Bad gas?

[93SHO]

My SHO hasn't been running right lately. Last night, I was taking a few friends home, and the car bucked and then died. I tried to start it a minute or two after it did that... the car idled for about 5 seconds at 2,000 rpm, then died again. I let the car sit for about half an hour, then started it and it ran fine for about 15 minutes. Then, after putting the clutch in while approaching a stop sign, the RPM just continued dropping until the engine died once again.

I drove the car again today, and it died half of the times I had to come to a stop for a red light/stop sign. The car has been running fine above idle, and I can't really discern any other problems. It's been pretty warm lately, and my car typically doesn't like winterized fuel... but it's never been this bad before.

Any suggestions? Did I just fill up my tank with some bad gas? Spark plugs? Thanks in advance.

 

[sdpatt]

Could be one of several things, but to rule out some of them, you could check the EEC codes. You will expect to find the secondary fuel pump circuit problem because the engine had stalled. It's the others you find that will be helpful. It sounds more like a fuel problem than engine control. If you don't find any sensor failures, you may need to check the fuel line pressure. A simple check on the fuel pump health is to turn the ignition key to ON (not STSRT) and listen for the fuel pump. Is it a steady high-pitched whine or a dropping pitch moan?

 

[Two93SHOsguy]

Also, an easy check: Pull out the front 3 plug wires, and check to see how much oil is in the wells. One of my SHOs stalled, ran poorly, and both had lots of oil down there at 100k. It's getting new plugs, wires, O2 sensors and gaskets. Ask Mr. Torrie R. McPhail at
www.fordpartsnetwork.com. Good luck. Pretty car, too.

 

[Two93SHOsguy]

CHECK ENGINE light diagnostic tests and codes can be found in the following two links.
Test: http://www.dalidesign.com/hbook/eectest.html
Codes: http://www.dalidesign.com/hbook/3digit.html
The computer monitors engine, transmission, A/C, fuel and cooling systems, but not braking systems.

 

[Two93SHOsguy]

Found this at http://www.shoshop.com/ in the Maintenance section under cooling system:

An average life for a SHO water pump is about 80K miles. Most commonly the failure manifests itself in slow leak at the bottom of the pump. Unfortunately, a Crankshaft Position Sensor (CPS) is located right below and shuts-off intermittently when exposed to hot coolant. As a result the engine shuts-off until the CPS sensor cools down. When replacing the pump we always recommend installing a new CPS sensor at the same time. Our replacement pumps come with new lower pipe and O-ring gaskets. Limited Lifetime Warranty.

 

[Two93SHOsguy]

and this:

CPS is the most frequently failing electronic part on the car. It fails by shutting the car down intermittently only to restart half an hour later. CPS failure is usually caused by a leaking water pump.

 

[stevetatro]

If it was just a bucking/hesitation problem, but started okay, I'd suspect the plugs/wires.

Since you're having hard starts (or sometimes no starts at all!) I'd guess either a CID Sensor or CKP Sensor. That's assuming your fuel pump is good (like Scott said, listen for a nice tone when you go KOEO).

Good luck.

 

[93SHO]

Well guys, apparently my car was just getting re-acquianted with the warm weather again (or maybe bad gas?). Anyway, I drove it around some today. The temperatures here have been climbing into the high 70s here, which hasn't happened for a really long time. The car had a pretty bad idle for about 10-15 minutes, but after that, it's been running fine... knock on wood!

Anyways, thanks for the tips guys, I appreciate it!