Jason Held

ok, so obviously i have a 3.8L 95 stang. the past few months i have been having an issue with loss of power, some backfiring, and the car kind of judders while accelerating. the first time i ran an obd it said MAF was bad, so i replaced that with a new one. i talked to an uncle of mine who works on cars and he said if its backfiring, it could only be caused by the MAF, TPS, or Cam sensor. so, i went ahead and replaced the TPS, cam sensor, and the spark plugs, and wires. no change. i have also replaced the fuel filter, pcv valve, oil change. all the basic tune up stuff. the obd is reading now, system lean (bank 2). i am nearing the end of stuff i can do, i think, as i am not a mechanic. so, if anyone has any ideas of anything else that it could be, please let me know. i am probably going to have to take it to a shop soon, if it is something i cannot do. thanks for your help, in advance!

Jason Held

just wanted to add, it also idles kind of rough around 500-700 rpm

warthogdriver

Mine did something similar and i did all the things you did.
did you do a compression check on the cyclinders?
You can rent the tool at most parts stores. Mine turned out to be a failing headgasket....that eventually had a total failure. I hope thats not the case for you but your sysptoms sound similar to what happened to me....one plus is that your actually throwing codes. Hopefully someone else will chime in here with some better ideas for ya.

BabyGT

It's your coil I bet. Replace the ignition coil. Make sure you get one made by motorcraft or a well know performance brand. The oem replacements don't seem to last long.

Jason Held

ok, you think it is the coil pack? i was actually planning on replacing that next, so that makes me feel a bit better about it.

i was planning on going with http://www.americanmuscle.com/demon-...ck-9400v6.html

what do you think?

BabyGT

I don't have any actual experience with that brand but I have heard great and bad things about those, I have an msd coil and love it.
http://www.americanmuscle.com/msd-coilpack-9400v6.html

Jason Held

ok, thanks for the suggestions. i will let you know what happens. if it fixes it or not.

cotterstang98

Check for vaccum leaks, a lean reading suggests vaccum leak, the sputtering backfiring and popping,also suggests that your fuel trim is through the roof, which basically means that the 02 sensor getting the lean reading is telling the computer to pump alot of extra fuel in through the injectors on bank 2, which also means your vaccum leak is bad enough to cause a dead miss on one or more of the cylinders on bank 2 causing unburnt fuel to dump into,your hot exhaust and pop my mechanical crystal ball is telling me you need lower intake manifold gaskets, the set from felpro will cost you around 49$ comes with upper and lower intake manifold gaskets new injector seals and a thermostat housing gasket, I can assure you rhis is where your problem lies, if this is not fixed asap and you continue to drive the vehicle with the popping and dead miss you will wind up with burned out rings from the unburned fuel, and/ or plugged cats from the unburned fuel making its way to them, this is not a peoblem caused by a sensor you have wastes your moolah, bro

BabyGT

Why does everyone tell people to jump straight to the complicated problems? Try the coil first then go from there. The coil is a common issue with these cars and is easy to swap. If that doesn't work then check that.

NeoTokyo

The coil is a common issue with 01-04 Stangs when it went to the new style, the 94-00 are a better design that generally dont fail near as often as the 01+.

It is still worth looking into, also looking into those plug wires.

Go through the steps that everyone else has said too.

Are you losing any coolant or have an oily film on your rad cap?