Does it use coolant at all?
IAC motor clean/working?

IAC is clean and working. It was working before, and I cleaned all that stuff when I had the intake off.

No coolant consumption.

Lot's of frustration but no obvious problem.

plugged cat?

I was at that 3 guesses ago

I opened it up, and the honey comb was long gone. Completely empty.

I'm thinking the new timing chain was installed off a tooth.

I hope you didn't use the line up the dots method becuase sometimes those dots are misstamped.

I'd believe that if the new chain had made any change at all to the running of the engine, but it didn't.

It would be nothing short of miraculous to install a new chain, and have it run the same as the old one with 1" of slack, IF the chain was actually the cause of the initial fault.

But for arguments sake, I did use the line up the dot's method that the service manual says to use, so I supose it isn't dialled in, and could be off. I won't be taking it apart to dial it in anytime soon though.

Sorry to hear that the problems continue.Are you getting any fault codes? Did you pull the intermediate shaft out of the engine and check the gear for wear? I read that the dist did not have any play but that doesn't mean the intermediate shaft is ok.If it is worn it could move the timing to the edge of the 5 degree window needed and the rough idle and poor performance would be exactly how it would run.There was a run of bad shafts back about 95-96.Haven't heard of the problem on 99's but nothing is written in stone.

I did have a bad injector on mine, off idle missfire, on a heavier truck I can see stumble and hesitation. Also have you checked to see that the timing is advancing. Also I had not seen or heard of intermediate shaft gear wear outside of the bushing causing wear but it is worth looking at. Your symtoms are the same as those caused by a worn bushing which is why I sugested it earlier.

Thanks guys.

I'll dig deeper.

I am questioning injectors, because I notice about 1/2 of them are new already, so perhaps there is a bad one in thre again.

Hmm, I though of something, lol.

You right compression isn't even side to side and is out of spec from high to low. Did you do a wet and dry compression test and you HAVE TO do it warm. Cause I think maybe your slacked timing chain may have allow a couple of valves to whack pistons. I know when the nyon let's go on OEM timing sets a 318 will bend all it's pushrods whack pistons with valves.

I have the 3.9L in my DD and had a problem with injectors

never threw a code, and I ck'ed everything that has been mentioned so far in this thread

and of course, it only did this on occassion so it was tough to track down

one injector went bad and would actually leak a slight amount of fuel down in the cylinder

only after I parked it

so when I started it up, it smelled flooded, and ran like I had some huge racing cam in it

I could rev it for a minute to "clear" things out, but man - I had stumbling and hesitation like you wouldn't believe ...

hope this helps some .....

Oh. so I see Im not the only one thats had issues with sloppy Cloyes timing sets new out of the box. I aree with the injector idea in thiscase. I have a Bosch injector place near me, so when I have a driveability issue like this I take the whole rail with the injectors still attatched, in and for $15/ea they'll test and flush them and get me new O rings; any that fail the test, whether electrically or beung plugged beyond cleaning they dont charg me to test. They remove them individually from the rail and test them bu running cleaning fluid thru them while they can watch the spray patterns; they can tell whether the injectors are "balanced" too as in volume/flow. The main reason I take em in attatched to the rail is to help me ID just which hole any bad ones came from.

Most important first step: Have you checked for codes? I'm pretty sure '96 is OBDII so you'll need a code reader. Just because the check engine light isn't on doesn't mean the bulb is burnt out or a previous owner took it out!!!

Something else to check: there are two coolant sensors, one for the gauge and one for the PCM. The one for the PCM is on the front of the intake by the thermostat housing, be sure it's plugged in. My brother accidentally left his PCM coolant sensor unplugged on his '93 3.9 Dak and it ran like doo-doo until we figured it out and plugged it back in.

I don't think it's a bent valve. Simply because I've never seen a bent valve that had any compression at all.

Quote:

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Most important first step: Have you checked for codes?

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Yes, that was my first step, and no codes are present.

temp sensor is reading/operating normally on the pid data. Warms up as the engine does.

It is OBDII.
No misfire data present.

I had the injectors out last night, and attemped to observe the spray pattern.

I'm not sure if I'm any wiser after that...LOL

They all squirt. Some do seem to 'mist' more than others, but none dribble. New ones are 35 bucks a piece. I'm not sure If I'm ready to make that leap on a guess. At least not yet.

I think someone areound here does that clean and test thing too. I'll look into it.

Thanks for the continued interest, and feedback on this issue guys

I'm starting to wonder if there is a relationship between the injector theory, and the lower comp on one side.

I'm pretty sure that these injectors are batch fired side to side.(control is bank to bank only, not on individual cylinders) Problem on one side causing a partial fuel washout of the compression.

It is SMPI.

Probably a bad computer. Get a "good" one from KRC or somewhere. I replace them all the time with the aftermarket performance ones as they are usually cheaper. Even the Mopar Performance ones are cheaper but I don't think they have them for a V6 but check and see.

Well, it still sucks, but some progress.

Found it would run almost the same with 4 of the 6 injectors disconnected(lead me to believe they must be leaking down)

I work at a ford store, so I was able to procure some new 4.6 injectors and install them.
Huge improvement, but still sucks.

Went for a a long drive this eve. MIL/Engine light came on near the last 1/4 of it. I'm hoping there's a code that will lead me to something.(can't check tonight, scanner is at work)

I'll keep you up to date

turn the key on/off 4(?) times and it'll flash the codes...