Taj

New to the site...and a newbie to Fords in general.

83 Grand Marquis with 139k miles. 302 FI engine...all original. Will start fine but recently had a scary incident: travelling at about 60mph, the motor started losing power. Required more gas pedal...but was soon only doing about 20mph with gas floored. Did begin to smoke some out the exhaust.

Not sure if this is a 'full tuneup' kinda fix, or symptomatic of something far worse.

Also, on this model, is the FI a throttle-body design or are there injectors at each cylinder??

Any help/advice much appreciated!!

Taj

Freshmeat

First off, I thought '83 was straight carb... if it IS a form of EFI, it'll be throttle body type, known as CFI.

Your power loss sounds like a plugged catalytic converter. If the problem persists, drop the exhaust at the manifolds and drive it. If it has the power again, you need new cats.

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greenmerc

83 huh, not sure, but check under the hood. You should know what an injector looks like. I'd start with the simple and obvious (yes I'm an optimist). When was the fuel filter last changed? A quick disconnect tool, a new fuel filter and a trip under the car will let you find the filter (most are located on the driver's side frame ,inside frame, and are snap in and out cannister types) and change it for little money. Word of caution though, get out the air hose and blow the road debris out of the quick disconnect fittings BEFORE using the tool, or you will have a fitting which is neither quick, nor will it disconnect.

If this fixes the problem, great. Throw in a bottle or two of injector cleaner in the tank and be done with it. If it doesn't fix it, then I'd look at the CAT also.

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_JunkY4rdD4wg_

I would agree about the cats, but one question, what type of smoke, color, thickness, smell, etc? Did the engine have any odd noises about it, water temp get high, oil pressure low...... etc?

Freshmeat

On the Panthers, the fuel filter is on the passenger side along the frame rail.

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greenmerc

Thanks for the correction on filter side of frame!

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My job, basically is to think up Goofy Sh*t.

George Carlin.

Freshmeat

I spent half an hour in the parts store parking lot searching for the filter on the driver's side, because that's where I was told it'd be.
Looked under the passenger side, found it, and had the thing swapped ten minutes later. Hehehe.

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