SPUTTERING ENGINE
 

My wife's Mustang ('89 four cyl.) is having a recurring bout of sputtering: After warming up, and passing about 1500 RPM, the engine will suddenly suffer a drop in power- the exhaust making a quiet sputtering noise. Hammering the accelerator to the floor somehow pushes the car past this sputter which clears up- for a few minutes. Often, the car can go for hours without suffering this loss in power/response. And use of the A/C seems to increase the frequency.

The following were replaced: fuel pump, distrib. cap, plugs, EVP sensor. When taken to the dealer, the advice was "clean the injectors" which was done as well as a timing check.

Anyone have any ideas?

My 87 was doing about the same thing. It occured at about 3000 rpm, only in 5th gear and only when going up hill. I did the same as you with the plugs and all and nothing helped. One suggestion from a club member that did actually help was to remove the air intake silencer and remove (cut out with a very sharp knife) the restrictor tube from it. This will increase the size of the air intake passage by about three times the size it is normally. No promisses, but it sure seemed to help mine.

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sounds like you need more airflow to the engine. Take off all of the restrictive air intake crap and also clean the throttle body reeeaalll good.


Brad.