Question for you car type people

[1pLUs44]

 A friend of mine has a 250, and he always complains about going through coils all the time. When it was at the worst, he went through like 2 a month.

[Sincraft]

Ford - tough body, horrible engines.  Owned one.  Owned everything almost.  Pontiac the worst.

Nissan Frontier's seem to go forever, the Titan has mixed reviews.  I don't think they figured out the mega truck yet.

I was going to buy a f150 a few years ago, planned on dumping it around 60-80k miles (before the engines start to give)  Couldn't get anyone to wait on me and my phone calls discussing lot stock resulted in me hanging up the phone wondering how they stay in business.  Not surprised to see the America motor co's doing poorly. 

[rstel01]

I drive a 2001 F-150 (5.4 V8) with about 143,000 miles on it. Sometime early in January I went out start it to go to work. I noticed it was vibrating really bad as soon as it started. We had it towed tot the mechanic and he said a cylinder was misfiring due to a broken ignition coil. So they replaced the ignition coil, problem solved.... for 2 weeks. Same thing happened again, replaced another coil. 3 days later same thing happens again, so they replace all the ignition coils. Problem solved... until last night, coming home from work, the thing starts vibrating again. I'm taking it back the the mechanic today, I have a feeling its the same thing that happened before. The guy is a friend of the family we have been going to for 30 years so I doubt he is messing with us. Anyone heard of this before? or know what the heck is going on?

And I am fully prepared for all the "ford's suck" jokes about to come my way.

When you say vibrating, I would also assume you are also getting an PO30X (1-8) misfire code from the PCM?

Is the vibration steady or only at certain speeds, certain loads?   

The COP for 01 only has one water-debris retention ring on the Coil pack itself. When you pull a coil pack for any Modular family motor, just under the coil assembly itself where the boot starts (the area that goes into the head) will have a single or series of three rings for sealing. Single ring COP's don't last as long as the latter Three Ring units (Ford updated the design in late 02) and will fail on other cylinders besides the #6 and #3.

Also, you need to check the plug(s) for traces of carbon arcing on a COP that went bad. If you look at it closely the porcelain of the plug, it will have small black spider web like traces on it. Swap the plug if that occurs.

When a Coil Pack is reinstalled, it is also important to make sure that the COP boot has a good coating of Dielectric Grease inside of the boot as well.

If you are not getting a PO30X code indicating misfire, you might just have a shuttering torque convertor which is common the trans if you have went over 50K between servicing it. That will cause a buck-shudder at 45-50 mph under a light tip-in throttle in Overdrive.     

Just as an FYI, Modular motors don't blow plugs from the #4 (or any hole) just because. What happens is the Mass Air Flow meter starts to fail, this causes an intermittent extreme lean condition usually on #3. Those cylinders actually have a single point overheat in the combustion chamber which expands the cylinder slightly. The plug machining onto the head was never deep enough and the plug can work its way out.

The issue is most prevalent on 4.6 Police Interceptors and certain 5.4's Trucks where the driver uses WOT (wide open throttle) quite frequently.   

[CAP1]

When you say vibrating, I would also assume you are also getting an PO30X (1-8) misfire code from the PCM?

Is the vibration steady or only at certain speeds, certain loads?   









Just as an FYI, Modular motors don't blow plugs from the #4 (or any hole) just because. What happens is the Mass Air Flow meter starts to fail, this causes an intermittent extreme lean condition usually on #3. Those cylinders actually have a single point overheat in the combustion chamber which expands the cylinder slightly. The plug machining onto the head was never deep enough and the plug can work its way out.

The issue is most prevalent on 4.6 Police Interceptors and certain 5.4's Trucks where the driver uses WOT (wide open throttle) quite frequently.   

i was told......by a couple of dealer techs, that these engines(the 5.4) blow the plugs out due to a problem with the threads in the spark plug holes. i was told some of them came through with only 3 threads?
 i also thought i saw a tsb alluding to the same. i'll have to wait till tomorrow when i can get into my information system.

[rstel01]

i was told......by a couple of dealer techs, that these engines(the 5.4) blow the plugs out due to a problem with the threads in the spark plug holes. i was told some of them came through with only 3 threads?
 i also thought i saw a tsb alluding to the same. i'll have to wait till tomorrow when i can get into my information system.

What happens is during a lean out condition or quasi lean condition (not enough to effect the long term fuel trim in the cylinder bank but, causes a wild lean back in the short term fuel trim skewed by an errant Mass Air Signal), the poor machining of the head comes into play. The combustion chamber temperatures increase rapidly (usually in #3 or #4) which slightly expands the plug well area. This coupled with the poor machining makes the plug work its way out.

I left Ford in 01 (for much greener pastures in the Rail Industry  ) and probably investigated about 75 of these occurrences. There is a TSB for a new head but obviously anything from that date is well out of warranty and replacing a head on any Modular is big money and tremendous work.

Mostly it was present on 4.6 Crown Vicki Police Interceptors. The biggest thing to prevent it was to make sure the MAF was correct (verify the Barometric Pressure PID is equal to your true Baro at any given altitude) and to change the Fuel Filter from the smaller FG-872 to the larger FG-800. When they went to the PWM controlled returnless fuel system, they also changed to a smaller FG-872 filter. The FG-800 being much larger (and was the original in line filter for all Panther platform vehicles) also acts as a quasi-reservoir which combats the lean out condition at WOT.