fasazu2

I just bought a 1989 Mustang LX 5.0 w/5 speed. I have a few issues with the car.... got it, (welcome to the worn out 5.0 club) anyway the issues. I have the dreaded idle surge. If I give it throttle and let it idle back down it will do fine for about 10 seconds then the surging picks back up again. It is burning rich I have both smell and smoke as indicators. I have tried the following, cleaned throttle body, cleaned MAF, cleaned IAC, searched to no avail for a vacuum leak. Can somebody give me a direction to try next?
Part II- I have a ticking noise at idle coming from the back passenger side of the engine bay. When I press in on the clutch the ticking stops, let it back out and the ticking starts again. I haven't noticed anything wrong when driving. Is there a shop or someone here in Tennessee that specializes in Mustangs that I could get some help and or advise from if I can't get this figured out? Thanks in advance for the help.

bluebeastsrt

The ticking noise is most likely an exhaust leak. As far as the first problem, What your describing is weird because if you had a vacuum leak you'd be lean instead of rich. Heres a link to a ton of things to check. Happy hunting!http://www.stangnet.com/mustang-foru...cklist.698148/

fasazu2

Thanks for the link. I will start that route this weekend. On the ticking issue. The exhaust is a headers to mac dual exhaust with cross over and minus the cats. I did not see or hear an exhaust leak. What could be causing the ticking that relates to letting in and out on the clutch?

Roger Mabry

Had the "noise" in the past....

mjr46

smell and smoke, therefore it's rich......................lol............put the cats back on and the smell will be reduced......what 90 percent of you guys here fail to understand about the eec iv is it can detect rich or lean conditions.....if I had a quarter for everytime a guy on here posts "My car smells rich" on an efi car I'd be able to retire.........run koeo/koer, if no rich codes come back the eec iv has good control and can adapt to minor rich conditions under the 10-11 percent adaptive strategy capability

fasazu2

Well I got it figured out. After changing all my vacuum lines, new IAC, Cleaning mass air and throttle body, PVC and screen. It turned out to be a bad fuel pressure regulator. I found fuel in the vacuum line when I changed it out. New FPS and the surging is gone. Thanks for everyones help. The exhaust no longer smells rich and I don't have the smoke like before MJR46 guess the eec iv couldn't keep up with the extra fuel. Hope this helps out someone else.

88 orangepeel notch

Good to hear, congrats.

mjr46

eec iv has roughly a 12/13 percent adaptive strategy to compensate, above that and it'll fire off codes once adaptive strategy is maxed out...learn to start with basics, simple koeo/koer can pick lean / rich codes and from there a troubleshooting tree can be used. glad you figured it out.