Spuddering and idle surge ?

[gomer]

I first drove a 3.8 car (squaremont based "ltd") back 20+ years ago , it did nothing but thrash above 4000 rpm in the mountains ,, had no power and ran hot... Since then my neighbor had a rear drive Thunderbird (the huge heavy mid 90's one) with a 3.8 that had the special riser to let air escape on coolant refills... that engine warped a head or two , contaminated it's oil with water and exploded at about 80,000 miles despite following factory recommended maint.. I have had an Explorer of my own which was gutless and have driven dozens of other Explorers with the 4.0 ,, the newer ones with the improved heads are OK but not spectacular... In any case it is an inappropriately heavy engine ,, it could only be used if you were building a "funny car" type vehicle , converting to rear drive and just re-using the Festy body shell... In that case I can think of many better body/engine combinations... but I'd rather build a SHO-gun...