Being an old Festiva fan I recently purchased a 00' 2 door ZX2 (would've preferred a wagon). It has a 5 speed, 2.0 litre Zetec, 92K miles, and all the bells and whistles you could ask for. I have discovered it has one huge problem though. When I accelerate normal (barely hitting the gas) the car hesitates and stumbles on itself up until about 3,000 rpm's then runs normal. It does this in almost every gear (especially 2nd and 3rd). My first impression was it needs a tune up. Changed: Spark plugs, plug wires, fuel filter, air filter, cleaned mass air flow sensor, lucas fuel treatment, and cleaned the throttle body. I even tried disconnecting the VCT/PCV sensor plug on the valve cover (threw a code) and that didn't help. At that point I realized that I was in over my head and called my friend who works at a Ford Dealership as a mechanic. He did a fuel treatment and looked for thrown codes. The only two that showed up were the VCT (my fault) and a mis-fire on 1. Other than that he had no other explanation as to what was causing this problem. As I drive it more and more I have noticed that there is a noise that is coming along with this hesitation issue. It's difficult to describe, but just short of a grinding noise. I have no idea what it is. It goes away right when the car starts to accelerate correctly. Any advice as to what this may be or where to begin on fixing it would be appreciated beyond belief. I like the car but I cannot live with this unknown issue.
