Sorry about this everyone, but I wasn't able to perform a search to see if I could find anything on this engine without posting first. My question is, and sorry again is 3.8 in a mustang, but everbody here is really knowledgable, so I figure you can help me better than some of those on the mustang forums. Anyway teh car in question is a 2000 3.8L mustang which now has 90000 miles on it. The problem is my wife usaully drives it, no that isn't the problem, and the car handles perfectly drives fine engine operates what we know as normal. But now since we had a baby girl just recently, thank you, she now drive my 96 bronco and I drive the mustang, but since I've been driving it it handles and drives ever so different. I down shift while using the brakes and yes I do accelerate rather quickly. But right after I have been driving it a day or two if start to rev really high in each gear to get the same power output that it did when she had been driving it instaed of about 2300 rpm gear change it goes to about 3200 for same performance. she drive the car again for a day or two and then I get back in drives fine for another day or two this has been ongoing for about a month and no one in the mustang forums has been able to answer the for me. I personally beleive it has to do with the computer modifing for driver. But, I don't know for sure that why I here asking ALL OF YOU MUCH SMATER PEOPLE THAN MYSELF. Thanks for any input. By the way yes it is maintained properly.

 

codes? autozone will pull them for free. may be one and the check engine light isn't coming on for some reason.

 

i hate v6 mustangs, JW will tell ya all about it

 

Know that you put it that way f100guy, Jammer77......you'd be better of selling the car now.....just kidding.....no seriously, get rid of it.



Ah, hopefully its something simple, if there are no codes then be prepared, it will get interesting trying to find out whats wrong....isn't that right f100guy?

 

Well, when was the last time it was tuned up? and if you could describe more of what it is doing, surging under throtte, running rough?, manual ,automatic, or what.

 

oh yeah, first i get this code and it goes away without replacing things, then i put this spare part on and it still runs completely like sheet. this, that everywhere a wack. ok i got carried away. check the fuel pump, fuel psi and injectors. wouldn't hurt to check the color of the plugs, that tells you a lot.

 

I just gave it a tune up a 4000 miles ago, and it is a 5 speed manual. since I setup this post I had my wife drive the car again and after her driving it for a day, I get in now it's fine again but by tommorrow I'm sure it will start acting up again. How this pony is bucking around is by after me driving it for a day or so after my instead of it shifting from first to second at about 2000 to about 2500 rpm it now takes about 2900 to about 3600 rpm to get the same power output or how I usaully gauge it is by the mph. to be honest it feels as gutless as the old 3.8 that was blowing gaskets all over the place. But just so you know this isn't one of those I checked it before we bought it. We had a 96 v6 automatic prior to this one and it was gutless before bambi's mom planted herself in front of it and totaled the car. I have chacked for codes none found, I have checked for leaks no found. I have swapped out with known good parts tps, mafs, airfilter, and Lots of others just trying to trak something down but since it changes after about a day or so of someone else driving it, only thing I come up with is the computer. I think this due to my father in-law having driven it about a week or so ago down to San Antonio, thats a good 150 or so miles one way and when he got back said that it just felt different on the way back than on the way down. I drovce it and it did brake a little differntly but nothing else that I could notice. then after having it for about a day or so it started taking longer to build up enough power to or speed even to be put in the next gear. I asked him to drive it himself without me in the car and he said exactly the same thing just felt gutless. and since then my wife drove it agian like i said at the top of this and now it's fine again. But my wife drives so differnet when I'm in the car or anyone else for that matter. Like I said I'm stumped.

 

You could have an exhaust shop check the cat's, sometimes a cat that is partially plugged or on it's way to getting more plugged could be causing it to sart to act guttless.

 

wow you are having exactly one of the same problems i am. i didn't know, this was possible. i will never ever drive a v6 mustang or tbird again. i found some used computers for my 5 speed 95 for 75 bucks.

 

So, did replacing the computer help it?

 

i haven't fixed it yet, have no money to replace that

 

Well had exhaust shop check it out for me, nothing found.

 

i want to do that, how did you they check the cats and how much was that.

 

He romeve the exhaust system and ran an optical probe in the pipes couldn't find anything wrong, didn't cost me anything yet but probably will a six pack when he comes over this weekend. And, yes the pipes were cool when he did it. As for the computer just got back from a ford dealer and had them test the computer nothing found wrong with it the tech that did it even said he could feel the difference from when I brought it in and when it left. But, still can't seem to find anything wrong.

 

Okay, still trying to fix this bug with my wifes mustang. found out this week that the car has a bad battery so we are going to be replacing it this weekend hopefully. IF and this is a big if, it fixes it I'll let you know. I also found out that the computer madule used in this car was the same a several other model fomoco products and found it was used on an automatic licoln or mercury forget which but, this other vehicle also had the capacity to learn the different driving styles of various drivers. With this information after we replace the battery a ford service tech is going to check it out for this and see if anything to that effect is happening. I didn't get the full run down of how the various systems combine to do this or if is just from within the main cpu. But hopefully I'll have some difinative answers soon.