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Topic: Time for some new ignition wires (Read 15418 times) previous topic - next topic

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #60 –
Well you're actually closer to sea level than I am :hick:. 16" of vacuum is good. Like I said I've got 16.5" at 70rpm hot idle. That's not a bad price for the MSD wires. I only paid $5 less for them from a local speed shop. Like I said they are pretty decent wires. One thing to remember is that the plug boot ends are multi angle, which means you can bent them up to a 45* angle for header clearance. You don't have to leave them straight.

As far as a plastic pintle cap making it to the exhaust I doubt it. I dropped a cracked one into an intake runner when I was swapping from 19lb to 24lb injectors. The thing got sucked right into the combustion chamber and vaporized. No way is that piece of plastic getting out through the exhaust valve into the header/exhaust pipe intact ;).
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #61 –
Quote from: thunderjet302;440310
Well you're actually closer to sea level than I am :hick:. 16" of vacuum is good. Like I said I've got 16.5" at 70rpm hot idle. That's not a bad price for the MSD wires. I only paid $5 less for them from a local speed shop. Like I said they are pretty decent wires. One thing to remember is that the plug boot ends are multi angle, which means you can bent them up to a 45* angle for header clearance. You don't have to leave them straight.

As far as a plastic pintle cap making it to the exhaust I doubt it. I dropped a cracked one into an intake runner when I was swapping from 19lb to 24lb injectors. The thing got sucked right into the combustion chamber and vaporized. No way is that piece of plastic getting out through the exhaust valve into the header/exhaust pipe intact ;).

We'll see what it is/was. The intake runners were taped off, and the noise didn't appear for a couple minutes. I couldn't hear it when spinning the motor from the starter relay. I will hopefully have the plugs/injectors/exhaust off one last time today, and will inspect everything. I don't understand what the noise could have been.
1988 Thunderbird Sport

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #62 –
I am getting slightly concerned and confused. My compression readings don't go up at all with a hot engine. I have no idea why compression is down 30-40psi this year. I also have cylinder #8 barely reaching 140psi after 5 cranks today. Throwing oil into the cylinder does nothing.

I am running more rich today. Forgot that I turned off closed-loop some days back - all plugs came out showing rich, but some darker than others.
1988 Thunderbird Sport

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #63 –
Well - MSD ignition wires ALSO arc. I don't think anyone can say they don't. Even going straight from coil to a spark tester, they arc when close to any metal. Anyone who says otherwise has poor eyesight/tools. They also don't appear to cross a .45" gap in the spark tester any better than the FMS wires, using a new Accel coil.

So now I have a minor leak at my EGR valve. Motorcraft part with maybe 5k miles on it. Valve cover leak was due to one of the metal sleeves from some other previous gasket being stuck to it - didn't see it! I also can't resolve a minor leak at the upper to lower intake in a spot - even rtv cured for many hours didn't stop the leak. Not sure what's going on there.

Idle vacuum is now 17 inches at 670rpms. I still have a slight miss, but I think it is getting less. Passenger side is about 2.5% richer than driver side, which matched with my findings when I had closed-loop disabled for awhile. The passenger side plugs were blacker than the driver side.

I also have an issue with my ACT sensor - I need a new plug. Mine has a broken clip, and I found that my car would randomly, instantly die. When this happened, the car would show -40 degrees. Other times, it would show the same temperature as the ECT sensor. Pushing it back onto the sensor all the way made the engine run again.

Adjusted my tune. KAMFR values are now 0.988 and 1.012 - 1.2% richening on driver side and 1.2% leaning-out on the passenger side. I still see some weird thing going on with the timing - I will see 16-20 degrees of timing at idle, but occasionally I will see 27-30 degrees for a split second. Not sure what to make of that. Isn't "smooth", but it's getting pretty consistent.

Throttle tip-in is pretty bad - floor it and the AFR's skyrocket, and I get a delay before the motor revs. I will have to mess with the tune a bit to fix that - I don't remember what to change for throttle body cross-area and intake volume.
1988 Thunderbird Sport

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #64 –
Quote from: Seek;440299


New compression gauge arrived - shows 147-153psi across all cylinders with a cold engine. I apparently have one dead gauge on-hand, and now two good ones...

