[Plays With Squirrels]

My 96 GT is having a problem tha I'd like some opinions on. Now, this doesn't always happen but it has been doing this a lot in the past 3 or 4 days. My idle usually drops to 550-600 rpm and once I put it into gear I can feel the car having trouble. The engine shakes like it's not getting enough air or something but once I push on the throttle some more it kicks in kinda hard. If I leave my foot there, it'll do it again and I have to push the throttle even further to get the same effect. It's difficult to explain the shaking. I have a new air filter and tried fuel system cleaner before this even started. In fact, this first happened when I was almost empty on the tank I put the cleaner in. My dad looked at my car and we noticed that water slowly drips from the exhaust but I was unable to smell any coolant from it. The oil is fine as I just changed it out with synthetic yesterday and it still does it. I am unsure as to which intake manifold I have. Did the factory one do something like this? I do have to refill my coolant every now and then. I put some in one week and had to put some more in a week later the night it started acting up. I hope this information helps and thanks for any help you guys can give me.

[96Snaker]

Well first of all, welcome to MM and any pics of the car?

Second. Sounds like you might be facing all sorts of different things going on under the hood. Low rpms, or constantly changing (ie sudden dropping or revving) could be from lack of fuel and/or air in the combustion chamber. I'd check my compression first, then if that checks out I'd do a vacuum test on my fuel lines, make sure there's not a leak somewhere causing the sudden surge or lackthereof of rpms.
Now the loss of coolant you're experiencing might not be directly related, and hopefully it's something as simple as a radiator hose. The radiators in our two cars are very similar, and I had to replace mine due to it's slow but inevitable failure (started with having to refill once a month, then once every other week, then once a week then ugh oh lol) as it cracked open on the drivers side. Hopefully that's not the case but don't rule anything out. Make sure your thermostat isn't stuck shut either as pressure building up in the cooling system can quickly deteriorate your hoses from the inside out. Well hope you can diagnose it and get 'er fixed without blowing an entire paycheck on it but if it comes to that at least you can rest at ease knowing your car's not gonna explode. lol

[Fryrice]

Idle Air Control. Boo yeah. Clean it with carb cleaner,or get a new one. Check pic,its circled .

[jEEd]

hey Fryrice, nice picture, it looks very clean. what did you do to clean your engine area? mines getting quiet dirty...

[mu5t4ng]

SIMPLE GREEN FTW!