Annoying Day of Car Work

So, I went to install some new parts today: one side of '94-95 spindle, caster/camber plates, and braided stainless brake hose. Ran into one stumbling block after another! First, my stupid 3 year old POS air compressor kept acting up again, even though I thought i had fixed it for good last fall. You kind of need an air compressor to do ball joint and upper strut mount nuts. So that was annoying. Then I found that my ball joint nuts were nylock as opposed to castellated, so I had to drop everything and go buy new ones. Then I found that my Steeda strut tower brace interferes with my QA1 caster/camber plates! Argh! So I had to take THAT back out (of course with nylock nuts too) in order be able to put the front suspension back together. And THEN, I found that my new brake hoses are for 7/16" one side and 3/8" the other side, even though '99 and up brakes are both sides 3/8", and I had already modified my brake lines accordingly. Grrr!! So now, I have to change them BACK to the way they were from the factory.

I've had this damned car apart so many times, I thought I could just bang this out today, but NOPE.

I see your pain....I been fighting with my girls car....damn thing is hard starting when warm....now seems to be hard starting with warmer outside temps !? Thinking Mas Air flow sensor....it has a built in Ambient air sensor. So test that next !? I just want to work on my Fairmont !!!!

You're a brave man, working on a modern car yourself!

I found out there's an adaptor for my brake line problem, so that's not so bad I guess. As for the strut tower brace, I guess I'll probably end up clearancing it to fit. Lame though.

hey Stymee's mont

have you tested the fuel pressure on your Taurus. It may be a good idea to thro a gauge on it and see what the pressure is.

Here are a couple of pointers:

Make sure the battery is fully charged and has a good cranking speed.

Make sure the fuel filter is clean and has a good flow rate.

Thro a fuel pressure gauge on it.

As soon as you cycle the key on you should have at least 30 psi, if not recycle the key and see what the pressure is. With the engine running you need at least 30 psi, with the engine off, and cycling the key a couple of times, it would be nice to see 35/40 psi.
Tape the gauge to the windscreen, and go for a short cruise watching the guage, when you accelerate rapidly the gauge may drop/flicker for a few milliseconds, and then go back up above 30 psi. cruise pressure is good at 30 psi.
Monitor the guage pressure while driving (heat-soak) to see if it drops when it gets warm.(not good)
Just as important, when you shut the vehicle down, monitor the fuel rail pressure, it should stay around 30 or so psi and then gradually drop to something above 0 psi.
If the pressure drops to 0 psi, the pump check valve has a problem.
This can be verified by leaving the vehicle to sit (cold-soak) as you normally do, then monitor and note the gauge pressure before you put the key in.
When you cycle the key to “on” if it doesn’t go up to at least 30 psi, on the first key cycle and right away during cranking, and you know the fuel filter is good and clean, thro a pump in it.

Even if the fuel filter appears clean, if you change a fuel pump, thro a new filter on it.

Fuel injection on this car is still pretty basic, i wouldn’t go too far into the MAF just yet, do you have IDS to use? If so, monitor the fuel pids if it has FRP, also try looking at ECT or CHT.



I

I was thinking fuel too. Seriously, I was.

i thought it was the winter fuel blend being used in spring-time, is it spring time yet???

I did a fuel pressure test...it was fine. But it seems to have issues when the car is warm...maybe even more as outside temps are warmer. When I start it I hear fuel pump and it turns over and over then fires up. Then the smell of fuel and nasty exhaust smell. The MAS air in this car has a built in Ambient air sensor, so I think its the problem.
I have tested and swapped coil packs, idle air has been swapped to test (seems fine so far but should not be the issue) The engine coolant temp sensor has been replaced (it was a cheap replacement). I did clean the MAS air and it was dirty, but today I am testing it and may even try to find one used to see if there is an improvement. I do have a fuel pump sitting here on stand by ! Also could be the fuel pump control mod. if this car has one.....I am sure it does but since there is no repair manuals to buy other then a used dealer service manual.....this makes this car a pain to find info on it !

I can see why you're thinking the way you are, but is there a way you can look at fuel pump duty cycle on your scan tool? Those have a returnless fuel system, right? If you look at that duty cycle and compare it to known normal values based on conditions (if you can find them anywhere) that will tell you if your sensors are giving it the right information or not. If the duty cycle is what it should be, it probably means your fuel pump is weak/on its way out. If the duty cycle is wrong, its probably the MAF! You can probably look at MAF values too, now that I'm thinking about it...

OK so one please come steel, blow this piece of crap up, or make it disappear !!! Its not the the fuel pump,not the MAF, not IAC, not TPS, not Engine Coolant Temp sensor, not the Fuel Filter,............................

hate to chime in, as you smell fuel, have you checked the plugs???

batt fully charged, good cranking speed??

try leaving the maf disconncted when you crank it up, the pcm will go into default.

any codes???

what is the fuel pressure reading during cranking after the vehicle sits for a while when this concern is present.

need more info

cats not blocked are they, have you done a vacuum test??

have you left the fuel cap off when this happens to se if the cap is orking correctly.

it's gotta be a simple thing

shame you live so far away, i'd have it, they are good cars.

