Mike Manzo
Registered User
Over the past couple weeks I have experienced a little bit worse gas mileage. Yesterday the car would act boggy off the line and I noticed that the vaccum was off by maybe 3 in. Immidiately I thought I was sucking air into one of the (Ford dealer) crappily sealed intercooler tubes.
Not a big deal, it was only a couple inches, right???
Well, by the end of the day the car was running like it had a huge cam in it and the vac dropped below 10in in drive and it just would not accelerate at all.
I thought it was the fuel pump since I have experienced similar effects when one went bad in another car I owned. After hooking up the fuel pressure tester, the fuel was AOK.
My mechanic says the cats are plugged and I think this is my fault. I think that my fan settings that have been keeping the car running at 195 max degrees has caused the car to run like it does at cold start and I have been building up carbon in the cats.
Sounds like a valid theory, but I would like to bounce these symptoms against the SCCOA crowd to see if anyone throws up a flag about it.
Keep in mind that this is a 6 month old exhaust system, new cats, etc. There are no codes being thrown and no noticable engine noises or damage that I can tell. The problem came on relatively suddenly and "progressed" as opposed to just broke.
I am assuming that I should have done more with the eec tuner to compensate for the cooler running situation other than the fan settings. In the back of my mind I knew that this could be an issue with burning too much fuel, but I thought I would experience carboned plugs or something minor...I didnt think I'd nuke my cats.
Any other theories???
Thanks,
Mike
Not a big deal, it was only a couple inches, right???
Well, by the end of the day the car was running like it had a huge cam in it and the vac dropped below 10in in drive and it just would not accelerate at all.
I thought it was the fuel pump since I have experienced similar effects when one went bad in another car I owned. After hooking up the fuel pressure tester, the fuel was AOK.
My mechanic says the cats are plugged and I think this is my fault. I think that my fan settings that have been keeping the car running at 195 max degrees has caused the car to run like it does at cold start and I have been building up carbon in the cats.
Sounds like a valid theory, but I would like to bounce these symptoms against the SCCOA crowd to see if anyone throws up a flag about it.
Keep in mind that this is a 6 month old exhaust system, new cats, etc. There are no codes being thrown and no noticable engine noises or damage that I can tell. The problem came on relatively suddenly and "progressed" as opposed to just broke.
I am assuming that I should have done more with the eec tuner to compensate for the cooler running situation other than the fan settings. In the back of my mind I knew that this could be an issue with burning too much fuel, but I thought I would experience carboned plugs or something minor...I didnt think I'd nuke my cats.
Any other theories???
Thanks,
Mike