2.3 petrol auto ford galaxy engine issue help please

[mobile chicane22]

Hi all quick intro:

The ford galaxy in question is an R reg mk 1 I bought for my sister in law for less than a £800 with 1 yrs mot and 6 months tax.

at low rpm ( sub 3000 rpm ) with gentle acceleration it runs fine and is perfectly drivable however when revved up in park or neutral it stumbles at about 3k rpm but will then rev through to the red line.

If the kick down is used it stumbles a bit and will struggle to get up to or past an indicated 70 mph.

I have changed the plugs, coil packs and leads and replaced the air filter, this has made a bit of an improvement.

I have also put some hydrolic valve cleaner into the oil which got rid of the low rpm ticking noise from the cam cover.

There has also been a bottle of injector cleaner added to the fuel.

Sis in law has run it for about a week now and says she is more than happy with it as 95% of its use will be a 6 mile 40mph max school run however I would like to make it spot on so that they can take it on holiday runs without it struggling up hills in darkest devon.

Please bear in mind this is a 1998 car with 120k on the clock and very limited history, the 2.3 l petrol engine is cam chain.

the rest of the mechanicals are fine.

I'm thinking gummed up injectors or fuel starvation but I'm fully open to other sugestions.

Cheers in advance guys

[ch427]

worth changing the fuel filter too, this is often overlooked and wont hurt to do as it rules out all the basics.

[Greasemonkeymark]

Hi this might co fussing but I'll try put it simple there's a fan looking thing which controls the imesions under the bonnet as you looking under its on the left and when these fail the imams ions go sky high resulting in them system poms few years back I use to change lots of these when they were failing imesions at mot time they go on a measure of drawing amps and as a cheat you can pop a blower fan under bonnet as a test it's mad I know hope this helps matey

[Pumaracing]

Almost certainly fuel filter or fuel pump. More likely the former if it's never been changed.

[Steve H]

Pumaracing said:

Almost certainly .....

Really? Without even seeing the car?

No harm in changing the filter if it looks old but I'd also get a code read as they were prone to MAF failures.

The fan that Mark describes is for the secondary air system and will mess up the emissions but generally won't effect drivability.