Chuck659

I have a 1995 Taurus SE with the 3.8L V-6 and 45k miles on it. I had the head gaskets replaced at 35K last summer right after i bought it and it has run well except I noticed a slight miss when it's running up a slight grade to my home and with some local driving that I do.

Over the last few weeks, I have changed the fuel filter, plugs, wires, cap, and rotor, and this weekend I took the throttle plate assembly off the intake manifold and thoroughly cleaned it, but the miss is still there. The old platinum plugs were pretty clean and gapped properly, but I changed them since I had new platinums to put in.

Coming up a slight grade to home, it seems to miss for maybe a second, then run smoothly for about 5 seconds, then burble just a bit again, and sometimes it will repeat for a third time before I get to a stop sign and turn.

I run interstate to work for about 10 miles and I can't notice it at highway speeds. I routinely get 20 mpg, and it starts and runs fine otherwise. The miss has made the car stall a few times now, say when I stop and back up, so my wife is getting nervous about driving it.

Any ideas would be appreciated so that I don't have to have expensive diagnostics without checking obvious things I can do first.

Thanks.

Chuck659

A mechanic friend did a quick once over of the engine to look for loose connections, etc. After finding everything fine, he suggested running a tank of fuel injector cleaner, so I'm in the middle of that. It definitely seems to make the engine run a bit smoother at an idle, and I get no misses or burbles at a moderate or higher throttle, after about the first 100 miles. But I still seem to get a miss at a light throttle up and slight slope.

But any progress is good.

LunaticSVT

what is the progress on this? Did the injector cleaning help?

Is the fuel line itself in good condition? No crimps or awkward bends init?