Hello. I have a 96 aerostar with a 3.0. On a long pull up a steep hill, I am getting some valve clatter. The sound is much worse when you run the air conditioning. If its a very long hill, we cut off the air and the sound diminishes quite a bit. I bought the van with 50k miles on it and it now has 110k. Is there anything that can be done?
Thanks,
Fred

 

betcha it's pinging, aka knock aka preignition
search Aero forum for prior discussions
do NOT run it long with pinging....will crack heads and damage pistons

check base timing...pull SPOUT connector jumper...must be 10d BTDC and steady

if base timing is correct....then heavy carbon buildup in combustion chambers and piston tops
then do a water injection cleaning....pull off air tube to throttle body....with hot engine running at 2k rpm, pull in 1 qt of water slowly thru 1/8" tube into hole in thottle body plate over 10 minutes.....then take out to freeway and run her like Smoky and the Bandit....several times 0 to speed limit with throttle to the floor.

follow up with a full can of Seafoam same method except let soak after whole can in engine for 2 hours

cleans everthing from throttle body, plenum runners, intake valve tulips, combustion chambers, piston tops, spark plugs, ring packs, exhaust valves, exhaust manifolds, cat. converters
tailpipe will look like coal smoke stack
let us know results

 

I sow special units on market in Lugansk, that allow to ajust ignition timing on a run... It mast be installed betven Hall-effect sensor and TFI... Lets to ajust timing manually and with nock sensor. But these units are popular on tracks with NG, becouse NG hase very hight octane ratio - up to 108!

 

Since most cars now use a MAF sensor, pulling off the air tube from the TB will cause the engine to run very poorly, if at all. Might there be a better way to inject water into the engine, like maybe through a vacuum line?

I did something like this a long time ago with a car that used a carburetor, and I routed the vacuum line from the throttle throat to the water source. This was mainly to reduce knock, but cleaning the engine was a side benefit.

 

Xlt! Many racers tried to do it, but well tunned engine does not require it

 

pulling air tube off just forces PCM/ECU into failsafe limp home mode.....PCM just disregards MAF input and uses existing fuel trim stored settings.....runs fine.....been done on several of my rigs with MAF plus friends and family rigs

 

Propane aka NG injection here is popular on the Ford Turbo Power Stroke and other diesel PU hotrodder boytoy racers......cools the diesel combustion down and drops the exhaust gas temps so they don't melt the heads and exhaust manifolds....can add another 200>300 hp on a 6L diesel, over 1000 hp now....
our propane here is 110 octane
nitrous oxide is popular here for hp gains in the ricer saki racer circuit and on street Honda rods....lowers the combustion temps and allows higher compression ratio with more timing advancement
L.iquified N.atural G.as was popular here in commercial service fleets.....makes for clean long lived gas engines....many Ford 300ci I6's would last 1 million miles on LNG....oil lasts 25k....power drops 25% though

nothing like good old 120 octane AV gas with tons of t. lead and 12.5:1 in a 427ci SOHC Ford Lemans engine or a Chebby small block 350ci screamer

AV gas here still uses t. lead to raise octane....requires periodic engine teardown and cleaning
MTBE and ethanol caused too many crashes from vaporization problems....stupid pilot only makes the mistake once to put in cheap car gas

 

NG Methane is more popular here, especially on trucks for urbanic areas. It is 3 times cheaper then gas, but old engines on NG easily pass any emission control with bad catalistic converter... But tanks are very heavy and expencive, so to reequipt aero is abot $1000, but I drive not too much, and there is no economical reason for me...