2007 Mustang GT/CS Vert

S197CS said:
Well, She's now back home to start a new season. First order of business in the coming weeks will be to have it checked over to try and find whatever is still going on.
I have unplugged the fuel sensor vacuum line yesterday to test a theory right at the sensor, and at least no fuel got out of that side, good thing for the test itself, but it didn't either alter the idle that much (maybe went up a few 100RPM?). Next up compression testing.

At least the driveway fit passed! Everything fits in the yard, even with the Jetta replacement! Win/win!.

View attachment 55246View attachment 55247
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wishing you a quick , effective diagnosis as you start 2022 . Sometimes a fresh restart is all that’s needed
 
Here's the latest update on my car.

Getting the car out this season, only two code popped out when the battery was connected back and the car ran a few miles (made it home on first maiden voyage WITH CEL ... lol).
- P0451 Evaporative emission system pressure sensor/switch
- P1450 Unable to bleed up fuel tank vacuum

Good news, the connection code between PCM and multiple modules is gone. HOORAY! The S197 forums have quickly pointed me to two solenoids being the usual 98% certainty culprit of both codes above: Vapor Canister Purge Solenoid & Vapor Canister Vent Valve Solenoid. One is located right underneath the hood close to the intake and the other with the charcoal canister between the two mufflers at the tail end of the car.

This afternoon was my appointment to have the diagnostic done & install the new parts at the same time. This is where it gets interesting. The tech and I started by test driving the car for a few kilometres and coming back to the shop, so he could experience firsthand what I am experiencing, just before we did/try to do anything to the car. The first (and only, more on that through the story) thing we did was to change the purge solenoid under the hood. Easily accessible and potentially, between the two solenoids, the most likely to make the car run wrong. Another quick test drive, no luck.
Time to plug the scanner and read the car. Not for codes but to see what actually the O2 sensors are seeing. In a nutshell, at idle it seemed to be a tad rich (0.88V for the ones used to sensor voltages). Then I wondered: What would the voltage look like during a drive, just a casual drive. This is where weird things started to be seen. During the drive, very often would the O2 sensor voltages between the two banks (driver side/passenger side) would differ greatly from one another. At moments, one would read 0.32V and the other 0.89V. They should be reading the same/close to the same values. 0.42V being way leaner than the 0.89V (0.9V is running rich). So just there, something felt very odd to my tech, which also started for his info to verify what the misfire count is looking like (remember, I DON'T have a misfire code). All cylinders had some count of misfires during our little drive (20 minutes give or take), vast majority of them an average of +/- 10-15 counts (not really anything deal breaker at this point). Cylinder 6 on the other hand, 242 and climbing. Brand new plugs from the fuel flood/computer swap out, all are tight and good.
By the time we stopped at the shop, we had a little drive on hwy #2 killed in (driving 125kph) and some back roads from the Scoudouc exit back to Dieppe that included a few spirited mini pulls from my end. Well... Arrived at the shop, and when I popped the clutch in to slow/stop at the garage door, she stalled on me. This by itself struck ''off'' to my tech, which asked me to start her up right away. She was running rough. No real cause to be found, everything being the exact same than when we left the shop a little earlier. So he asked me to shut the car down, which I did. We did not start the car back from another 10 minutes. When started, running like nothing happened, like a champ (plus the misfire I'm chasing.

This is where things gets interesting...

My tech says ''Go give her hell, then come back, I want to see if she's going to stall when the full exhaust system gets hot.'' Went out not too too far from the shop and did a few 1,2, low3 pulls, stopped to 20kph, 1,2,3 full trottle again, probably something like 4-5 times on the 5 kms round trip from the shop I done. THE CAR FELT EXACTLY LIKE THE DAY THE COMPUTER DIED. Same power loss, same weird heavy misfiring, same hard times keeping it idling. Jumped the only stop sign to the shop from where I was as I was certain it would stall at the stop sign (almost stalled four times at this point). Limped her back to the shop's yard and the tech was speechless at how the car degraded in the last ''giver hell'' 5 minutes ride I took. Left it idling for 20 seconds upon arrival, just long enough to blimp the throttle once for him then shut her down. HUGE puff of black smoke coming out both tail pipes. SAME DAMN THING AS LAST YEAR when she left me stranded. Same damn thing. The kicker here? We left the car alone for 10 minutes. I went to start it back, started right up like a champ, just like nothing happened. That's where he smiled, looked at me and said: ''Ahh, that's what happened. Your last year computer mishap killed your cats.''
He then proceeded on to explaining that when cats go out, it is usually worse and worse the more they heat up, to the point of, in some oddball cases, rendering the car undriveable when they become extremely hot, but 100% AOK when cooled down. When what would you know!!!

