Stumble after wash

Took the car out to the auto touchless car wash the other day. At the end it seemed to stumble a small bit, but trying to pull out of the trench that holds you still it stumbled hard, wideband read 10:1 rich. Nearly died a few times then finally coaxed it out of the wash, kept acting a bit funny until i got onto the main road and seemed to clean up and run fine.

Occasionally starting up after already running it for a short while and warmed up, it will turn over, but struggle to catch itself and fire up. Firing up the first time it cranks fine, but idle the first 15seconds or so sounds a little more rough before rpm's drop some.

I picked up some carb cleaner and sprayed my vacuum hoses down, checking all the fittings etc and it didnt cause any changes. Went to the wash again and took the wand around the hood area, trying to spray in the sides, back and front to see if they caused anything, then under the car. Nothing changed.

Any thoughts on what would cause it i missed?

NO stored codes?

Have you checked the sjb? It also could be water in a coil or coils.

no stored codes.

Ill double check coils and sjb, but its been kept in garage mainly so i wouldnt imagine that its clogged enough to get into that grommet

Did the touchless wash have undercarriage cleaning that could have blown water up into and onto the engine from below? If so you may wish to inspect the PCM and its connections as well as the Bussed Electrical Center and connections for water intrusion.

How old are your coil boots?

brand new.

I ordered a set of ford performance coils from AM and denso boots to swap them for the 05-07 heads while waiting to drop my engine in

I just remembered I didnt bolt a few packs down because i was missing the bolts, will grab a few from work tomorrow and bolt them in tomorrow. possible the hard rocking of engine with the cam in it maybe vibrated them up a little

Wes06 said:

brand new.

I ordered a set of ford performance coils from AM and denso boots to swap them for the 05-07 heads while waiting to drop my engine in

I just remembered I didnt bolt a few packs down because i was missing the bolts, will grab a few from work tomorrow and bolt them in tomorrow. possible the hard rocking of engine with the cam in it maybe vibrated them up a little

Click to expand...

Did you pull any of them? It only takes a small amount of water to cause an issue.

Yea i pulled the rear 2 on the passenger head and both were bone dry.
driver side is a smidge more difficult under the m122 elbow.

Once I get them all snugged up ill see what its like, then go through a wash and if it stumble's any ill pull them again to inspect

The one thing I noticed when installing my boots this weekend was they were a little too snug and the spring wasn't extending far enough to make contact with the spark plug. You may want to double check that too.

Also add some dielectric grease on the end of the boot.

Ok new strange-ness

I took it for its first long trip, 140ish miles. on the drive down everything was good, nothing popping up.

as we were ready to leave, my wideband started pegging dead lean<maxes at 20:1>, it didnt feel like it was that lean, low throttle drivability was still fine, taking off from stop, cruising etc all felt normal. After a while it would begin reading 14's cruising, once again no real drivability changes, then would flip between the readings every so often the entire cruise back.


AEM wideband is in the driver side exhaust flow, just past the connection for the longtubes to midpipe

I hooked up my Aeroforce to check fuel trims, long term bank 1 cruising would be much higher than bank 2, anywhere between 4 and 10, sometimes even 17 higher. I have a bosch o2 on driver side, so today i swapped them, and it kept the same readings when i cranked up, b1 higher than b2.