Engine Foxbody idle/throttle issues
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Sandblasting can safely clean plugs at a low pressure. Learned it from a teacher who’s done it for years. It does genuinely work!!
What I am talking about is the ceramic body having a crack. Will cause a cylinder to under perform or perform erratically.
I have seen and heard of cracks in brand new plugs. Not often but it happens. By no means am I saying this is the issue but I check them now.
Had a spark plug sand blaster at Mechanic shop in High School, and one at the Service Station I worked at part time.... They sure made those plugs pretty, but I found once they have fouled out they will never fire again.... Just my experience and opinion here....
Any paint on them from painting the engine? I found out this can ground out plugs the hard way when I " tried " to first start the new 440 engine I built in the pic.....
No, never painted anything and these are relatively newAny paint on them from painting the engine? I found out this can ground out plugs the hard way when I " tried " to first start the new 440 engine I built in the pic.....
Also used the screw driver trick and I can hear the injector clicking aswell. I assume we have air, I know there’s spark, and I hear the injector. What else is there other than rocket arm?
Woah woah woah. I just cleaned the o2 connections and had a crazy idea. What if I start it with them unplugged? The problem disappeared. Yea, still has some Intake pops, still smells rich, but it smoothly revs up with the MAF plugged in now. Why is that? Or is it essentially the same thing as having the MAF unplugged and it just goes into speed density mode or something?
Plugged everything back in (still using the OEM 19# maf) and switched out the ECM. I believe it’s a A9L.. there’s no markings on it though. Anyways, started it up, car still runs good as I described before. Has a slight hesitation, and it’s burning my eyeballs, but that might be other things like that exhaust leak and maybe I need to adjust the timing from these changes. I’m about to swap the 24# maf in, check the timing, then take it for a drive (assuming it still runs decent)
Not kidding, unless something weird happened, I gapped all of these to the oem gap. Maybe the tool sucks or something as I used the keychain one, but I did gap them the way they should be. Also, in the photo it does actually look way closer than it really is.
Been a long day. After swapping the ecu, car runs great. All problems disappeared, set the timing where it should be, and it no longer burns my eyeballs. Next, I tackled my oil leak by installing valve cover gaskets and new covers. Little did I know due to lack of paying attention, these are tall valve covers. Had to massage the holes in the throttle bracket to get it all to bolt down. Now the car won’t run. Starts and dies instantly. I managed to fight it out of the garage, but I’m reallyyyyyy hoping it’s just the covers pushing the intake up causing a massive vacuum leak. The intake is touching the valve covers on the driver side, so that’s my guess. Just ordered a spacer, so we’ll know for sure when it gets here. I’ll keep everyone posted so that you guys know if the ecu was the genuine problem!
Those are the wrong plugs.....
There are two versions of spark plugs, one set designed for the really large gaps and another designed for the smaller gaps of .035 and such... You need the smaller gap plugs...
There are two versions of spark plugs, one set designed for the really large gaps and another designed for the smaller gaps of .035 and such... You need the smaller gap plugs...
I don’t think they’re the wrong ones. I specifically bought these because they were the right ones. Hence them being motorcraft. Maybe I found the wrong plug gap online, but I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the plugs.
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