Need help with idle using a ford e cam

topless95

New Member
Feb 4, 2008
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North Florida
Well my HCI is done and she sounds great. I am running 14 degrees BTDC on a stock bottom end, ford racing x303 heads, e cam, and performer intake. Once I got the timing set I went to run over to a friends house and half way there when I would push the clutch in the engine would die. Once there we reset the idle and it was purring like a sewing machine. When I went to leave it did it again, so I bumper the idle up to 900 rpms and made it home with out any problems. Do you guys have any suggestions to get my idle right(750 rpms)????

ps I checked all of my vac lines and they are in good shape.
 
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Yes ... my first thought would be ... Get a real tune

If you don't wanna go that route and see what luck you might
have mechanically

First thing is ... Forget about trying to have it idle at that low of a speed

Try all the various adjustments at 900 to start with and see if you can
obtain a stable idle

If that goes well ... lower it by 50 rpm or so and play with all the same
stuff again with the goal being a stable idle

You can only do so much with mechanical adjustments don't ya know ;)

You'll know how low you can go by the point you can't find a stable idle

One last thought is a bit of info on how the pcm does its thing :)

The adaptive strategy can help somewhat but you gotta give it time
to make its adjustments

I'd do a pcm reset when starting on the first attempt at 900 and set
stuff like tb blade stop screw, air bleed screw, etc

If this Stang is your daily driver ... I'd give it 2 or 3 days to settle down
from the adaptive doing its small but steady adjustments

I'd reset the pcm each time you drop the idle

Good Luck!

Grady