Cant figure this one out...

96 ford f***ng escort

rebuilt motor 3000 miles ago

Problem: once warmed up, when you stop then take off again it has zero power till it hits around 3000 rpm, till that point... nothing 0-10mph has taken well over 30seconds. Problem does not start untill after the car has been driven for a while, and progressivly gets worse the longer you drive it, but only does it when you stop. Killing the car and restarting does not effect it. One night I pulled over and poped the hood and the cat and all the way up to the manifold was glowing red, so I figured.. well maby the cat is stopped up, had another one laying around so I replaced it (granted it wasnt new, but the car it came off of was running) problem got a tad better. The TPS checked out good, I didnt have any resistance numbers to check on the MAF and IAT sensors, but I had another set so I compaired them and they were way off, both of them, but one was an obd1 car and the other was and OBDII, so maby thats the differnce, had differnt connectors also... so maby they arnt the same. Only code I'm getting is EGR because that has been removed (cracked manifold and the one I had on hand didnt have egr, intake and exhaust manifolds were both replaced with non egr units). Engine does not overheat when problems occurs. Thought maby the transmission wasnt shifting into first, but it does it in reverse also. Throttle and kickdown cables have both been adjusted. It also does not sence load when going uphill, so you have to floor it to get it to downshift. Anyone have any advice?

Time to put the Mazda to rest and buy a real Ford instead?

It sounds like its running to lean, or to much advance once its warmed up.
Remember these Japanese cars often run two programs in the ECU, one for the cold running, and one for warm running. Usualy the cold running useses very little feed back from engine sensors, and essentialy just runs things a little reach and conservative untill the engine is warmed up, then it switchs to a feed back driven program.

How about time to hang up the ford and buy a real mazda?

If it was a matter of what mode the ecu was in would it still follow that pattern? only donig it once its warmed up and only doing it when you stop for a minute or two?

it could be as simple as a bad MAF sensor.

No check engine light? No codes?

I'm leaning tward MAF myself, going to find another one for it tomorow to see. The only codes I'm getting are for EGR, which has been removed.

Is there any way to test a MAF without a scanner?

How about time to hang up the ford and buy a real mazda?

If it was a matter of what mode the ecu was in would it still follow that pattern? only donig it once its warmed up and only doing it when you stop for a minute or two?


Well this is assuming the ECU does swtich between differnt modes, then yes.
But Im not totaly familar with Mazdas, and I have no experiance with ones that have been mixed and matched with ford parts from Europe and the US, to make a manufactored, warrentied bastard.

The motor in these is all ford, the transmission is a cross breed, the chassis is mazda design, our escorts have pretty much nothing related to the ones yall have over there.

Replaced the IAT, MAF, and throttle body/TPS with no avil. Although the check engine light did go off, even though it wasnt giving codes for any of those. I'v checked all connections, vacuum lines, ect.... I'm out of ideas. Last night I unhooked the MAF and it ran good (other than the dieing when going from park to drive) for about 45 minutes or so, then the problem showed back up again.

I did some digging on one of the local mechanic forums I'm on, and found the exact same conditions: the crank sensor wheel is on the crank balancer, they are rubber mounted like most crank balancers. The rubber degrades, and the crank wheel shifts, this throws off the timing for everything.

I'd suggest just replacing it...you can get them for nothing at a junk yard. Just about any 4 cylinder with IEDS will work, they are all 36-1 toothed wheels.

Nope, trigger wheel is rigid mounted before the ballancer, no way for it to move.

Pulled the plugs and they have alot of carbon build up around the ground strap and streaks of carbon build up on the porcelin around the electrode. Guess the next place to look is the fuel system/iggnition, the coil packs on these commonly go bad maby its just producing a very week spark? I have another one laying around here somewhere ....

Nope, trigger wheel is rigid mounted before the ballancer, no way for it to move.

not according to my diagrams....but don't know what to tell you on that one.

