical contact cleaner
PCV valve

So, my request is for someone to drive the car and tell me if I'm stupid and there is no problem, just sucky driving on my part, or if there is in fact something wrong. If you check out my thread in General Troubleshooting (My very own hesitation/bucking thread) and look at the last page, you'll see I'm offering a reward to whomever can fix it, or provide knowledge to fix it. I'll be at Carlisle starting Thursday or we can meet up sometime. If not this week, then the weekend after Carlisle would be best. I'm really fed up with this problem and if no one can fix it I'll probably sell the car at the end of the summer (that would make me very sad).
 
My car also suffered from this for years. It got ridiculously annoying this spring so I decided to fix it. I did change my wires a year ago and it made it better but got bad again in a few weeks. My car has been smooth for 2 months now and once again great to drive. What I did was got the autolite Irdium plugs because they were do for a change and got a tube of permatex dielectric. I gooped up the plug boots with a generous amount of dielectric grease. I think the grease is what fixed it. My old plugs were all orange around the bases I think from misfire sparks. You description was exactly what my car did and it never throw a misfire code. So hopefully this will help. One more thing to check is that the plug boots are going on the plugs all the way.
 
be careful as you can use to much dielectric grease, can prevent the plug wires from clipping to the plugs as they should ...
 
I'll take photos of the spark plugs this evening. I'm going to do a compression check at the same time so they'll have to be pulled. Any ideas on the compression i should get? I get conflicting information in my searches based on how many plugs were pulled, and whether the car was warm or not.
 
I researched fuel pump issues a while back and there are those whom have dropped the gas tank to find their tanks were very contaminated. Did you check the tank when you replaced the fuel pump?

A lot of the things you've changed that seemed to help would stabilize the engine to reduce bucking and perhaps lessen the impact of fuel tank contamination.
 
The fuel pump was replaced by Ford. I doubt they checked or cleaned the tank.

The problem exists regardless of fuel level (not sure if that matters with contaminated fuel tank). So when the tank gets low, I suppose I can just take the fuel pump out from inside the cabin and shine a light down in the hole right? I suppose at that time I should check the sock filter, cause who knows if they replaced it at the same time or not.
 
yes you can pull hte pump from the back seat and look into the tank. fyi I just swapped the fuel pump on my 99 and the inside of the tank where the fuel pump sits was really clean, only alittle dust/dirt on the bottom. nothing that even made me worry about it.
 
Well, I checked compression today, and all cylinders were between 180 and 195 PSI. That sounds about right.

Next, supposedly some autozones have noid lights to borrow. I'll be checking with the local one tomorrow.
 
Have you checked out your wiring harness? You must be aware of the high quality wires that ford was putting into these cars :nonono:
 
What plugs and wires are you using? I will be at an autocross at Devens on June 14th if you want me to take it for a drive to see if it feels the same way my car did. Hopefully you will have it fixed by then.
 
svtavino said:
What plugs and wires are you using? I will be at an autocross at Devens on June 14th if you want me to take it for a drive to see if it feels the same way my car did. Hopefully you will have it fixed by then.
Click to expand...

APP764 and Motorcraft brand wires.

Devens is only a half hour from me. If I'm not doing anything that weekend I'd like to meet up and have you drive it.
 
iBrent said:
APP764 and Motorcraft brand wires.

Devens is only a half hour from me. If I'm not doing anything that weekend I'd like to meet up and have you drive it.
Click to expand...

too bad I will be there with my black svt, or else we could have 3 t-greens in one location, haha
 
Sounds like good plugs and wires. My bosch ones didn't fit the best I replaced one wire with an original factory after a year. This is the Dielectric I bought. http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductDetail.aspx?MfrCode=PTX&MfrPartNumber=22058&CategoryCode=3451 I just put some extra around the opening of the plug boot. Your description of what is going on are the exact symtoms I had, my idle was even lumpy.
I could probably drive your car around lunch time. I haven't even seen another T-Green in a long time.
 
That's the exact dialectric I bought at CAP when I did my tune-up the 1st, 2nd, 3rd time, and again last night after removing the plugs for the compression test.

Sweet, plan on me being there.
 
Did you put any extra around the boot opening? Was there any orange around the base of the ceramic on the plug.
 
svtavino said:
Did you put any extra around the boot opening? Was there any orange around the base of the ceramic on the plug.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I put some in the boot openings. There was no orange on the spark plug ceramics. When I get home I'll upload the pictures I took last night of the spark plugs.

EDIT: Picture:

IMG_0682.jpg
 
I just read over your whole 10 page thread. I could bring my OBDII computer also. Just not sure how long it will last on its battery it is sort of old. We would be able to check all the fuel trims spark MAF TP and anything else. I could also bring a set of old wires if you want. It is so nice once the bucking is gone. The funny thing is our cars both had/have the same thing and they are green 2000s hahah
 
svtavino said:
I just read over your whole 10 page thread. I could bring my OBDII computer also. Just not sure how long it will last on its battery it is sort of old. We would be able to check all the fuel trims spark MAF TP and anything else. I could also bring a set of old wires if you want. It is so nice once the bucking is gone. The funny thing is our cars both had/have the same thing and they are green 2000s hahah
Click to expand...

That would be so awesome. I'd owe you big time if we can fix it.
 
I can't seem to find any info on the autocross event this weekend. What time does it start, and what time should I show up so we can work on my car? I'd like to stick around and watch some races too.
 
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