I have a 2004 Ford Ranger with a 2.3l engine. Just recently the truck starts to hesitate and buck around 3000rpm. Sometimes when you're driving its hard to sense as the transmission is shifting and your staying under 70mph. If you are in park or neutral and steadly increase the rpms and as you get to 3000rpm the engine starts to hesitate and buck. I have spend 2 hours searching web sites that suggest the MAS/MAF, TPS, and IAC. The check engine light does NOT come on. Has anyone had this problem and can help steer me in the right direction? I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

 

Welcome to FTE.

Just because the CEL isn't lit, doesn't mean there aren't codes stored in KAM, so if you have a code reader, scantool, or a parts store close by, have the computers KAM scanned for stored, but not yet set trouble codes & post All code Numbers found, as they can provide good trouble shooting clues.

SO, how many miles on this puppy & where are you on All past & present due scheduled maintenance items, like plugs, wires, fuel & air filters & any engine mods, or changes to the air intake system & this would include other than the OEM paper air filter?????

All that said, at this early point in your trouble shoot, the TPS, MAF, IAT, & O2 sensors, Fuel Pressure & Delivery rate, spark plugs, wires & coilpack probably belong on your suspect list.

More thoughts for your trouble shoot suspect list, let us know how it goes.

 

The truck has 130k miles on it. Within the past 1000 miles I have changed the plugs, wires, and air filter. I am in the process of getting a scantool from a friend. If i wanted to by one which would you recommend?

 

Forgot, no engine mods. She is all original.

 

OK good feedback. So it's all still OEM configured.

Did the miss at rpm come about after the plugs & wires, or was it there before hand???
If it came about afterward, what wires & plugs did you use????
If it was there before hand, did the problem come about suddenly, after some event????

Actron makes scantools for Ford & I have an 05 Actron CP9150 scantool kit, thats obd-1-2-CAN capable & it's online updateable, so it's current & useable on the newer vehicle OBD systems as well as older OBD-1 vehicles which the family has. It has worked well on my oldy moldy OBD-1 & 2 vehicles so far & recently finally paid for itself in helping me diagnose an intermittent random stall on my 94 Taurus 3.8L.

Lots of scantool options out there now days, from hand held models that'll do graphing, or just numeric outputs that my CP9150 yields, to laptop fed models that offer up lots of color graphics which are nice, but really aren't needed for most trouble shooting.

If you opt for a scantool, make sure it's updateable capable, so you can keep it current & useable for future vehicles.

 

When the engine is at idle, if you stand on the drivers side with the hood up, does it sound like a lifter is pecking? And if so, does the pecking increase with the engine RPMs? Just a symptom of some of the things I have encountered at the shop here. No need to scare the heck out of you for no reason. I've not had that many of the 4 cyl. have a bad coil but the 3.0 V6s here at work have had the same issuses from a ignition coil intermitantly starting to fail. Just throwing out some ideas. But I agree with Paw Paw on having the codes scaned. You could be surprised how many codes can be stored without tripping the CEL. Let us know.