.


take the compression gauge apart, you will see how it works,, then recalibrate it.
for the record,, room temperature effects the "arched" piece of copper/brass inside so pay attention to that when testing.

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #65 –
Quote from: Seek;440349
- floor it and the AFR's skyrocket, and I get a delay before the motor revs..

injector filters?

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #66 –
adding this amazing thread with your technical observations ,, your always like a rocket scientist when you jump on a problem.  you leave no stone unturned.

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #67 –
Quote from: jcassity;440367
injector filters?

Happened with my old 24lbers also. The issue is that the computer isn't properly antiting the flow increase for a split second. I saw some threads about it over on the eectuning forum, but then had to deal with the ACT sensor signal disappearing. Engine was idling, then suddenly died for no reason like I had pulled spark. Computer thinking it went from 100+ degrees air-charge temp to -40 degrees made the computer jump to the end of its tables, doing weird things to ALL the parameters. I can show the functions and tables that are all affected by this sensor.

Anyway, waiting to hear back about some welding work to get my lers/tails hooked back up. Maybe take a break - last night I dreamt that I was working on the car, and 3 of my plugs had missing electrodes. For the record, all my spark plugs are intact without any damage/all still gapped correctly, as were my injectors. No missing parts. My biggest concern is the lower compression/not changing with a hot motor, and cylinder #8 now showing 7% lower than the other cylinders. 140 vs 150psi on the rest, while I got around 187psi average not too long ago with this motor. All rockers felt good - no lash, but not loose, and no collapsed lifters. No damage to the rockers of valve covers - nothing hitting, nothing broken. Of course, no codes after fixing the ACT sensor - it was storing code 54. The EEC is also happy with the cylinder balance test, just like it was before with all the leaks.
1988 Thunderbird Sport

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #68 –
New fuel filter fixed some AFR issues. I was getting bad breakup over 3500rpms/wot and found it going quite lean at around 15:1 AFR. New filter I am now at 12:1 AFR WOT, but still getting breakup. The car falls on its face and misfires, barely making it to higher rpms. I'm looking at the distributor next - everything else has been replaced! Revs fine to 6k in park/neutral.

I'm down to needing to replace my EGR valve for vacuum leak fixes. The EGR and valve cover's oil fill cap have some leakage. No other leaks around, other than pressure coming out of the cap I have on the throttle body. With 30psi going into the intake, it currently holds about 10psi before the leaks overtake the additional pressure.
1988 Thunderbird Sport

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #69 –
Sucks to see all the problems, but I really enjoy reading your troubleshooting process! The extended exposure engine bay pictures are awesome!

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #70 –
Glad someone is entertained by this mess! :crazy:

I tried my small stock '89 Mustang MAF with no change (but pegged it quickly). I put my 75mm back in and my old 24lb injectors that I ran for years. I richened up the AFR a bit to look more into the 4k breakup. I had NO clue what to make of this short WOT burst, which was the worst one yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX2yoyGE4NA&feature=youtu.be

Basically, tip-in was lean, which is fine for now. It quickly richens up but the car can't climb past 4k rpms. For some reason, right before I let off the throttle, I see it lean out. It looks like it was the EEC compensating for the MAF voltage dropping a few frames beforehand in the datalog. The choppy motor was likely making the air pulse around the MAF sensor, making the sensor's voltage swing all over the place.

From these datalogs, I thought the fuel injectors and pump should be fine. I don't know what the passenger bank is doing yet - I would need to pull and re-run my wideband wiring.

Here is where I fix the breakup

So breakup is likely what - fuel starvation, lack of spark, floating valves, or really bad timing. While attempting to fix my slight idle miss, I've swapped out many parts. Today and yesterday I had a couple times when there was a really bad smell that I couldn't smell after pulling over and popping the hood, or smelling the exhaust. I figured I'd try my old parts store coil that I ran for years. BREAKUP IS GONE. Coil was probably killing itself internally/creating a burning smell.

