I recently bought a couple of cars dirt cheap from a family friend who was liquidating his parents estate, one of which is an '01 Mustang. It's nothing special, v6+manual, black w/ white stripes, straight except for a small booboo on a wheel lip, some rock chips, and some clear coming off the wing...crazy high miles, but he said he put an engine in it at some point. It wouldn't run when I showed up, but I towed it to my shop and after a couple hours [plus plugs/wires/battery/gas] it's running/driving fine. Now, my questions:
- what temp should this thing be running? The gauge never gets over half way, but my obd reader shows that the temp will bounce between 205-217 [when the fan kicks on] while idling in my shop, and runs about the same going down the road? I removed the fan/shroud and hosed out the cooling stack, but even though I got a ton of bugs out of it that didn't seem to make a difference...
- I've gotten an intermittent p1518 light, which is the intake runner stuck "open"...are the upper plenum gaskets reusable, and what's the common issue with these?
- I've read the stock gears are 3.27, and you've got to watch when you take off to keep from stalling...is the intake runner valve not operating correctly partly at fault, or just the tall gearing?