The one off my parts car has it pressed onto the backing plate of the ballancer, the rubber insert/outter part of the ballancer doesnt start till after it, diagrams arnt allways right.

I did a bit more research on this, you are correct, the crank signal wheel is pressued onto the inner portion of the balancer, seperate from the rubber damper.

That doesn't prevent it from moving though, if the rubber section does degrade and does move, it very well can rub on the pressed wheel and cause it to move.

You are already into randomly-throwing-parts-at-car fixing stage, I 'd suggest you give it a shot. Its not like it cost any money, and like I said, you are discribing the exact same symptoms. Sounds like the best threory left from what I'm seeing.

Or you could replace the entire motor/engine management system....

I'll pull it off and look at it, if it looks like its possable I'll swap it out. I just cant see how it would cause it to only happen after it is warmed up though, even in warm up mode before switching over to closed loop it still reads crank and cam positions.

I'm not quiet to the "throw random parts on" stage yet. Everything I'v replaced could cause the problem.

I'll pull it off and look at it, if it looks like its possable I'll swap it out. I just cant see how it would cause it to only happen after it is warmed up though, even in warm up mode before switching over to closed loop it still reads crank and cam positions.

I'm not quiet to the "throw random parts on" stage yet. Everything I'v replaced could cause the problem.

hehe, as we call it "shot gun diagnostics" is when you aren't testing anything, you're just trying plossible components. Customers don't like this strategy for some reason.

If it doesn't fix it, you'll be out of 10 minutes of effort.

I'd take a more scientific approach if I didnt have a spare car to steal parts off of.

Well, its fixed.


I was checking contingency between the sensor plugs and ecu plug to see if there was an open circut anywhere. Little background information that would be otherwise irrelivent... theres an axillary power cigarette lighter on the side of the console that was there when I got it, and few weeks ago I picked up an air ionizer air freshener thing (they work great by the way, have one in most of my cars) and pluged it in to the one someone has put at the side of the console because it was more out of the way than the one on the dash. It didnt click in my head, but thats when the problems started. Ok back to the main story, as I pull back the wire loom to find which wires I'm looking for, I notice that not 2" inside the look is a wire that has been spliced in with a crimp, obviously not factory, and it happend to be the I was looking for that leads up to the MAF, of course I imediatly know this isnt right, so I trace the spliced in wire... hey guess whats powering that lighter someone added in... Once removed, wire soldered back together, all works well.

LOL!!!

Now thats classic.

Did you check for vacuum leaks?
No power at low rpms and very lean could be a leak. Try spraying some carb cleaner / etc. around the intake system. (connectors, gaskets, etc.) You might find something

Problem was fixed like a week ago... as posted in this thread. Nice work on the reading job though.

I'd take a more scientific approach if I didnt have a spare car to steal parts off of.

Well, its fixed.


I was checking contingency between the sensor plugs and ecu plug to see if there was an open circut anywhere. Little background information that would be otherwise irrelivent... theres an axillary power cigarette lighter on the side of the console that was there when I got it, and few weeks ago I picked up an air ionizer air freshener thing (they work great by the way, have one in most of my cars) and pluged it in to the one someone has put at the side of the console because it was more out of the way than the one on the dash. It didnt click in my head, but thats when the problems started. Ok back to the main story, as I pull back the wire loom to find which wires I'm looking for, I notice that not 2" inside the look is a wire that has been spliced in with a crimp, obviously not factory, and it happend to be the I was looking for that leads up to the MAF, of course I imediatly know this isnt right, so I trace the spliced in wire... hey guess whats powering that lighter someone added in... Once removed, wire soldered back together, all works well.

Weird. I wonder why they did that. When I wanted to add a custom accessory I wired it from the back of another cigarette plug. (It was for my radar detector, and I added a real stock-looking switch on the dash where the On-Star would have gone.)

I didn't notice the "Page 2" at the bottom.....