More surge issues

[Occhty]

EFI, I just replaced the head gasket, it was leaking from exsaust to coolant, and would only give little heat. Now it's surging and idles irregular, acts fuel starved. Even though it had a blown head gasket it ran perfect before. Oh and now the heater will run you outta there. Also changed the exaust manifold and o2 sensor, old one had a crack. I'm thinking it's water related. Cts, or the thingy between the starter and intake with two little hoses? I can swap parts to another running festy till I find the culprit. Thought I'd check here first

[skeeters_keeper]

Timing belt off a tooth? firing order wrong?

The 'thingy' between starter and intake is the IAC valve, cleaning it isn't a bad idea but its not likely to go bad while your doing a head job.

[brickdog2000]

On my 2001 ford f-150 I had the check engine light come on. It turned out that I had to remove my IAC Valve & EGR valve and clean them. I was not getting sufficent flow through the system. I am not saying that is what it is. Yours is EFI so I dont know if you can extract any codes from the car. I know with mine I can by running a jumper in a electrical connection and watching my sheck engine light flash the code.

[IdealSociety]

double check your intake tubing. surging is commonly misdiagnosed on FI systems and is generally caused by improperly metered air coming into the system.

If there are any cracks or pathways for air to get into the motor between the AFM and throttle body you will see the exact symptoms you described. Examine especially the "ribbed" areas of the tube as they tend to crack in the recesses underneath from being removed during service (and just the rubber drying out over time).

I actually bought my current Escort GT for 100$ because the owner couldnt find that his intake tubing had a tiny rip in the bottom right after the resonator box. replaced it with a good tube and had a perfect running EGT for almost nothing

[Occhty]

Heres what ended up fixing the problem. Losened the two twelve mm bolts to the disty, rotated clockwise about a half inch, tighten back down.  Do wah dippity 

[IdealSociety]

you should probably set the timing properly then. get a timing light (or borrow one from advance/napa/autozone ect) and set it to whatever the book calls for.

i cant remember off-hand, hopefully someone else will chime in with the proper timing settings.