ben37
New Member
- Joined
- May 6, 2020
- Messages
- 20
- Reaction score
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Hey,
so I have struggled the past 3 weeks to figure out what is going on with my car. It's a 2003 Mustang 3.8L V6.
First she started loosing power when the AC was on, more than usual. Then she started to loose power overall. I cannot figure out why.
I can repeatedly get her back to peak performance when she cools down over night. But even simply sitting in the sun during the day is already too much.
I have datalogs from a quarterhorse with TunerPro available, but I'm a little unsure how to interpret what I am seeing. Some observations I have are the MAF cts are a tad higher than they were before (but that might just be because I need to almost floor her to leave from a stop light), and IPSIBR goes all the way up to 0.5 and my ISCDTY (ISC duty cycle) is almost all the way to the top all the time.
Already posted over at efidynotuning.com to see if someone can make sense of that.
The symptoms I notice are hesitation, sometimes sputtering when I hit the gas too quickly to revv her, and I have heard the occasional mild backfire from the exhaust on decel.
Also hard to start once hot, cranks, fires, but doesn't catch to idle revvs unless I give her a little bit of gas
Things I have replaced in the past 3-4 weeks that did absolutely nothing (not necessarily in this order):
- Spark Plugs
- Spark plug wires
- coil pack
- Fuel filter
- Air filter
- cleaned MAF with MAF cleaner
- Passenger side exhaust manifold (fixed the notorious cracking due to dripping AC condensation)
- recharged AC (I'm never running it though, she wouldn't accelerate or even go up a slight incline with it on)
- Valve stem seals
- Throttle body gasked (had to take it off to access valve covers)
- oil + filter change
- seafoam (spray for intake and fluid for fuel and oil)
- lucas injector cleaner
- 93 octane (just for the heck of it as I was running out of ideas)
- cut a vent hole in the hood (I'm gonna take the hood off later just to see if it does something)
Basically, it feels like she has like maybe 50 hp left once she reaches 200°. And it's been continuously getting worse day by day, except for in the mornings where she's cooled down.
I'm kinda desperate at this point, I don't know what else to do. I'm a little frustrated because I seem to be throwing the wrong parts at her.
EDIT:
For the record, some additional things that have been worked on during the last year (in order, most recent at the top):
- quarterhorse installed to run different strategy on PCM (to make the stick work properly)
- auto to manual swap
- thermostat changed
- water pump gasket changed
- radiator changed (and consequently flushed, duh)
- ball joints, battery terminals, radio, brake pads and disks, other chassis stuff.
- IMRC clips broken
so I have struggled the past 3 weeks to figure out what is going on with my car. It's a 2003 Mustang 3.8L V6.
First she started loosing power when the AC was on, more than usual. Then she started to loose power overall. I cannot figure out why.
I can repeatedly get her back to peak performance when she cools down over night. But even simply sitting in the sun during the day is already too much.
I have datalogs from a quarterhorse with TunerPro available, but I'm a little unsure how to interpret what I am seeing. Some observations I have are the MAF cts are a tad higher than they were before (but that might just be because I need to almost floor her to leave from a stop light), and IPSIBR goes all the way up to 0.5 and my ISCDTY (ISC duty cycle) is almost all the way to the top all the time.
Already posted over at efidynotuning.com to see if someone can make sense of that.
The symptoms I notice are hesitation, sometimes sputtering when I hit the gas too quickly to revv her, and I have heard the occasional mild backfire from the exhaust on decel.
Also hard to start once hot, cranks, fires, but doesn't catch to idle revvs unless I give her a little bit of gas
Things I have replaced in the past 3-4 weeks that did absolutely nothing (not necessarily in this order):
- Spark Plugs
- Spark plug wires
- coil pack
- Fuel filter
- Air filter
- cleaned MAF with MAF cleaner
- Passenger side exhaust manifold (fixed the notorious cracking due to dripping AC condensation)
- recharged AC (I'm never running it though, she wouldn't accelerate or even go up a slight incline with it on)
- Valve stem seals
- Throttle body gasked (had to take it off to access valve covers)
- oil + filter change
- seafoam (spray for intake and fluid for fuel and oil)
- lucas injector cleaner
- 93 octane (just for the heck of it as I was running out of ideas)
- cut a vent hole in the hood (I'm gonna take the hood off later just to see if it does something)
Basically, it feels like she has like maybe 50 hp left once she reaches 200°. And it's been continuously getting worse day by day, except for in the mornings where she's cooled down.
I'm kinda desperate at this point, I don't know what else to do. I'm a little frustrated because I seem to be throwing the wrong parts at her.
EDIT:
For the record, some additional things that have been worked on during the last year (in order, most recent at the top):
- quarterhorse installed to run different strategy on PCM (to make the stick work properly)
- auto to manual swap
- thermostat changed
- water pump gasket changed
- radiator changed (and consequently flushed, duh)
- ball joints, battery terminals, radio, brake pads and disks, other chassis stuff.
- IMRC clips broken
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