Dizzy sprimgs finally get old?

[Photonfanatic]

Do those little springs in the distributor ever get old and need to be replaced? My car has like 178K. Surely those little springs loose their springiness by then.

And if so, where can I buy stock replacements?

 

[CC'S95GT]

huh. there ain't no springs in the dizzy.
In the old dizzys with points the springs were used to for timing advance.

 

[Photonfanatic]

My GM HEI has springs. Mustang doesn't? Learn something new every day. Well anyway, I'm thinking of rebuilding my dizzy and see if it can help me with a little issue. Do yall think those modules that go in the dizzy from Accel and Pertronics are any better than stock? They claim to be, but who knows.

 

[CC'S95GT]

The dizzy's are prone to fail at around 100,000 miles give or take. When they do fail it's either the electronics (PIP) inside or the bushing/bearing. Sometimes even the remanned ones are bad out of the box.
Unless your car isn't starting or won't say running, your prob isn't the dizzy.
Keeping the stock or remanned dizzy is better than most of the other stuff out there. It's just not a pretty.
What is the "little issue" your having?

 

[Photonfanatic]

Well I fixed a misfire a few months ago and I thought that it would solve this issue. But while it did stop the misfire, it didn't really get rid of the overall symtoms. Which are poor throttle response, loss of power, wrong sounding exhaust note, bad gas mileage, stuff like that. You can't tell anything about the exhause note until you get up around 3K RPMs. But then you start to think that it doesn't sound quite right. And sometimes, you can even smell the exhaust and it does't smell right. If that makes any sense.

 

[CC'S95GT]

sounds like clogged cats and/ or bad o2 sensors.

 

[Photonfanatic]

O2 sensors are new as per a tune up. While it is possible they still could be bad, it seems less likely. As for the cats... well I'm afraid it does the same thing with my cat-less Hpipe. So in all likelihood, those two explanations are a no go. I've exhausted most of the simple explanations like those. That's why I was asking about the dizzy as sort of a last resort. Before buyin a new feakin' engine.


Also as a side note: Did you ever get your car lowered? I know I asked you that about 6-8 months ago but I think you said you hadn't yet. Can't remember. Or maybe you don't want to.

 

[CC'S95GT]

You didn't ask me about getting my car lowered before now. It is lowered on sportlines. I don't know why it looks like that in the sig pic.

It's most likely a sensor that going bad and not the whole engine. We just have to figure out which sensor.
Since the O2's are new, we'll go with that not the prob as long as you got the right ones.
It could also be the MAF, IAT, Coolant temp sensor. or even the computer. maybe even the fuel filter.
Have you had the codes read? You can have a code set with out the CEL being on.
Do you have any other mods. what's been replaced?

 

[ProKiller]

what all did you do with the tune up? clean the maf? have you checked your engine/chassis ground?

 

[Photonfanatic]

Yeah just your standard tune up really. Plugs, wires, O2 sensors, fuel and air filter. Also Cap and rotor. Fixed one miss that was a bad plug wire. It still read good on the volt meter, but was very easy to make it mess up if you jiggled it a little. The replacement wire wouldn't mess up when jiggled. It would still read constant resistance.

And in an attempt to fix this current problem, I did clean the MAF with a non-residue leaving alcohol. No engine mods other than a K&N air filter, if you can call that a mod. No exhaust mods on right now either. I had to take off the catless H-pipe to pass emissions. But as I said the problem remains no matter which H-pipe I'm running. I have tried to read codes with my own code reader but as the check engine light is not on, nothing came up. I did call the local ford house and they said that their computers are more in depth when it comes to this and they can tell a lot more. And that odds are they could pinpoint the exact problem. For $100 LOL.

So this car is being a pain. Got a gremlin in there somewhere. I do have one thing I might can try. My code reader has live monitoring. I might be able to spot something going on that way. That's if the 94 computer supports it, which I'm not sure if it does.

 

[CC'S95GT]

where were you pluging your code reader?
For the OBD1 94/95 Mustang GT's it's located under the hood on the passenger side shock tower.
What is you timing set to. how old is you harmonic balancer?

 

[Photonfanatic]

Balancer is new. Old one died and had rubber poking out of it. As for the code reader yeah I plugged it in under the hood.


As far as I can tell, the timing is set to the stock setting. I got the little notch on the distributor lined up with the notch on the block. I have played around with various timing settings, all while using 93 Octane so as to make sure that wasn't a factor. And lining up those two notches seems to yield the best results for this car. I'm pretty confident that lining up those two notches must be 10 degrees BTDC. You might remember a thread I had a while back about my new Lunati balancer not having a single number marked on it anywhere. But judging by the way the car runs and reacts, that's the right spot for the timing. It just doesn't run as good if you set it anywhere else. So I think I've got the timing set as good as I can.

 

[MustangChris]

have you gotten a timing light on it?

poor throttle response could also be due to a bad throttle positioning sensor (if the 94/95s have those?) As well as a vacuum leak.

How did it do on the emissions rollers?

 

[Photonfanatic]

It passed emissions in TX. Not sure if it varies from state to state but it passed here. And the balancer has no numbers so I just set the notches on the dizzy to line up. Which if you think about it, has to be 10 degrees BTDC because the balancers have a keyway and will only go on the crank one way. You can't really put it on there wrong. So While the timing might be off a half a degree or so, I personally find it unlikely to be the problem. Now maybe I'm wrong, and there is something going on I'm not aware of but at first look everything would appear to be right.

 

[Photonfanatic]

Took it to the Ford house. They said that its got an upper intake gasket leak, and that is causing a lean condition. They said that there is no way to tell if there is more going on, until that gets fixed. They said that while it may make it jiggle a little at idle, you wouldn't feel it much while just driving. Well they're right about that part. I didn't feel the miss much when just driving, but I still felt the power loss and poor throttle response and bad gas mileage and such. They also said that its just old lol.

They offered to fix the upper intake gasket for $300. To which I replied "Maaaaannn..... you crazy...!"

 

[MustangChris]

lol. fix it and see if that makes it flawless.

 

[Photonfanatic]

Oh they also broke off my OBD1 connector cap and just left it in the passenger seat. Nice.

 

[CC'S95GT]

classic fail from the stealership.

 

[Photonfanatic]

Also the service advisor was a fail. He asked me to describe the symptoms, and when I mentioned bad gas mileage he asked how much it was getting. I said around 15 highway, but it seems to be somewhere in that area for the street. I tested my old 94 GT auto rather extensively for about a year and it would get around 19 city, 21 highway. That would vary of course but it was always right in that area. The rep was like "Man you're doing good to get that ha ha ha" and he was serious. Yeah sure. If this was the first 5.0 ever made, you'd probably be right. But these is modern times and you a moron that needs to go back to service advisor school. Even the EPA rates the car higher than that.

Dealerships remind me a lot of utility companies. They somehow feel like they have this built in customer base that isn't going anywhere. And as such, they can offer barely acceptable service and not treat the customer like they're the boss. Which of course, they're dead wrong. I don't know where they get this idea. I can't figure them out.

Not only that they acted like the car was too old and they really didn't want to work on something like that. Ugh.

Well at least I gave them a wicked burn on google reviews. Hope it hurts.

 

[CC'S95GT]

They didn't want to work on it because it's OBD1 and the tech might have to use some troubleshooting skills because he can't just pull everything he needs to know from the onboard computer and call it fixed.