bertt

just got the mustang home and its running like crap, its idling at lie 4 or 5 hundred and it doesnt want to stay running, there is smoke coming off the converters and h-pipe, i dont know what it is, when i revved it up it was smoking alot too any ideas?

samseed101

Any chance your cats are clogged? On two seperate occasions, I have seen a car run rough, die, and then never start again because the cats were too clogged. And if you're getting smoke from them or something like that, it would make me look at that even more.

Drop the midpipe, fire it up, and see how it runs. If it runs better (but a LOT louder, lol) then you may be looking at clogged cats.

bertt

if its not the cats what else cold it be? o2 sensors maybe?

samseed101

A rough idle could be a lot of things unfortunately. Dirty MAF (Don't know if you're SD or if you switched), vacuum leak, bad plugs, wires, cap , rotor, dizzy, etc. Usually, if you had back O2 sensors, you would get a CEL that would come and go. But it wouldn't necessarily cause your engine to run THAT badly.

But none of those other problems I listed would cause your cats and pipes to actually smoke. That's uually a sign that something bad is in there or that it's clogged up or something similar. It doesn't take long to drop teh exhaust. Personally I'd drive it up on ramps, drop the midpipe, and fire it up for 30 sec or so to see what it does. maybe look into teh midpipe while you're at it.

samseed101

I suppose it's possible that you also blew a head gasket and coolant is getting into the cylidners and burning up. That would give you some white smoke and make it run bad. But you'd probably know it if youe HG went.

bertt

i just popped the exhaust off and ran it for a bout 40 secs and it is still running like that, i wish i had my videocamera, i would do a video showing what it is doing, i dont think its a blown hg but i will go check again, there is a couple vacumm leaks but it has never done this before, everytime i start it and revv it up it smokes alot, white smoke, i was thinking maybe bad gas?

samseed101

White smoke when you first start upis normal. If white smoke continues then you have an internal coolant leak, i.e., cracked head/blown head gasket. If you see black smoke then you're running rich. Blue smoke is caused by oil consumption.

Usually you will see one of those three colors. So given what you say is happening. I'm starting to lean towards a blown head gasket. What does your coolant look like? Is it lower than normal? Any oil and coolant mixed together or is it kinda foamy? That would cause the white smoke and that would cause it to run rough as water and coolant got into the cylinders.

samseed101

You know, you may be onto something there. If water somehow got in your gas tank, that would do the same thing. It would cause it to run rough and white smoke would come out just like it would if the water came from a blown HG. Butit would have to be enough water to cause problems, but not so much that it would keep the engine from running at all.

bertt

im going to do a new fuel filter tomorrow, thats where im starting at then i will work my way up from there, im hoping is just a bad filter or even bad gas cause this is a daily drier and its gotta run, it was just down a coupleof days whuile i was putting in the cltch so we had to drive the gas hog bronco, im hoping thats it thanks samseed

Pony 5.0

I had a problem similar to that. I used Felpro intake to head gaskets. I apparently overtightened the lower intake and the gasket material between the water passage and the intake passage to cylinder #5 turned to mush. This allowed coolant to enter the cylinder. It ran like crap, wouldn't idle right and I would see white smoke in my rearview mirror. When the engine is cold, preferably in the morning, pull out the spark plug from either front cylinder and see if they are fouled. Hand turn the engine and see if coolant blows out the plug hole. This is how discovered my problem. I hope this might help you.