runs great til you get on it then chugs

[330mach1]

Hi guys my name is mike. I'm trying to help a friend. He owns his own body shop and from time to time buys/rebuilds totaled cars. He got a 06 mustang gt and let it sit for close to 2 years but would start it and let it run from time to time. He finally got around to fixing the chassis and the body(converted to gt500 front end). Now that the body work is done(looks great) he finally took it out for a drive, it idles great until you get into the throttle the first time or two. It has great throttle response, good torque, no bogging. Once you get out of it it starts acting up symptoms are lack of power, irratic idle, and almost a miss fire, and check engine light comes on for a driver side camshaft position sensor. So he replaced the sensor and took it for a test drive, sure enough does the same thing. In my opinion it has a ticking noise from the cam covers that is louder then i consider normal. I have him changing the oil tonight with motorcraft 5w20, and bg 44k oil treatment, gas tank was drained and flushed(same results) i didn't have much equipment with me because i was just stopping to check on our lightning that he's working on. But rather then spend a long time diag. his car i was wondering if anyone had an idea on possible solutions/area's to start/ common problems rather then start from scratch. car is 100% mechanically stock. Only things done to car are a complete repaint, replaced/rebuilt front end of car forward(just behind the radiator support forward, including fenders, and all brackets) you can look under anything in the front end or even dismantle it and won't be able to tell it's a rebuild. Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you

P.S. sorry for the novel

 

[williesgt]

could be a bad cam phasor...also known as the vvti cam gear...there is a tsb for stuck lash adjusters tsb # 06-9-11...this is all i can think of...

 

[330mach1]

a little update. he took it to the dealer before i got a chance to look at it. Dealership had it since midday friday never called him. he called saturday and was told they had to remove the cam covers and timing chain in order to accurately diagnoise the problem so he gave them the go ahead(saturday morning). Monday he called around 10:30 they told him they had it apart and they were 100% sure the engine was sabataged. He explained to the dealer he had driven the car prior to letting the car sit and it was under lock, key, and alarm. The service manager told him the only options they had were to reassemble the car or replace the entire engine. My friend at this point was ready to pull his hair out had me call and ask what exact tests they have done. They refused to let me talk to the tech and mid conversation with the service manager asking what they have done to try finding the problem such as oil pressure, check cam phaser, check signal to the cyl. The service manager became irate and all of a sudden decided to tell me that he was told be his supervisor that they need to put the car back together and return it to my friend but still wanted to charge his full labor for what they had done. At this point i asked the service manager to speak to his supervisor, he got into a fluster and hung up on me. I called the dealer back and tried to by pass the service manager and get ahold of someone above him and was able to talk to the general manager of the dealership let him know what was happening and that i would like a tech from another ford dealer to call and talk to their tech about my friends car(personel friend) after two days the dealer finally got his car back together and the same service manager but in alot nicer mood called my friend to inform him the had his car back together and running perfectly. Turns out the other ford tech told them to remove the vvt-i cyl and inspect it for a clogged passage because the car sat for so long without being driven(my idea). sure enough they clean it out and wala car runs great. just wanted to put an ending on this thread. sorry for the long 2 posts.