Hello all!
I found CEG a while before i bought my silver 98 csvt and i have to say this place is great! Lots of good info! hope you guys can help me out, i did search first but i have some questions that need clarifying so please bare with the long thread. Thanks!
I bought a 98 CSVT the other day and i absolutely love the car. BUT, after reading a lot of posts it seems these cars have some bad problems. Oil starvation, weak rod bearings, weak water pumps, weak tranny's etc
So now im wondering if i just slit my own wrists buying this car. I am/was planning on turning it in to my daily driver, and i have a kid on the way so the 4dr's are a plus. I still have back up vehicles too, just in case!
No you definitely didn't slit your own wrists. Especially if you do this kind of maintenance on your other vehicles.
Anyways, the car has 118,000 miles on it and runs great. I do have a receipt saying the water pump was changed at 60,000 miles..i'm assuming/hoping it was the metal impeller one. The car had a bit of a crappy idle, but i pulled the IAC and cleaned it and it seemed to help. Ill put my questions in number to make it easier to read.
There are two replacement water pumps available. The metal impellar and an upgraded plastic impellar. Either will do great. The problem on the older factory impellars was the shaft surround that held the impellar. It was thin and weak. It would break and chop itself up leading to possible plastic fragments in the head. YIKES!
1. Oil starvation, after some reading, it seems the heads on the 2.5 duratec (or just CSVT's?) don't drain oil back down to the pan very well and wide/sweeping right turns can starve it of oil - I don't drive hard corners every really, will this still be a problem for me? Plus, i change and check my oil religiously. When i first change the oil i am going to put in a straight 6 qts of mobil 1 full syn. How many people are running the ACCUSUMP? I was thinking of using it but im wondering how effective it really is, can you install it with the engine still in the car? I don't want to do the baffled oil pan swap, are the accusump and baffled pan supposed to be done together? I was also thinking of doing a triple pillar pod with oil pressure, water temp, and volt meter gauges. Will the oil pressure gauge show when/if the engine is being starved of oil?
The oil starvation problem as stated in a previous post, is due to high RPM right hand sweeping turns. It starvs the oil enought to significantly damage rod bearings. The oil pan CAN be pulled and swapped without pulling the motor or even loosening the motor mounts. Gear wrenches are your friend! The accusump is a great investment if installed properly. If you go this route you will need to make sure to tap the pan (return line) in an area that will deliver drainback oil closest to the oil pickup tube. A-pillar pod is a great idea to monitor your engine operation. The oil pressure guage will not show you when starvation is happening per-se. However if you were to make the jump up to the GReddy Warning series guages, I believe they will show an indicator light as well as an the analog display of pressure loss. This is what I will be opting for when I have an extra 800.00 dollars to spend on guages.
2. I plan on getting the car up on jacks and draining/refilling the tranny, it sounds great right now without any grinding..very quiet. What exactly kills these trannies so fast? Heat, abuse? I don't abuse my cars, i like to go fast and take off quick but i rarely dump the clutch and even more rarely burn the tires.
The weakest parts of our trannies are the factory diff and the third gear synchros. As long as you don't do any real hard launches that promote wheel-hop (which our cars are famous for) you will be safe. The preferred fluid for the trans is probably going to be Synchromesh. I personally have used the Castrol Synthetic fluid the entire life of my car and I don't have a single issue with grinding synchros. When I pulled my OEM diff in favor of the Quaife LSD, there were absolutely no signs of wear. This is my testimonial on this subject.
3. I also plan on doing a through replacement of parts/mantinance. I plan on 9mm ford plug wires, ford/autolite double platinum plugs, ford fuel filter, K&N air filter or some sort of CAI, ford pcv valve, flush/refill coolant, new stock temp thermostat. Any other thing i am forgetting or that i should check/replace while i am at it? I also plan on optimizing the throttle body and fixing the throttle hang. I have read that the auto-lite 764 double platinum spark plugs are the best plug to use, is this correct? Can i get them at a wal-mart..i looked but only remember seeing single platinum and copper core? What is the part # on the shelf for them? Also, with the aluminum heads, i should only change the plugs with a cold engine, thoroughly clean the holes before removing plugs, use anti-seize on the plugs and make sure i don't over-tighten/cross thread them. Correct? Last thing i need are plugs shooting out.
This is a great start. Go through the entire engine bay and look for cracked or uninsulated wires at the crank position sensor and injector harnesses. Injector harness can be checked by removing the Upper Intake Manifold. You will need to remove the Upper and Lower manifolds for a good thorough cleaning. Use Berrymans! You'll see all of the carbon buildup in the manifolds. Have a gasket kit handy. Use the Fel-Pro gasket kit. The plugs can be had at just about every basic parts house (NAPA, Audible Zone, and O'Really's)
4. Last but not least, how many mile can i expect to actually get out of this car. I do routine maintence on my vehicles all the time and i don't have a problem buying/replacing most parts. But i don't have the time/space/money to be doing head gaskets and swapping motors/trannies all the time, serious stuff like that. Is this car actually going to be reliable for me or not? I know that no one can tell the future and tell me for sure, but if these cars all seem to die at a certain mileage or from a certain problem and that death is early and inevitable, i am just gonna get rid of it cause i can't have that.
If you take care of this car as if you actually like it, you will have no problems other than basic maintenance. All of the problems from my car (165K Mi.) have been from me abusing it or just basic stuff like alternator, plugs, wires, oil filter, oil, fuel filters, et cetera. I have been through the spun bearing scenario and replaced the block with the 3L duratech for some added performance value. Even if you do have a spun bearing issue pop up, there is salvation to be had in the form of dropping in the 3L duratec motor. You can do a complete swap for less than a thousand dollars. It's a real good back-up plan!
Welcome to CEG. Hope you stick around!
