1995 Ford taurus idles and runs rough after warmed up.

[frankfulton]

I have recently replaced the head gaskets on my Taurus. When the car is first cranked it runs fine but after it is warmed up the engine has a bad miss. You can also feel the miss while driving down the road. The car is also consuming alot more gas than before. My best guess is an intake leak but im not sure and don't want to tear the engine back down unless I have some idea of where to start. Any help is appreciated.

[shorod]

I'd start by pulling all the spark plugs and inspecting them for abnormal coloration. Which engine does your Taurus have? If the DOHC, while pulling the spark plugs, inspect the wires and make sure there is no oil or moisture trapped in the spark plug wells.

Also, you should be able to perform a cylinder balance test on your 1995 to determine which cylinder is misfiring. There are sites that detail the exact process to enable the cylinder balance test. If you are doing it with the jumper wire, I believe the process is to perform the KOER test, then within 20 seconds on the KOER completion, goose the throttle. This will start the balance test. I may be off on that though, so do a search.

-Rod

[frankfulton]

Thanks for the info. My Taurus has the 3.0 V-6 SOHC. There is discoloration on the plugs. It is a rusty brown color.

[shorod]

Do all of the plugs look the same? What does your coolant look like? Did you attempt the cylinder balance test, or to measure the cylinder compression for all 6 cylinders?

-Rod

[frankfulton]

Plugs 1,3, & 5 are discolored. My coolant looks fine. I havent been able to do a cylinder balance test or a compression test yet. What should the compression be for it to be good?

[shorod]

The compression range is not really defined for the engine, all that is defined for the compression is that all the cylinders are within some percentage of one another, I don't recall what that percentage is and I'm on travel, so I don't have my service manuals handy.

What is the coloring of the plugs from 1, 3, and 5? Very clean, orangish, black, gray, greenish?

-Rod

[TaurusKing]

My 94 3.0 was 160 psi, + or - 1, across all 6 cylinders, dealer told me it was a very good number, couldn't find a definitive number for compression, all just look for high versus low... cylinder balance test run described above is correct, if you're not familiar with the jumper wire, you can purchase the code reader for like 30 bucks, you can run it off of that too

[frankfulton]

The plugs are an orangish color.