Travis Smrekar

I have a 95 cobra SVT that hasnt had much done to it, just CAI installed and EGR delete, i've recently run into a major issue in terms of drivability.

The problem is under medium to heavy acceleration the car bogs down as if i were towing a trailer, but it only happens when in gear and is worst in 1st gear, when i push in the clutch everything seems to run up fine on the odometer so i suspect a mechanical fault somewhere.

but the strange part is that it'll bog down horribly like this until i get it up to about 3500-4000rpm, then it feels as if whatever was holding back breaks free and all of my power returns, and by all i mean as if i went from 1/4 throttle to full even though i didn't change in how much i physically held down the gas.

Someone please help, I've never encountered anything like this and can't find anything whatsoever to help me on the matter anywhere else

88 orangepeel notch

Welcome to the forum.

If this just started happening out of the blue, I'd pull codes first to see if any are stored.

There's alot of areas to start checking, but I'd start with the basics. Fuel pressure, vacuum leak, loose electrical connection ( thrown codes may help with this one), bad dizzy, etc, etc.

Good luck and post back with what you find.

Travis Smrekar

Tachometer, not odometer, wow i was tired when i wrote this haha.

So far i've checked all electrical connections and vacuum line and all is good, only codes thrown is cylinder 1 pressure low which has always been thrown, compression tests show everything suprisingly perfect.
Dizzy is working fine but just to be sure i went ahead and put in a spare MSD one i had and some 8mm plug wiring, iridium plugs

Next up is checking the MAF sensor and fuel pressure regulator, im thinking it might be getting flooded and finally gets that power back on higher throttle from letting more air in

88 orangepeel notch

Sounds good. You described your problem very well. I could picture it perfectly. Good job.....

You'll find the culprit if you keep checking things out like your doing. Cleaning the MAF and checking the FPR will help narrow things down.

Good luck

mustangsneverdie

I had a problem very similar to this at one point. it turns out that it was a contaminated maf sensor.

dawson1112

That code for cylinder 1 thrown during a balance test, and surprisingly enough it has very little to do with compression but more with ignition. You would get that same code if you pulled the plug wire or fuel injector on that cylinder. It is just telling you that when the test was ran cylinder 1 did not have as much power as the computer expected to see in the pip. Or in other words there is a cylinder 1 misfire. The computer doesn't know if its compression related or ignition/fuel related.

alecracing

If it is the MAF, the problem should go away if you unplug it and drive the car

Travis Smrekar

Alright, so heres the update, got a code reader and found the MAF was bad, changed it out andthe problem still there... So i checked timing...
Timing was at 14 degrees AFTER TDC, changed it to 14 before tdc like it should be
- ran like complete garbage and died every couple seconds, would not idle
- set back to 3 degrees after tdc and it runs halfway decent
- looked closer at harmonic balancer, it wobbles back and forth
- SH** harmonic balancer is slipped and trashed
- got new balancer and having installed monday
-also doing compression test monday to make sure i didnt snap another valve spring
- also how do i keep that little wire bundle in front of the oil pan away from the HB because it's rubbing it pretty bad

88 orangepeel notch

Glad you found that the HB moved, that will help alot having a decent/accurate timing again.

As for the harness, I can't remember exactly, but isn't there supposed to be a thin stamped steel bracket that holds it out of the way ? I haven't looked at mine in awhile so I can't remember.