Hi everyone.

I recently bought an AU XR8 220 manual which has been very well maintained and services. It has also been tuned by bluepower with a SCT XCAL3 to 200rwkw ish.

Anyway. Yesterday the car developed a fault. It has had a vibration about about 4000rpm which the owner said it has always done. Nothing bad but noticeable, i know the old windosrs can suffer from a bit of vibration.

As of yesterday this changed. The car now does a hard cut at about 4000rpm. In both first and second (haven't tried in higher gears, too fast). It winds up fine then his $k and violently just cuts all power, no bangs or clangs etc, it just stops then picks back up again.

Any ideas as to what is causing it?? Can I use the SCT tuner to read the codes?

The owner replaced most of the sensors before I bought it, cam angle etc, has a new balancer.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Jason.

you can use the xcal to do a fault scan, im leaning towards a bad crank sensor or cam sync sensor causing it to cut out

Thanks, you seem to be a bit of a guru on this stuff.
I ran the fault codes and got the following

P0340 - camshaft position sensor A circuit (bank 1 or single sensor) and
P0350 - ignition coil pprimary/secondary circuit

Any thoughts? Best place to get a new cam sensor and coil from? Is the cam sensor a bolt out bolt in job?

Sounds like that wouldnexplain the problem.

it seams your cam sync sensor is the fault, don't worry about the coil circuit fault just yet as the cam sync causing a misfire will give you a coil pack circuit fault..

I brought my cam sync from rock auto in usa..
was under $100 but the aus dollar isn't as good as it was ..

but here is one on ebay..
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Ford-AU-XR8- ... 3f4974c3f8

pretty straight forward to fit, its located under the coil pack, all you need to do is make sure your engine is at tdc on compression stroke before removing the old one and fitting the new one..

You might get a best price from RockAuto, using Shipitto to forward to Australia via TNT. Ive noticed that Rock's prices arent so good for international shipping atm.

I used to bring 4 or 5 over at a time along with a pile of Timing Covers to help cover the cost of my US parts

Do I have to change the synchronizer too or just the sensor on the top. I have seen the sensor on its own on ebay.

Someone also suggested an earth strap. I know this helped solve some electrical gremlins on my EL. Where is the best place to mount them to and from?

The AU Had a pretty good one I thought (earth strap).

The Cam sensor : If yours isnt making screeching noises, then you can probably swap the top. Ive seen two different types of sensors though - so you may not be able to.

Otherwise - the new once comes with the tool to align it. Get the engine to TDC, #1, and then insert new sensor with tool in place. Tighten up, remove tool and replace sensor top.

I would change the whole syncroniser, mine wasn't noisy, mine was randomly misfiring and when I removed the original it had a good 3-4mm of movement in the shaft..

and keep in mind the sync runs off the cam and drives the oil pump so imo its good insurance to just replace the whole thing