Full Throttle Stutter

Most of the "stutter" that I've had in the past was due to ignition - you probably didn't get wires on the wrong posts (try it sometime on a car you don't care about - we used to do it in high school when we were squirrly), but you might try re-seating your wires with good dielectric grease in the boots, and if that does not work, change out one wire at a time. You might just have a wire that's not seated well, and a resultant weak spark.

Other than that, you may have a bad fuel pressure regulator, throttle position switch, air flow meter, or injector, but I think that at wide open throttle the only things that are checked are the temp sensor, O2 sensor, and MAF. Maybe clean your MAF next?

Andrew

Larry Dennis wrote:

I once had an issue with a car running an Accel distributor cap and rotor. I'd put the rotor on some time back and ran the hell out of the car, and it exhibited some of the same issues you're stating. Pulling the cap off (not fun when it's hot) revealed a totally destroyed rotor and cap assembly. Replaced the two and had no problems.

It could be a connection between wire, plug, and cap, your coil could be dying (though my only experience with a TFI coil dying was that it just gave up one day), you could have mis-gapped (or not gapped) your spark plugs.

You say your 24# injectors have been there for 2 years or I'd ask you if you put the correct MAF meter on with them.

Oxygen sensors are a routine maintenance item but they're not used in the open-loop WOT mode anyway, so that shouldn't be creating any problems.

Plenty of things *could* be causing your problems....

JS

-------------------------------------------------------------------- It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- Rod Serling

let us know, I bet that was your problem. If not start it up and just sit in the car slowly revving up and down (smoothly) if the tach needle is even slightly jumpy then you're probably missing on one or more cylinders.

Lastly triple check the last plug on the passenger side, I also have a

95GT and this plug wire is one HELL of a bitch to get seated... I just changed mine (see the post "pre-engineering 101" where I let off the resultant steam from my experience) In the end I used a flat head screw driver on the elbow of the plug wire boot and one hand stuffed down in there. This was after using a long pair of channel locks, and ruining the brand new plug wire trying to get it on. This was after hours of trying to get it to "click" on with the two fingers I could manage to get down in there.

Simon,

A Ford engineer is really lucky I don't know where they live. Otherwise, they would be getting a visit from me and my Big Bat(tm) because of the spark plug placement. Actually, it's not where they placed the plugs, it's the placement of pipes and hoses right in freak'n front of the plugs!

As for the stutter problem. The car idles great, and it's smooth acceleration and needle movement all the way up the tach, unless I have the throttle open wide. It happened this morning again, after resetting the coil post plug. Was low on gas, so I stopped in and got some injector cleaner when I filled up. It happened one more time after the fill up, and now it seems to be accelerating fine during WOT.

I did fill the tank after swapping the wires out, so maybe I just got some bad or dirty gas that tank and one of the injectors were clogged. I'll have to see how it handles over the next few days. If it starts happening again, I'll swap all the plug wires out Saturday, check each plug (make sure they aren't cracked, are still gapped right, and not clogged up), and put the old distributor cap and rotor back in (good thing I'm a bit of a pack rat and don't throw old stuff out away.) If I can't find a problem there, I'll get a new coil.

Thanks again guys!

BTW, just to keep it clear, I d>

--Larry

-------------------------------------------------------------------- It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- Rod Serling

Could have simply gotten low octane gas! 87 will cause knock in mine every time. sometimes I'll get a tank full that was obviously short of the 93 premium I always get and i'll get light knock (not as bad as 87 or 89 octane) when driving it hard.

Anyway I just re-read your post and "stutter" could be used to describe knock or ping. Can you clarify a little? Is it stutter like there's an interruption in the fuel flow (not much sound to it just loss of power). Or is there an audible rapid fire clatter/chatter/knock/ping? What Octane gas do you use?

If it's ping then clean your MAF with some CRC electrical contact cleaner, and check your air filter.

I know just what you mean... my drive home from work includes at least

10 miles of usually deserted reasonably smooth paved back roads. Tonight I had some asshole in what looked like an NSX or other Acura (tiny little round headlights) riding my ass right after I got off work... I was tired and coming up to a rail crossing so I was going slow. The a-hole was no more than a foot off my rear end. So I slowed to a crawl for the rail crossing... and then when he started to pull around to try and pass me right after the tracks (I was still idling in 1st watching to see what he'd do) I fired it up and left him behind so fast it was pathetic.

It's as if the car loses power for a brief moment, almost as if the engine is about to die. Kinda like when you've got the car idling in gear, and start to take your foot off the clutch, but push the clutch back in before the engine dies. Only at around 4200 rpm. So, I'd have to say it's more like an interruption in the fuel flow than ping.

I always select 93 octane. Whether or not I always get 93 octane is dependent on the ethics/competency of the gas station. The tank just after the spark plug wire change was at a station I've used before and haven't had any problems with before. So I don't think it was lack of ethics on their behalf. But that doesn't rule out non-93 octane in the 93 octane pump.

It's still happening, after a adding about 9 more gallons 93 and fuel injector cleaner to the tank. However, it's not as severe an interruption in power and it doesn't always happen.

Thanks again,

--Larry

-------------------------------------------------------------------- It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- Rod Serling