Build Thread Mustang5L5's Build Thread -

Mustang5L5 said:

Ok, messed around with it a bit more this weekend.

Bought a no-spill filler setup and that really made burping the system much easier. Of course swapping out my 180* tstat with a motorcrat 192 also helped as well as the motorcraft had a burp hole but my original did not. Those two things made bleeding the cooling system a one and done thing. Ran the car for bit with the radiator capped after filling and did not observe anything leaking from the Tstat. Might take a few heat cycles to really stress it so will need to keep an eye on it. I should pressure test the system to ensure it's leak free at some point.

Still had my code 33. Troubleshot it a bit and I think my EGR vacuum regulator is dead. Resistance seems low and it actually does not activate with 12V. I had a spare kicking around so i tested that and it also didn't work. Two bad EGR vac solenoids? I ended up buying a cheapo parts store unit off Amazon so we will see. I really didn't want to snag a used one off ebay because no guarantee that those will be good. Goes against my "no cheap parts store crap" mentality, but ultimately the EGR will go away when i go to the megasquirt anyway, so a cheap solenoid for now is fine.

Still working on the fan wiring. Some parts in the mail.

Something in the accessory setup is misaligned. The belt was getting chewed up on one side and there was a thumping coming from the belt drive/accessories. (Removing the belt for a second made the system quiet) so i need to track down the misaligned part and correct. I flipped the belt and now it's silent, but I feel it's something that will come back. If you actually go back to post #947, you can see the front of the belt starting to shred up from something.

Idle quality. Not sure if this is a tuning issue or not. Since i adjusted the timing to 10 degrees (from 0 TDC) it runs much better. It had a big lope at 0 degrees, but now at 10 that has lessened and it idles smoother, but it has a shake like a misfire. It could also be the slight cam lope, combined with poly engine mounts. I haven't yet run the CBT yet (because i can't run the car long enough after warming up due to lack of cooling fan), but when it idles the motor rocks enough that the entire car shakes a bit. Giving it gas at idle results in a hesitation before it revs up. Seems to me it might be a tad bit rich. Off idle it runs and sounds healthy as hell. I didn't really think an untuned A9L would run this combo perfectly anyway, but I'm hoping this is more of a tuning issue and not a mechanical one. I can probably pull the spark plugs and do a compression test to rule things out. Could also be injector related as i did perform a flush and rebuild on those and might have screwed one up?

Gotta love chasing the small issues

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