Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Stalling

Hey guys, recently I noticed that my car stalls under hard acceleration, while cornering, say for instance I had to shoot through an intersection to get out of the way of some oncoming traffic, I nail the throttle, and swing to the left of right, and right as I straighten out, the engine stalls, like it loses all revs, I back off the throttle a second, and it regains it's power. What's up with this? Car only has 48K miles on it, and I've maintained it fairly well. Who knows, maybe some dealership history (program car) coming back to haunt it One more question, how do I get at the upper intake/throttle body to clean it? I tried taking off the big, rubber bellow leading to it, but to no avail, and I was afraid to force it. Do I have to take off the entire metal peice from that gasket outwards? Hope not... Pics would be great!

And one more thing, my car is a 2000, do i have the plastic impeller?

i'd say have your fuel pump pressure tested. sounds like it may be goin bad.

yes you have a plastic impeller. OE is plastic. you have the white (updated) impeller however. so no need to worry yet.

Ok much thanks for both info's. It's odd I duplicated it again today, and it seems almost, almost like a tranny issue, like it's stuck in between gears, but the engine doesn't rev way up, it just bogs down... And as soon as the throttle lets off, for just a sec it's fine. Had a nice tranny clunk taking off on the I35 access ramp today, not a pretty sound

http://www.contour.org/forums/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=004652

http://www.contour.org/forums/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=005083

I seem to have confirmed your diagnosis! Once I save a little money I will run it into the local ford dealership to have it tested. Much thanks for that!

If you do replace the fuel pump, be sure to flush the tank and replace the filter, as Ford recommended in a recent service message.

Apparently there is some kind of gunk in the tank clogging the pump intake screen. We've seen a few in our shop, and sent them to the dealer because its covered under warranty.

We have heard that the gunk is either molding flashing from the tank, or some part of the pump itself is deteriorating.

Oh wow, thanks, very good info! Any rough idea on how much this will cost, I have the Ford extended warranty (premium flavor) but it has a $200 deductible!

My car did the exact same thing. However, I have a 96 Contour 4 cyl (2.0 L). This is a very dangerous condition as my wife almost got hit from oncoming traffic. Fortunate for me, I had a CEL (check engine light)on. Since my car has high mileage (over 100,000 miles), I performed the following.

Replaced both O2 sensors (about $80US each).
Replaced fuel filter.
Replaced air filter.

The CEL returned with the car having slight improvement, but still stalling.

I then hooked my car up to the computer and read the code P0171 - System too lean (bnk 1). After reading many post on this site, I found the MAF (Mass Air Flow sensor) to be possibly dirty. Sure enough it was extremely dirty. I did not remove it from the housing, I simply removed the entire unit and sprayed the very fine metal ends of the sensor with carb cleaner (always remove your negative cable for safety and for resetting codes). DO NOT use cotton swaps or anything to touch the sensor, let the cleaner do the work. It should be nice and silver when cleaned.

That fixed my problem, and my car runs like it was new. I think the combination of preventive replacement of 02, fuel filter added the process, but I think the dirty MAF was the real cause of this problem.

Clean your MAF or replace it is my suggestion.

Cheers!
Andre

Ok interesting, I just had the fuel filter replaced about 8K miles ago, and my K&N has only about 8K on it, and as for the O2 sensors, it may be worth a shot! I'll double check the MAF also. Thanks!

Hey which sensor is the MAF sensor? I see one that looks a bit like an LED, it has glass over it, it's prefectly clean, am I looking at the right thing? Or is it the little part that comes down in the center, top, of the air box. I'm bloody lost!

Ok! I did more searching under different things, and found out that it is, indeed in the center of that post. Sorry about useless post ;-)