Help Identifying Misfire Source

[codfod]

Coming home from school tonight the car started to miss on the freeway, was every 10 seconds or so, gradually started to pick up until it was constant under any kind of load in any gear, managed to coast it off the freeway and towards a side street. Car died while coasting, tried to turn it back on and give it gas to get it moving but under almost full throttle in first it just died again. Pushed it out of the street and let it cool for a bit before trying to turn it on again. Go to start it, and it's got a bouncy idle going from 500 rpm to 100 and back up again, all while the car starts to smell like raw fuel.

Process of deduction has left me at the distributor being the issue, my question is if this is an issue with the distributor itself being broken, or maybe just the rotor and cap? I took the cap off and it seemed where the rotor has been touching the points the plastic looked burnt, not sure if that's normal. This is on a 94 5.0 with a T5.

 

[ttocs]

start simple and check to ensure all the spark plug wires are still connected on both the dist and the heads. I have had one come loose and cause a miss before as well as just has my intake get a little loose and start causing problems once it heated up.

 

[Frank.JD.Perez]

Id check dist, spark plugs, plug wires, and any electrical stuff near those areas

 

[codfod]

First thing I did was check plug wires, I've had one come off before and this was a wildly different feeling. I'm going to check on the distributor today, I've got another 5.0 so I'll steal the ignition coil off that and try it to attempt to eliminate that as the issue. I also really doubt it's the cap and rotor because those have just about 11k on them.

 

[codfod]

Tried the other ignition coil, no difference. Going to take the cap off the distributor later, see if the rotor spins freely while cranking, if not then that should hopefully be my issue.

 

[evilcw311]

Fuel pump could of also went out. If it isn't the dizzy I'd be checking fuel pressure.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[96blak54]

Id say its either the tfi module or the pick up down inside the distributor. Notorious ford problem

 

[codfod]

Took the cap off and cranked it, the distributor rotor still spins freely so I'm not thinking the issue lies with the distributor but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[codfod]

Fuel pump could of also went out. If it isn't the dizzy I'd be checking fuel pressure.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It does smell like it's running super rich, if I give it any kind of revs it backfires as well.

 

[codfod]

Id say its either the tfi module or the pick up down inside the distributor. Notorious ford problem

Reading about the TFI I saw somebody say that it acts like a light switch, either the car is running fine or it won't even start at all. If that's true then that's not the issue, since the car will start up and *run*, but again I don't know.

If the issue was the pick up inside the distributor, would the distributor rotor still spin freely while cranking?

 

[ReplicaR]

I've had the pickup coil go bad inside the distributor in my car. The result was intermittent misfire under load

 

[95opal]

Sounds like a classic PIP failure.

 

[96blak54]

The dizzy pick up, better known as the PIP like 95opal suggest, is essentially the crankshaft and camshaft sensor. Its telling the computer where the internals are. If it so much blips a bad signal, the car doesnt run well at all. Although it still runs, just real poopy....or just fine. And then there are days itll goof up in mid driving.

Youve replaced everything you thought it was. Now go replace the dizzy.