I’m thinking about a problem we are having with my son’s 86GT
When we got it it cranked like there was plenty of compression (and there is) but It idled unevenly and pretty much just wouldn’t get out of its own way. I disassembled the throttle body and Engr spacer area and cleaned the holy crap out of everything. Idle much better, hello 5.0L with VR1 ECU at 8 degrees BTDC. I left it there because the kid was still learning to drive a stick and a car with crappy brakes.
(Redid all the brakes - booster, master cyl, etc, as stock but added carbon pads in front. New shocks, new struts, new tires).
When we bought it the motor never came up on the temp gauge at all and got poor fuel economy. Likely the source of the carbon. Found the Ford Racing plug wires were crap and causing a misfire on #4. Cap and rotor weren’t great, etc. replaced them.
I later determined the low temp was caused by a thermostat that was rigged to always stay wide open while tearing into it but summers here are brutal and it was staying cool so I left it a while. during that time the fan clutch failed and temps started climbing in traffic of course. We fixed that and it went back to running below range all the time. Put in a failsafe thermostat and it worked right about a week then failed safe for some reason.
Winter came around and no heat so time for a new thermostat. This time a normal one. Things worked perfectly with the 195. Right on the R of normal all the time.
The water pump failed so that became a cold project. I back flushed the block through the heater hoses when it was apart. Usual twisted off bolt cursing, etc.... but got it back together and up with no more leaks.
Was fine for about a year. The heater core started leaking so that was replaced and a flow restrictor was added to the high pressure side.
Things stayed fine. We dialed up the timing to 13.5 degrees and things remained fine. Swapped over to a VM1 ECU from my 1986GT and again temps stayed fine.... started running like a raped ape — about the way my 86 always did when it was SD much to my surprise. This one is minus the Ford Racing late 80’s cam and ported intake and exhaust. It pulls like mine always did but runs out of steam by 5300 where mine was good until 5600. Anyway — cheap upgrade and way more fun to drive. Probably around 15% more torque at the wheels it feels like. Good ol driveway tuneup!
Good for about a year.
Then this summer came around. We’ve been battling keeping it in operating range all summer. A few Ignition modules have burned up due to heat also.
Sharp contrast from my 1986 — I never had these problems!!
The radiator in the car is a modern plastic end AL fin unit and it really doesn’t fit very well. It’s never been serviced with a blow-back machine and it’s flow is not looking awesome. Where I’m at is replace the radiator with an OE style but 3 core.
im thinking about overdriving the water pump with a cobra pulley also.
the stupid part is it runs fine and comes up on temp slowly until about the time the EGR would come into play.
Im wondering if there are documented cases of anything EGR related sticking causing heat problems. I had a valve stick wide open on a 350 Buick and it wouldn’t idle for **** and ran hot as hell in town but fine on the road.
Whats the easiest way to bypass or block off EGR for testing?
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