Currently hunting down what it costs/what is the availability of replacement cats (so the full two cats + H pipe) is looking like as my next step.
Does anyone have an OEM H-pipe with cats section still around from a Long Tubes Headers swap? Asking for a friend. :)
 
S197CS said:
Here's the latest update on my car.

Getting the car out this season, only two code popped out when the battery was connected back and the car ran a few miles (made it home on first maiden voyage WITH CEL ... lol).
- P0451 Evaporative emission system pressure sensor/switch
- P1450 Unable to bleed up fuel tank vacuum

Good news, the connection code between PCM and multiple modules is gone. HOORAY! The S197 forums have quickly pointed me to two solenoids being the usual 98% certainty culprit of both codes above: Vapor Canister Purge Solenoid & Vapor Canister Vent Valve Solenoid. One is located right underneath the hood close to the intake and the other with the charcoal canister between the two mufflers at the tail end of the car.

This afternoon was my appointment to have the diagnostic done & install the new parts at the same time. This is where it gets interesting. The tech and I started by test driving the car for a few kilometres and coming back to the shop, so he could experience firsthand what I am experiencing, just before we did/try to do anything to the car. The first (and only, more on that through the story) thing we did was to change the purge solenoid under the hood. Easily accessible and potentially, between the two solenoids, the most likely to make the car run wrong. Another quick test drive, no luck.
Time to plug the scanner and read the car. Not for codes but to see what actually the O2 sensors are seeing. In a nutshell, at idle it seemed to be a tad rich (0.88V for the ones used to sensor voltages). Then I wondered: What would the voltage look like during a drive, just a casual drive. This is where weird things started to be seen. During the drive, very often would the O2 sensor voltages between the two banks (driver side/passenger side) would differ greatly from one another. At moments, one would read 0.32V and the other 0.89V. They should be reading the same/close to the same values. 0.42V being way leaner than the 0.89V (0.9V is running rich). So just there, something felt very odd to my tech, which also started for his info to verify what the misfire count is looking like (remember, I DON'T have a misfire code). All cylinders had some count of misfires during our little drive (20 minutes give or take), vast majority of them an average of +/- 10-15 counts (not really anything deal breaker at this point). Cylinder 6 on the other hand, 242 and climbing. Brand new plugs from the fuel flood/computer swap out, all are tight and good.
By the time we stopped at the shop, we had a little drive on hwy #2 killed in (driving 125kph) and some back roads from the Scoudouc exit back to Dieppe that included a few spirited mini pulls from my end. Well... Arrived at the shop, and when I popped the clutch in to slow/stop at the garage door, she stalled on me. This by itself struck ''off'' to my tech, which asked me to start her up right away. She was running rough. No real cause to be found, everything being the exact same than when we left the shop a little earlier. So he asked me to shut the car down, which I did. We did not start the car back from another 10 minutes. When started, running like nothing happened, like a champ (plus the misfire I'm chasing.

This is where things gets interesting...

