This thing is killing me! I've been trying to jump the diag box but it's not happening. It fires up ok, idle is still off when it's cold. Once the juices get flowing and it's nice and hot, it's hard to fire it back up. Have any of you guys ever had a problem with air in your fuel system, vapor locking it?
when you say hard to fire back up, does it turn over slowly or at the regular speed and just not actually cranking up? vapor lock will not allow the engine to turn over at all. highly doubt thats your problem.
you happen to get that code yet? that'll at least get us pointed in a good direction.
until then. pull your plugs out and set them down on a white piece of paper (remember which is which) and snap a pic of the electrode end and post it up for us to see. I'm wondering if you're running on all cylinders. also, an easy way to check spark since you've got a timing light I assume....if its inductive (the kind where you get signal by clamping around an ignition wire), just crank up the truck and check each wire itself to see if your getting spark across all of them.
another thing it "could" be but I doubt it but who knows...you might have a cracked vacuum line or one that isnt hooked up. spray some brake parts cleaner or wd40, etc around in the engine bay (not when super hot or it could flash on the exhaust manifold lol) and see if the engine revs up. if it does, you've got a vacuum leak somewhere in that area.
so far we know you've got compression and correct timing (though, I'm wondering about that since you keep talking about how you cant get the dash to flash when you jump e1/te1). must be something like a vacuum leak, bad sensor, etc.
one thing I know from my turbo 2.3 fords is that these trucks have the same vane air meter setup on them which was before mass air flow meters. on 2.3t fords...they'll go haywire when the metering spring that reads from the vane door movement goes bad. that could be your issue as well but I have no idea how much your meter would cost to even check that as the issue...that and we dont know your code you're throwing yet.
