jerky, hesitation

I have an 00 sel that has been giving me numerous probs. I had a CE light for an IMRC valve open. Found the linkge lose and resecured. Cleared light with OBDII reader and it hasn't come back yet. The van still hesitates and jerks while at low rpms, just normal driving around. It accelerates fine and seems to do fine on the highway. About 2 months ago I replaced the intake gaskets etc for the typical windstar probs. Everything was fine until the CE light came on. any input for the hesitation???

Hope you cleaned the EGR ports when doing the upper intake manifold gasket/bolt replacement. My 2000 3.8 had an intermittent stall at idle, and
would intermittently hesitate or buck/jerk at highway speeds. Never set any
codes. Eventually determined that MAF sensor was bad. You may try cleaning yours with the special MAF cleaner. Is your camshaft synchronizer making a whine, this can also be a source of driveablility problems.

Cleaned EGR ports, ran fine for about a month. Then got P1518 code for IMRC open. Found linkage loose and resecured. Guessing it is a MAF problem or the IMRC acuator.