Now I'm seeing WAY too rich of AFR (under 11:1), so I need to revert those earlier changes. Floor the pedal, traction disappears and it seems to struggle gaining traction as the speed increases. Around 5k I see some weird behaviors, but that is my current 4r70w shift point - I will need to fix that. I tried setting the shifter to 1st, but once I got to 5000-5500k, I let off the pedal and the tach bounced around with a 1500rpm swing - up and down, up and down. I have no clue what to make of that, but speed and motor rpms were smooth, other than the jolt of the motor powering down. Put it into OD again and took it around once more - 5k, it shifted to 2nd, and then I let off to remain under 50mph.

Randomly swapping parts is a TERRIBLE idea for anyone. Brand new Accel coil that seems to get rave reviews on forums and Amazon. I got a junk one! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00062YUY4

Traction is a problem again. I can't hear the exhaust - the only noise I hear when getting on it is motor roaring through the firewall.
1988 Thunderbird Sport

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #71 –
I had a brand new MSD TFI coil literally separate on me about two miles to an exit on I-45 between Dallas and Houston a few years back.  I thought I was out of fuel as I had just installed a new fuel pump and maybe the fuel gauge was off.  Walked two miles to the exit (no one in Texas will pick up hitch hikers on I-45 as the Huntsville prison where they put inmates to death is on that route).  Got my gas and a ride back to the car and no luck.  Popped the hood and started looking around and wiggled the coil wire only to see oil come out of it.  Pulled up on the coil wire attached to the coil and it just came apart.  A very nice Texas Highway Patrol trooper gave me a ride back into town to a Napa and I got a coil and two zip ties.  He drove me back out to the car and in a couple of minutes I was on my way.  I ordered that coil off of eBay so I wonder to this day if it was a knock off.  I ordered a new one from Summit Racing and it has been in the car ever since.  I still have the Napa brand coil in my garage for testing purposes.

Glad to see you are making progress on the motor.  Hopefully once you have it sorted out you can enjoy the new 4R70W trans and pick the shift points up to about 6K.

Darren

83 351W TKO'd T-Bird on the bottle


93 331 Mustang Coupe - 368 rwhp

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #72 –
Quote from: Aerocoupe;440670
Glad to see you are making progress on the motor.  Hopefully once you have it sorted out you can enjoy the new 4R70W trans and pick the shift points up to about 6K.

Yeah, I figure I just got a bad coil. Either way, my old one tested fine on output as it was able to jump a 0.4" gap on my spark tester. I'll keep it in there for now.

I plan on doing some tuning with 24lb injectors tonight, and correct my transmission's tune (it still thinks I have 3.08 gears) with a bump up to 5600rpm shift points. It needs time to do the 1-2 shift - years back it took 300-400rpms to complete the shift with a 3.55 final drive ratio. I will have to review datalogs to see where my shift finishes now with the lighter converter, jmod, and where power begins to fall. I may need to put the 30lb injectors back in to fine the engine's real power wall.

Still have no clue what to do about my slight miss, which has always been there. I do still need to replace the EGR valve, but I'm going to wait a couple weeks for that. I will get back to idle troubleshooting at that time. For now, make sure the motor is healthy up top!
1988 Thunderbird Sport

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #73 –
Has anyone figured out by now that the stock ford stuff is better than any aftermarket junk. We did testing on LS coils some time back and a change over to MSD coils netted a loss of 18 HP. Believe it or not the stock stuff is always better. Many fords i work on have original ignition parts well over 150K and working flawlessly. It actually boggles my imagination that people spend good money for this JUNK. Just me could be wrong. But my cylinder scope tells the story as an independent JUDGE!!!
I spend money I don't have, To build  cars I don't need, To impress people I don't know

HAVE YOU DRIVEN A FORD LATELY!!

Time for some new ignition wires

Reply #74 –
Quote from: TOM Renzo;440676
Has anyone figured out by now that the stock ford stuff is better than any aftermarket junk. We did testing on LS coils some time back and a change over to MSD coils netted a loss of 18 HP. Believe it or not the stock stuff is always better. Many fords i work on have original ignition parts well over 150K and working flawlessly. It actually boggles my imagination that people spend good money for this JUNK. Just me could be wrong. But my cylinder scope tells the story as an independent JUDGE!!!

Yep - everyone seems to love the stock Motorcraft unit. All you can do now days is rebuild one - no new old stock complete distributors to be found. PIP and TFI are available new though.
1988 Thunderbird Sport