95 5.0 sluggish with mods
 

Hey all, been a while sence i have been around here. A few years ago i crashed my stang into a tree at 40+ mph, i then decided to take that engine and tranny and put it in a new body. Well long story short it is now all put back together and i took it on the street for the first time yesterday and was dissapointed with what i felt. there was very little torque in first gear and under acceleration there was a small popping occasionally. the engine idles just above or at 1k rpm and sounds fine.

car has new trickflow top end kit, cam, full exhaust, just changed the plugs gapped at .044 or so. other small mods like fuel pump and whatnot. i think my timing may be off but have not had a chance to check it yet, if so would i bump it up or down? Thanks for any help or advice i may get

ps sorry for no caps and poor editing

Timing would definitly be something to look into. I had similar problems with my car when I got the engine in... turns out I was running about 4° ATDC... Bumping to 12° BTDC was like a giant kick in the ass!

Glad to know im not the only one haha, which way would i need to turn the distributor to advance timing?

clockwise

use a timing light!!!

he shoots.... AND HE SCORES!!!

Thanks for the replys all, i have and will be using a timing light i need to clean and mark the balancer first, cant see any numbers or marks due to flaking and minor rust

ok well i went out and timed the mustang, with the spout unplugged it is set right about 13 btdc. this is very close to where it was previously. my fuel pressure gauge seems to be reading 39 untill i throttle it a bit then it drops a few lbs. occasionally there is a small pop from back in the exhaust that makes me think im getting to much fuel. i have had the car tuned in the past but dont think i replaced the computer.... i feel like there is something im missing here because this thing should have some bottom end power... any input or ideas would be helpful.. thanks for your time

Well fuel pressure isn't bad if anything it may be a hair pin low.

Problem is, for all the work you have done, are you tuned at all? That's too much work done to allow the ECU to compensate on its own. And by that I mean accurately, it can to a degree but to get the most it needs to be tuned if it's not.

If it is tuned then there could be any number of issues most of which may be sensor or ignition related, two main causes of poor running Mustangs.

well i would think that a tune would make sence, although im not sure all the things they do while tuning? im going to have a mech come by tomorrow and try and read codes. i ran it earlier today and cylinder 3 was not firing properly. (it is getting spark to plug) i was able to grab the exhaust pipe after it ran and it was not very hot. i took the timing back just a hair and it seems to be firing now, but is poping in the exhaust like there is unburned fuel... im hoping i can get it to a decent tuner and they can sort this out