My 87 f-150 4x4 5.0 auto. trans, air it runs really rogh at idle in gear I notice it more it surges and hesitates when pulling away. Ican floor it and it just lags till it gets up in rpm,when I go to turn into some where the steering gets really hard to turn I can keep one foot on gas one on break and it will cure problem when turning .. Any ideas would be great getting sick of it!! Oh ya it has 150,000 k on it

 

with that many miles and that many years do a tune up..and run it up to any local lube shop and have them do the fuel injection cleaning to it. that will really get it running better, and remove all the built up carbon in your intake, injectors, and valves. if still not better get a haynes manual and do a self test and pull any codes it might be throwing

 

Seafoam? Pull codes?

 

Does your 87 have EFI or TBI system? IF it's EFI, check out my gallery for a common problem on the 5.0. Low Speed driveability usually indicates vacuum leaks creating problems for the system. Step 1, get a vacuum gauge, and hang it on the intake. When you do this, start by disconnecting ALL hoses except the one to the MAP and the one to the Fuel Pressure regulator. You're not going anywhere while you're testing, so disconnecting the brake booster won't hurt. Cap off all the open points on the tree, and start the truck. Warm engine, idling, should pull about 20 inch vacuum. Anything much lower, and you've probably got a leak somewhere. With the gauge still on, reconnect the hoses one at a time to see if anything changes in the vacuum.
Step 2, take off the two air box hoses, and look in the throttle body with a good bright light. If you see lots of contamination from the EGR/PCV in the plenum, more than likely it's crudded up pretty bad on the backs of the butterflies and in the IAC. I have a manual tranny, so one foot on the brake, one on the gas, and one on the clutch ain't an option.

It doesn't take long to pull the plenum for cleaning. I did it in one hour, including yanking all the injectors outta the intake manifold.

Another thing you might wanna check is fuel pressure. Idling the pressure should be 30-35 PSI, and WOT, pressure should jump up to 40-45 PSI. Best way to check the pressure without blowing the engine for the WOT reading is to jump the fuel pump test connection to ground. This will run the fuel pump without the engine running, i.e. no vacuum, which is the same thing as WOT.