Just bought a 1998 Escort 1.8 SI, changed the oil, oil filter and air filter. The car 'Hunts' +/- 100 rpm at tickover and seems to lack power when driving. In fact my previous 1,25 Fiesta had more life. Anybody got any checks, adjustments or tuning ideas before I'm forced to put it in for a professional tune up?
Was the car doctored with Wynn's stop smoke? did this problem come after you drained the oil or was it always there?
If is only came about it may have been doctored :-(
Martin
Wouldn't it now smoke, as the stop-smoke has been drained out?
*If* the valves are sticking, it may still be recoverable. Change the oil again using Ford Formula E 5w/30 oil, and thrash the car mercilessly for a couple of hours, use the gears to keep it above 4500rpm nearly all the time and lots of throttle whenever possible. Wide country lanes or major roads with lots of successive roundabouts in the evening are good for this.If you're lucky, this may free the valves. I often run Ford formula E for a few hundred miles to clean out sludge and carbon from poorly maintained engines. It does a superb job, presumably due to lots of detergents, so it may work for you.
The Dervboy
Nah - a friend had a '93 Escort 1.3 - drained the oil and the car lost power - was dangerous as you had NO power to pull out at junctions - added 2 bottles of stop smoke and bang - full compression and power came back
Martin
Strange that. Severe bore and ring wear is very uncommon on modern engines (talking about the OP's zetec here, not the 1.3) as the fuelling is very well controlled thus minimising bore wash.
Unless it had run out of oil of course. If this was the case I'd expect all the bearings and the camshaft to be knackered too. The OP doesn't mention any untowards noises which would indicate such a malady.
The Dervboy
The engine does not burn oil and is quiet (50K). I used a good quality 10W
Well that could be the problem. You _must_ use 5w30 oil in zetec engines. The early ones were especially prone to valves sticking if a higher viscosity was used.
Try changing it for the proper stuff (Ford formula E is best) wit a new filter again. If you don't, you risk valves sticking in the future, if they aren't already.
May be expensive. Air mass meter for my astra would have been £200 had they not decided to do it under warranty.
Do the oil first, it's much cheaper, and the consequences of wrong viscosity are at least 10x as expensive as changing the oil!
The Dervboy
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