Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Erratic idle and tends to die at idle.

Of course being a '95 Duratec I am lucky to have an old code reader. Cheap but somewhat effective. Anyway here are some errors with KOEO 317 (not listed in my code reader book), 233 Electronic Distributorless Ignition System (EDIS) fault Spark: Advance Word(SAW) signal error, and 211 Profile Ignition Pickup (PIP) circut fault. KOER: 538 Insufficient RPM change during KEOR Dynamic Response Test/invalid cylinder balance test due to throttle movement during test (DUH, like I said erratic idle ), 536 Brake On/Off (BOO) circut not activated during KEOR (after I did this test I noticed my brake lights were on and I lifted the brake pedal a tad and now OK), 521 irrelevant to my problem, 653 (not in my book), 172 yeah I know I still haven't replaced the upper O2 sensor, and 336 EGR sensor circut voltage higher than expected / exhaust pressure high (yeah I know, when it gets warmer out I plan on cleaning that out). Anyway I am rather concerned about 233 and 211, do I need to replace the coil pack and PIP??

Later. Pepse.

For the 211, check the wire/connector to the crankshaft position sensor. 233 could be related to the CKP sensor too. Check the CKP sensor before getting the coil pack.

Edit. According to Haynes, the resistance between the CKP sensor terminals (after disconnecting the connector), should be between 200 to 450 ohms.

Save me the time to shut down my computer and change to my windows hard drive with the Ford CD on it and tell me where the CKP sensor is.

Pepse.

Near the A/C compressor.
http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBroker?ForwardPage=/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/1b/c4/47/0900823d801bc447.jsp

Well jiggling all the wires didn't change anything, so next I will try to find my VOM and check the resistence.

Pepse.

Problem solved. True, 6 weeks later and I finally had the time to check things over better. Also, it is warmer out. Anyway I checked most sensor connections and then started the car and at first it idled good; 1000 RPM. Then it started its erratic idle again and I started looking around and listening and I heard what appeared to be a hissing sound by the PCV. Got a can of fuel injection air intake cleaner and sprayed it on the PCV, idle got better. So, I went and got a new PCV and once I finally got to remove the old one the bigger hose came with it and on the backside the hose was dryrotted and craked 2/3 they way around. Went back to Advanced and got some new hose and put it all back together and it idles smoooth. Actually, too smoooth. The idle is about 600 RPM. Is that right for a 2.5 L with the ATX? The car never idled that low since I've had it. It also cured my problem of having to let the car idle for about 2 minutes before take off when cold; my guess there is that when the engine was cool the crack was more open, then after about 2 minutes the hose got enough engine heat to sorta close. So things are better .

Later. Pepse.