Sorry ZephyrEFI for taking over this post !!! HAHAHA ...
Any how, here is the long story :
Car had major running issues a month back. I found a broken exh. valve spring. I fixed it and ran like a top. Mean while I replaced all 4 O2 sensors, EGR, EGR Solenoid,and EGR Sensor. As the EGR seemed bad at the time and One O2 Sensor was sticking lean.
Now all that was done ran great but the hard starting began right away , only after the car ran and fully warmed up then sat for 10 mins. or so. Starts perfectly cold.
So, as of so far I have put a new Fuel Pressure Sensor in, Temp Sensor, Fuel Pump, and Fuel filter.
I tested MAF,I cleaned itand tested fine but not sure how to test the Ambient Air Sensor side of it. Issue ?
I did find another MAF at the bone yard as a test in comparison. All was the same (I cleaned it too)...no change in car performance or starting.
I did replace the IAC with a new one, but the new one was bad out of the box and hard an erratic idle.....put original back on. Could this still be the issue ?
I did do a Back Pressure Test on the cats back when I found the broken exh. valve spring and it passed perfectly.Pluss the car runs way to nice for this to be an issue.
I also had all the injectors cleaned and rebuilt since I was in there.
TODAY, I checked all the spark plugs .....perfectly normal
Checked engine compression on the cyl. where the broken valve spring was and compared it to 2 more cly.s nice match of about 118-120psi.
fangar150-ex I did look at fuel pressure when starting....33psi at starting then goes up to 60psi for a sec as it started then down to 44psi.
ECT is at 190 / 198 while engine is hot
Watched FN/VAC (MY SCAN TOOLS LIVE VIEW) = it moved up and down from 39.7-40.3 psi when engine is hot.
I did a KOER Test with the scan tool, came up with P2270 Sensor signal stuck LEAN Bank1, Sensor 2 .
I plan to try swaping out this O2 Sensor back to the old one and see if it changes. But question here is is this my hard starting issue ? Seems likely as I can smell excess fuel when it does this hard starting !
Any input is welcome.......back out to try this swaping o2 !!

Ok, so I did replace the o2 sensor with my old original. Past KOER test and seems to be working when looking at it on the live view screen. So I ran to parts store and warrantied the bad one. Found out that it was boxed wrong and now the new one looks just like the original (the only difference was the length of the pig tail). Then I disconnected the battery just to force the computer to relearn everything, then took it out for a drive. All looks great ?! Now waiting for a while to give it the real test......will it restart the way it should and not turn over several times.

an 02 sensor doesn't usually cause a hard start problem, however it could, when you chase gremlins like this one, just remember the clear ones are hard to see.

good luck, lets hope it is resolved.

No prob on taking over. This thread is about complaining! haha. Glad you found the problem!

Well not the fix ! So how about the Crank sensor ? or Cam sensor ? How can I test them ?

If the CATs seem fine could there still be an issue with them ? I suppose I need to have a Scope hooked up to see that..........
All the wires look good on everything ...at least nothing extremely noticeable. I am stumped !

You should be able to monitor the voltage/ohms whatever from the crank and cam sensors. The trick is finding what they SHOULD be compared to engine rpm somewhere online.

Same with the cat. If you look at the O2s behind the cats, they should be at a steady voltage/ohms (can't remember which) as opposed to the pre-cat O2s alternating up and down. The ones after the cats should be at the middle of the range the pre-cat ones alternate through and stay there. If they are too high or too low, there may be a problem with a sensor (or possibly the cat but try a sensor first). if they are alternating the same as the pre-cat ones, the cat is definitely bad. you might even be able to look at a graph on your scanner just like a scope.

Thanks Brad, that does help. So I get this right.... Pre cat o2's should have a wave up and down on the graph (Which they both do) and the post cat o2's should be a flat line on the graph
? (I need to double check them, but I do think one was flat line, dont remember now)
All the o2's are new by the way.
But big question here is...If the Cats are bad, will it cause hard start on warm engine ?
This is possible problem as the valve spring on the exhaust side was broken and raw unburned fuel went through the system. From what I have learned it does not take much to f these Cats up.

loosen the pipes at the manifolds until they are almost off, then try to start it, if they are blocked, it should run better. the engine nned to pul a vacuum to getr air in th cylinders, if th cats are blocked everyrhing goes to hell.

ckp & cmp will lead to no sparks or injection, will also leave a code, very unlikely.

does the car have a tach, if so see if there is an rpm noted, if so, ckp is ok.

forget about all the sensors for a while, when they fail, they fail, it will be apparent. look at the basics.

Yeah, say the pre-cat ones alternate between 0 and 9, the post cat ones should be a flat line at about 5, not 0.

Ok thanks guys, I will try something !

i hate to say this , but only to save some time, forget about the 02 sensors for now, they only work when in closed loop, they are useless during start-up.

I understand fangar150, I gotta figure out if these Cats are bad. I actually found a use Sun Scope for sale and thinking of getting it. They are nice just for this issue plus dialing in a Carb. engine.....etc......
Any experience with these tools ? Here is the link to it : http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/tls/3716864400.html

Its not the best there is , but for shade tree mech. it maybe nice enough.

If you get that, I might just start storing my tools at your house. haha

That would be funny ! I know someone who has or had one of these, then he upgraded. They are sweet for tuning in the timing and carb.s on our old cars. Plus all the other goodies. I am going to go look at it on Fri. and see if he will show me it actually works. This deal almost sounds to good to be true.

just an anooying question, doesyou car have a vaccum oprated fuel pessure regulator. i hate to try this stuff online, because in person you feel, smell & touch, if you know what i mean.

if you scored an old sun osciloscope, you did well.....

does this problem only occur when trying to start the engine when it is hot, does it start, does it run rough, then clear-up.

if you start it from cold, and run it around, does it run ok after it warms-up?

i seem to remember a guy who did a intake on a vulcan engine, (3.0 ohv) and he screwed-up the cam synchroniser timing, the car was going apeshit.