My 87 5.0 has been running really poorly, i thought it was in need of a tune up so i bought new plugs,wires,cap, and rotor installed them and still had the same problem. thought it might be the timing, i checked that and it is still set at 10 Degrees. so at this point i was frustrated, i went and bought one of those hand held scanners, hooked it up and i am getting no codes from the ECU, not even the pass code. what could be the problem. if any of you mustang enthusiests live in the Clearwater area and feel like coming by my house to hear it run and trouble shoot with me please feel free. i Love my stang and hate to see it wounded and sitting in the drive way please help post here or PM me, thanks for your help!

 

Make sure your scanner can do OBD1. All pre 96 Fords are OBD1. 96 and newer are OBD2.

With out knowing specifically what your car is doing or what symptoms you have it is impossible to guess what could be wrong with your car.

Could be anything from a vacuum leak, bad ground, bad coil, bad MAP sensor, inoperable O2 sensors, dirty clogged injectors, bad wiring connection, faulty TPS sensor, FPR going bad, clogged fuel pump. Your problem is too vague to give you an accurate answer.

Hurst

 

it is an obd 1 scanner. for 95 and older model fords lincoln mercury.s

 

explain wat its doing

 

it is back fireing seems like it is missing. but i can't tell why or how. i will try and take some video of it tomorrow and let you all see and hear it.

 

Check fuel pressure

 

Do you have your plug wires in the correct firing order? They are different for roller and non roller. Check your hamonic balancer to see if the rubber that bonds the outer ring to the inner ring has not deteriorated and let it slip.

 

Like Dr Dirt mentioned,.. all H.O. 302's are wired the same as a 351w and dont do like I did once and wire the cap backwards. Its wired counter clockwise.

As for the missing and backfiring,.. with an air density EFI engine it could be a multitude of things.
When we picked up my wifes 87 T-top car it was hard to idle when cold kept stalling and occasionally popped back through the intake.
I had to replace every single vacuum line and hose in the car. The MAP sensor was non functional. The coil was on its last legs. The fuel filter hadnt been changed in years. The grommet for the PCV at the back of the intake was in sad shape causing another vacuum leak,.. the car was riddled with vacuum leaks and collapsed hoses, dried and hardened grommets. Bad oil leaks everywhere. The TB, EGR and IAC were choked with soot and oil. I spent the better part of a month replacing parts before the car was problem free.

Too many people think you can just jump in a 20 yr old car and just drive it like new car. You just cant do that. These cars need regular maintenance that when neglected will evolve into problems that can get costly and problematic to resolve over time. Unless you built your car from scratch and know every inch of it, they need to be looked over to find problems or find problems that havent happened yet. They are after all nothing more then a mechanical machine that wears out over time.

Hurst

 

Is the problem only at idle ? Whats the car like at WOT?

 

its idleing a little wierd, but really gets bad when you get into the throttle. i thin i have found the problem tho. i found a pinched vacuum line coming from the bac of the air manifold. i will be replacing it tomorrow and seeing if thats what it was. i will keep all watching posted.