I'm starting to hate my car

Ok so I have an 88 TC 5 speed. Its all stock.
It was driving fine, until somewhere around the start of July. It started bucking a little bit, so I thought it was a dirty fuel filter.

It starts with no issues, sounds great at idle, the engine revs perfectly all the way to 6k.

But when I put it in gear and try to drive it, it bucks and jolts really bad. I can still drive it but I have to work the clutch and gas pedals to get it going. It drives like crap for about 4-5 miles, but after that it rides great. WTF!

I replaced the tps, plugs and wires twice, IAC, VAM, throttle body, injectors, fuel filter many times, fuel pump strainer, checked for codes and gets 34 (EGR thing no big deal), checked all the vacuum lines, bypassed the egr. And other stuff.


Im really considering a v8 engine swap. I hate this BS. The car has sat for about a month and a half and I cant figure this out. Im frigging pissed. I have used the search feature many times but I cant find a solution.

sounds like the coolant temp sensor.. sensor between injectors 2 and 3....

What codes did you get for each phase of the test?
Also try running the fuel system diagnostics if there are no codes;
http://www.turbotbird.com/techinfo/Fuel_...ostics.htm

When I hook up my code reader I get insufficient egr flow with the car on or off.

The car has good fuel pressure, it gets up to 50psi
on the pressure tester. I checked and tested each injector and they all work fine. I took apart the intake to demount the fuel rail, connected the ground to the test connector to run the pump with the injectors still on, it popped off one of them, so it has great pressure. No leaks

I'll take a look at the temp sensor.

bucking/surging at startup may be TFI/PIP

http://www.turbotbird.com/faqs/#Engine%2...uns%20fine


http://www.turbotbird.com/techinfo/TFI-PIP/TFI-PIP.htm

^^^^^ +1

Classic TFI / PIP issue. EIther they are fine cold and act up warm, or act up cold and improve warm.

Replace both at the same time, as recommended by Ford.

my blue TC used to do that, my dad said it had spirtial issues cuz once it got a a minute of running the idle would rev up and down real fast. did ti everytime. drove me nuts for years. then i replaced the TFI by the advice of Pete, Jeff, and Bob P. and it went away, my 88 does it now too. but i dont mind brings back memories!

I bought a refurbished distributor from autozone, I got the one with the module already installed.

I threw it on, and it seems to be worse. It starts and idles at 500rpm. Takes a couple of minutes for it to get up to 1000rpm.

After that, I can drive it. It doesnt really bog down as much as before, but now it feels as if the emergency brake is stuck on; and its not.

The turbo is spinning really fast at idle, and when I rev the engine, it goes all the way up to 18psi @ around 2500rpm.

This happens with the "NEW" distributor and with another distributor from my non running 88TC.

With the old distributor, it idles and sounds great, but bogs down under acceleration.

I hope the tfi and pip where Motorcraft. After market parts don't work so well.

Did you unplug the spout when you replaced the distributor? If not, then your timing is extremely off and would explain the boosting at low rpms. The spout is a little black plug connected to 2 wires that come out of the tfi harness. Un plugging it disconnects the computers ability to control timing and allows you to set you 10° btc base timing.