86 mustang 5.0 fuel injected. At cold, starts great and runs stong and firm. After driving about 10-15 mins it starts sputtering and wants to lope and die at idle. Driving, it hardly idles at a stop and sputters from a stop until I punch it. Then, it takes offlike a bat outta hell. Ideas what's wrong?

you may have poor ignition wires that need to be replaced or a bad electrical connection that is affected by water either for the ignition system or the fuel injection system. just some places to look.

Is the car fuel injected or carbureted? If it is fuel injected, the most likely problem is a distributor pick-up. In most cases, it's cheapest to replace the distributor as an assembly. With a carburetor, you need to check fuel pump volume. You may have a restriction or perhaps the carburetor itself needs to be gone through.

bad need of a tuneup? like new spark plugs, ?
172 , is 02 rich/ lean warning. this one is low oxy for rich.
this code can just be a victim. for sure , with misfire.
means 02 sensor stuck at rich,
what is water temp in engine coolant, at failure? less than 150F?
could be lots of things.
leaking injectors, bad fuel.
injector sticking> causing misfire.
id use a scan tool and watch all sensor when it fails.
too high fuel pressure.
misfires cold, but only luke warm cold starts not fully cold.

just one DTC, no P0300 or 30x misfire codes, not even P0300 pendings?

sounds like a fuel problem, may have water in the gas or needs a fuel filter , try a bottle of drygas before the filter

Check the fuel pressure it souds like you might have a weak fuel pump.The fuel pressure should be 60-66 with key on engine off.

Sounds like you have some bad fuel. I would drain the tank and put some fresh fuel in it.

Do a fuel pressure test. If you have compression, and good spark, this is where you should start.

you need a new pump for sure your screen on your pump came off

Have you checked it for spark when it dies? It sounds like a bad ignition module.

Replace the coil pack inside you distributor I believe it will solve a number of headaches for you.

Lugnut61