this is getting REALLY annoying (problem still not solved)

stang2004

Founding Member
Sep 23, 2001
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Northern Jersey
damn thing keeps bucking in first. If i dont ride the clutch like an old man, the thing bucks, sometimes slightly, sometimes hard enough to knock out an old mans dentures i can only stop it if i slam it into second, or let off the gas and lightly get back on it. Am i tearing up my clutch by riding on it so much in first? i dont know if its a cam.... i dunno if its a sliping clutch (doesnt feel like its slipping, and pulls hard all the way up to redline) or if its just that i suck at driving stick

however the rents informed me that it doesnt have a solid idle, saying it sounds a little rough. i dont know if its just cuz they dont know what a 5.0 sounds like.... or if they know what they are talking about,, (my dad had a 66vette with a 350 in it manual of course) and could lift the front end off the ground.. so i think my dad knows what he is talking about when it comes to cars,,, but there is a big difference between a worked 66 vette and a 89 5.0.
 
Blue347stang said:
I had the same problem with my old setup, I had split duration cam and the idle was kind of rough. Maybe you have a vaccum leak.

is there anyway to check and see if i have a cam without tearing the thing apart? and how do i check for a vaccum leak? where to start looking?

im going to pull the codes again tomorrow, the last time i checked i was getting a 34, bad EGR.. but the battery was disconnected and it was only started up twice and idled for about 10 minutes before running the key on engine off codes
 
stang2004 said:
is there anyway to check and see if i have a cam without tearing the thing apart? and how do i check for a vaccum leak? where to start looking?

Usually all aftermarket cams have lopey sound. To check for a vaccum leak, usually people spray carb. cleaner around the intake area and if you here a idle change, usually thats a sign of a vaccum leak.
 
also, most cars run about 15-20 inches of vac at idle....if you have less, that could be a leak or a lumpy cam. you can check it at the vac tree.

i would look into the EGR if you get no new codes. IIRC, EGR kicks in at part throttle. but if it kicks in when it should not, it really degrades the performance (i.e. if you hook a vac line to the egr while idleing, the idle will go to poo).

good luck.
 
HISSIN50 said:
also, most cars run about 15-20 inches of vac at idle....if you have less, that could be a leak or a lumpy cam. you can check it at the vac tree.

i would look into the EGR if you get no new codes. IIRC, EGR kicks in at part throttle. but if it kicks in when it should not, it really degrades the performance (i.e. if you hook a vac line to the egr while idleing, the idle will go to poo).

good luck.

so if i disconnect the vaccum line from the EGR and the bucking goes away i know its the problem?
 
as i recall, the EGR solenoid (via computer input) controls when vac is applied to the EGR and thus when it opens (allowing exhaust into the chambers for reburn to improve efficiency and cool the chambers a little).
the best test i know of for testing EGR: remove the existing vac line on the EGR. then unhook an unimportant vac line (i.e. dont take the vac line off of the FPR or something important) and hook it up to the fitting where the old line was (on the EGR). as soon as you hook this line up, you are giving the EGR vac when it should not be seeing vac, and the idle should degrade noticably.

there are other tests to do, but that is a quick one. often, the puter will toss a code if the EGR is malfunctioning.
good luck.
 
HISSIN50 said:
as i recall, the EGR solenoid (via computer input) controls when vac is applied to the EGR and thus when it opens (allowing exhaust into the chambers for reburn to improve efficiency and cool the chambers a little).
the best test i know of for testing EGR: remove the existing vac line on the EGR. then unhook an unimportant vac line (i.e. dont take the vac line off of the FPR or something important) and hook it up to the fitting where the old line was (on the EGR). as soon as you hook this line up, you are giving the EGR vac when it should not be seeing vac, and the idle should degrade noticably.

there are other tests to do, but that is a quick one. often, the puter will toss a code if the EGR is malfunctioning.
good luck.


when i ran the codes it through out a 34,, i havent run the codes recently, but i decided to run the codes back when the car had a surging idle, since then the surging idle has disapeared :shrug: