Everytime I take the Cougar out for a drive and push the pedal down, doesnt matter if its only half or WOT, it bogs down really bad, then picks up and hauls. Ive heard of a few things that cause this, but I cant for the love of god remember. Something about a grommet. Also, this car runs rich, horrible gas mileage and you can most of the time smell the excess fuel coming out of the tailpipe along with black smoke. I have o2 sensors to replace the current on the car, but any help is appreciated.
Heres a write up on how to adjust the tv rod.....
It sounds like you have some other things going on though......Pull your plugs and see if they are gas fouled. Let us know.
It seems like there are a group of us with those same problems (HO and non) and there seems to be no clear cut answer to them. I am close to doing a full throttle body swap on mine (if I can find one) and praying that is the answer. I get the py throttle response and poor mileage that you do. I did invest in a neat little multimeter and I have been tinkering with it ever since.
My TPS is of course non adjustable and reads out waaaay too high (1.7 or so) and if I manually turn it i get it as low as 1.2. My MAP seems to be fine but it wouldn't hurt for you to check that also. I changed my O2 sensor and it got rid of the code but didn't help my mileage. The voltage checked pretty well there. Unless your vacuum lines are new, I am sure you would benefit from a full rework of those as well (I need to).
TO SUM IT UP:
Pull codes, Check voltages, adjust TV as stated above, then start throwing parts at the car IMO.
1. Remove the air cleaner. Have someone floor the gas pedal from inside the car while you bend the THROTTLE cable bracket until the butterfly arm bottoms solidly on it's stop.
It would be awesome to have pics of this step and any of the others as well.
The website I pulled that from had no pictures......the one listed below is instructions for a carbed setup. It has pictures.....
http://www.tciauto.com/Products/Instructions/instructions/431000_inst.htm