did i mention hard start was also a problem.. haha

yeah tell me about it, smells really rich so I can take it from the above codes that the engine wasn't warm enough.

I usually have to pump the throttle to get it going, once it starts she is rough as guts but wont stall anymore. No chance of giving it a quick squirt, all that does is cause a flat spot. Funny though when I let my foot off the accel it revs up!!

If this doesn't work I'm going to pull the injectors out and get them cleaned.

Cleaned the MAF and no difference, although I think I have to replace the battery as it isn't holding any charge! gees these things come flooding in one after the other.

I'm also suspecting a vacuum line somewhere because it makes no difference to the running when I pull off the vacuum line to the fuel pressure regulator. I know there are 4 vacuum line under the inlet manifold
brakes
fuel reg
one other at the back that I have block
one at the front that i have blocked.

any others?

one at the back goes to the pcv valve at the back of the inlet manifold ...i think from memory front one goes to the rocker cover filler pipe
have you checked the fuel pressure -tyre pressure valve at the front of the motor LHS of the chrome fuel pipes should be around 35-40 psi with the vacumn line off regulator at idle....or check pump output by disconnecting pressure line and measure litres p/min....unsure what it should be

hopr this helps

Sounds like its ignition & fuel system, or compression. have you checked all 8 cylinders. something to concider!

are all the sparkplugs, coil & leads new?

hey there, yep new plugs and leads, coil was on the list, getting a good strong white spark though.

Have some further info. After it runs rough for a few minutes I managed to rev the engine up to about 3000(by the ear, no tacho) and it ran without a miss, no smell of fuel. then it came back down to an idle and ran like crap.

Had a fish around and found that...

* taking the vacuum line off the fuel pressure regulator has no effect on the running of the car what so ever.
* found out this morning that there is NO fuel returning to the tank but plenty coming from the tank!

So this means either there is a vacuum leak somewhere or the fuel pressure regulator itself is rooted and causing flooding at idle and on throttle (Hence the smell of petrol)

Will be taking the inlet manifold off this arvo and double checking the lines to make sure they're not block etc etc. and to make sure the fuel rail doesn't have a blockage somewhere.

I'm not sure if you can pull out the ecu & take it to ford & run a full diagnostic on it. is it possible anyone... anyone?
What I'm saying is, if you happen to find out theres no vac leak. might be worthwhile having it checked out in case it did burn out or weaken some of the resistor on the ecu main-board... when you were cooking the fuses. ROFL
thats one thing to look at after you run through the elimination process.

Well well well finally solved the problem.

After all the crap it was the fuel pump, not putting out enough psi. swapped it for a new msd one and wholly f**k!!!! gotta love the sound of a v8 with flowmasters!!

once again thank you all for the kind assistance provided, I have certainly at least gained a lot of knowledge on efi!

Good to hear mate, now post up some pictures of your work for us to admire! lol

righto. need to take some decent ones but have these three in the gallery

http://www.fordmods.com/forums/gallery. ... a&meetid=0

and a video

http://www.yourfilehost.com/media.php?c ... gstart.wmv

file is about 7Mb.

Oh, a ground up restoration is it? I thought it was just a engine swap!

top job there kiwiDazza. looks like you'll be handing her down to the young bloke in the vid one day aye? lol

yeah he is a lead foot at heart and watched every minute of Bathurst!.

The engine swap has proven to be the biggest headache but on the other side has now provided me with the biggest amount of satisfaction. When I bought the motor I didn't realise how much wiring it would actually need. The local Ford dealer supplied the workshop manuals for the EF so I could reconstruct the wiring from the diagrams.

Rear end is out of an XF, it's 2 inches wider than the standard rear end and I don't have to worry about changing yokes etc.

Not long and I'll take her for the first road test.