I may have mentioned this before; can't remember; but my car has been making a whining noise at idle and a knocking/crunching noise under load. Fairly loud when I popped the hood; definitely audible inside the car. I was about to buy the stethoscope to help pinpoint the source of the noises when my Dad intervened and told me to pull the belt off and start spinning things. As it turns out; my idler pulley went south; I can feel the bearings as I spin it in my fingers. I was feeling confident when NAPA said they had the idler pulley on the shelf. Picked that up and installed it and no more whining. But there was a little knocking noise that remained. This was the noise I would hear under load. Pulled the belt off and spun the water pump and sure enough it was knocking with me just spinning it by hand. So I went ahead and ordered a Motorcraft water pump, another idler pulley, and an a/c accumulator. I will do the water pump in my driveway; but I will send the car out to the mechanic and have them purge the refrigerant and install the accumulator. With the a/c system purged; I will go ahead and remove the a/c compressor and do the exhaust. Then hand it back over to the mechanic to charge the system back up. This looks/sounds good; but we all know it isn't that simple.........

 

I pulled the A9P computer out of the Crown Vic this afternoon and saw that one of the capacitors that was lying up against the Quarterhorse had powder/corrosion on one of its legs. Everything else looks good. I have zero expertise in servicing ECMs; so I will send the A9P out to somebody who can see if that is a problem; or at the least give it a good checkup. Hopefully this has been the proverbial thorn in the side of this project. In the meanwhile, I will check over my mass air conversion wiring to see if was really done correctly.

 

Sounds like you are getting closer to a running car.

 

Sort of.............I made a quick call to Foxresto.com about my A9P and they said that I can ship my ECM to them; but I should be aware that my Quarterhorse may have damaged the processor; at which point, there is nothing they can do. I'm hoping that is not the case.

 

Dare I ask what a quarter horse is?

 

1/4th of a horse, derf! LOL Seriously, it's a horse that you only paid a quarter for.

 

I'm probably not using the proper terminology, but here it goes. It's a chip/physical interface so I can use tuning software to load and write tunes to the ECM. In my case, it would be loading tunes as I am nowhere near the level of knowledge needed to tune an engine. I don't know how long these chips have been around; I just know that the few of my friends that had fox body Mustangs back in the day, could only go so far with their mods before the ECM freaked out. I would have to ask my buddy Rob what he did to get his Lightning engine to run in his '91 Stang. Especially after installing the Vortech; it would have needed a tune to run as good as it did.

 

I thought the Vortec engine was a Chevy thing??? Why would anyone put one of those in a Blue Oval?

 

Vortech blower; I might be spelling that wrong. Rob had his kinda new '91 Lightning s/c Stang; I had my Mom's rusted out Nova with a rebuilt 350sbc and a carb hat'd Paxton s/c. It was a rat rod before they became popular. My Nova only lasted 2 months in that form; before my Dad pulled the Paxton and junked the car (another story in itself).

 

Changed out the water pump a few hours ago. Was much easier than I thought it would be. And the air impact ratchet made it much easier. Much like the idler pulley; the water pump pulley felt very rough when I spun it; even worse when I took it off the engine and played with it. I can feel a bearing (guessing needle bearings?) or two grinding as I spun it. All in all, the car is much quieter now and runs smoother than it did when I first got it. I also replaced the failing pcv hose with some 12AN hose; as the old hose was collapsing while the car is running. That's what I get for using heater hose. Now I need to get back into exhaust install mode again.

Before that happens, I am going to tackle the fuel vapor hose on the Explorer. I brought it to work on Friday to pick up a plastic pallet for the basement. I noticed whilst sitting at lights; the idle was a little choppy. When I got to work I popped the hood and noticed the fuel vapor hose was collapsed and disintegrating. I have some leftover 6AN hose and universal fuel hose with that hanky fitting connector that I broke last year. I will make them work together and see if that fixes the idle.