My tech says ''Go give her hell, then come back, I want to see if she's going to stall when the full exhaust system gets hot.'' Went out not too too far from the shop and did a few 1,2, low3 pulls, stopped to 20kph, 1,2,3 full trottle again, probably something like 4-5 times on the 5 kms round trip from the shop I done. THE CAR FELT EXACTLY LIKE THE DAY THE COMPUTER DIED. Same power loss, same weird heavy misfiring, same hard times keeping it idling. Jumped the only stop sign to the shop from where I was as I was certain it would stall at the stop sign (almost stalled four times at this point). Limped her back to the shop's yard and the tech was speechless at how the car degraded in the last ''giver hell'' 5 minutes ride I took. Left it idling for 20 seconds upon arrival, just long enough to blimp the throttle once for him then shut her down. HUGE puff of black smoke coming out both tail pipes. SAME DAMN THING AS LAST YEAR when she left me stranded. Same damn thing. The kicker here? We left the car alone for 10 minutes. I went to start it back, started right up like a champ, just like nothing happened. That's where he smiled, looked at me and said: ''Ahh, that's what happened. Your last year computer mishap killed your cats.''
He then proceeded on to explaining that when cats go out, it is usually worse and worse the more they heat up, to the point of, in some oddball cases, rendering the car undriveable when they become extremely hot, but 100% AOK when cooled down. When what would you know!!!

Currently hunting down what it costs/what is the availability of replacement cats (so the full two cats + H pipe) is looking like as my next step.
Does anyone have an OEM H-pipe with cats section still around from a Long Tubes Headers swap? Asking for a friend. :)
Click to expand...
Well then!! That’s some interesting info. I am glad you were able to replicate it for him. At least you are getting somewhere.

I have a question could you not just punch out your cats for now as you chase down the parts ? Or just leave them catless so to speak?
 
Same thing happened to me after the fall run last year. MA sensor got corrupted, ran rich, blocked cats. Tested by loosing manifold a little so exhaust could run freely and car was fine but loud :) easy way to confirm if the cats are blocked. One was fully blocked other about 80%.
 
You are not alone Max.
I’m a fan of cats too.
High flow ones though.

So my first advice would be that this is opportune time to do headers and matching high flow catted mid pipe.

But if you want, I still have my original H pipe with good cats.

I dumped a bunch of old parts at the recycle metal yard a few years back, but for some reason, I kept that H pipe.
Maybe this was the reason. ?
 
Ok, Max is not saying anything, so I will.
Turns out I don’t have my OE H pipe anymore after all.
I thought I had it up in the rafters of my shed, but it’s my driveshaft that I kept.
H pipe got recycled a few years back.

So if anyone still has theirs, please advise Max.
 
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I’ll share this here so others may benefit.

Without predjudice, if it were me, I would not spend money on an original H pipe.
Since Max has cams and charge motion delete plates, I would use the money that the OE mid pipe would cost and budget that toward long tubes and high flow cats.

Such a mod would allow his cams to maximize their potential.

I did that on a 2005 3 valve 4.6 without charge motion delete plates. BBK long tubes with high flow catted X pipe neted an extra 21 hp over what the cams had achieved by themselves.

With the CMDP’s maybe it’ll be a bit better, but one thing for sure is that the LT’s allow the cams to breath fully.

Yes the LT’s will make it louder.
I would address that issue the following way.
Most people change out their mufflers (axle backs) to get a louder, more rumbly V8 sound.
I think Max did that too.

I would ditch those almost always louder mufflers for quality conservative units.
Conservative meaning not meant to be louder, just better flowing.
So I would dial back some of the loud of the LT’s with conservative mufflers.

First choice for conservative quality mufflers would be Borla touring or Ford Performance by Borla touring.
Honourable mention to Magnaflow street cat backs.

That’s what I would do.
And I would take confort in the fact the money that I would have had to spend on the OE H pipe helped deffer the cost of the new aftermarket gear.

As always, good luck Max. ?
 
Mini update for the today

Received the BBK catted X pipe middle of last week, picked up the rear O2 sensors from Taylor Ford last week and the front I had Hatheway order & picked them up during the weekend. The appointment for the installation is this coming Friday. Crossing my fingers it will solve everything or close.
Immediately once the installation is complete, data logging will be sent to my tuner to double-check the installed tune is working as intended. There as well, I'm hoping it's not the tune that was running too rich and causing everything in the chain reaction... we'll see!
 
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