bigredford

I just got a 2002 F-150 with a 5.4 in and I'm reading all of these threads on here and just got to wondering is the 5.4 a bad motor? I mean I take the best care of my vehicles, form the best oil to put in it to the best car wash to run it through. So now I'm wondering am I going to have a lot of trouble with this motor? My '97 F-150 has a 4.6 with 220k on it and I haven't had one problem with other then now it's under powered. This 2002 has 88k on it? Please tell me I'm gonna not have a bunch of problems with this pickup.

mustanger1986

your not gonna have alot of problems with your truck. If your lucky.

torkum

Relax and enjoy the performance of the 5.4. Keep doing your maintenance and if something doesn't sound correct or feel wright get after it. The fears about the 'spitting plugs' is real but can be avoided with regular and correct plug maintenance for the most part. My plan is if I spit a plug Patriot heads are going on, forget inserts

bigredford

So if I just keep doing what I've been doing I shouldn't have any problems that aren't normal with the 5.4? I mean all I do with the truck is drive longer trips with it. It stays parked inside my shop most of the time. I did just put plugs in it and I haven't had any problems with it at all, and that was prolly 250 miles ago I did that. So is there any other things that I should wonder about? Other common things that happen with them that I should know about?

DJsF150-4X4

The 5.4 is a great engine with the exception of the spark plugs I have 146K on my 99, and 36K of that is mine. The local dealer had all the records from the 1st owner and is has only ever had basic maintenance, and the engine still looks as tight as the day it rolled off the assembly line. As for the Plug problem; I have talked to several mecanics about it, and it's generally seen in Max load, heavy duty operations. So the question you need to ask your self is; how hard am I going to run the engine? If your in the heavy duty catigory I would change my plugs (which is a pain ) every 50K.

Ty

just think about this, for every problem thread you read, there are thousands of people who dont come on here saying "my truck ran good today".

the only thing you see on here is problems people are having, and they are looking for help.

transmaster

There was another thread here that reported Autolite had come up with a new design for the spark plugs for this engine to prevent the blowing spark plug thing.

Ty has it right, I guess the trick with this engiine is the plugs are supposed to be serviced every 100,000 miles. From what I have read if the plug is torqued in correctly you shouldn't have a problem. If it is under or over torqued then you will have a problem.

bigredford

All I do with the pickup is casually drive it (it's my good pickup) I don't really pull anything with it but a pickup box trailer every now and them but that's about it. So I guess my other question is, is it really common for them to blow out plugs? Or is that only one the ones that are maintained poorly?

transmaster

It seems to me that I would take a torque wrench to the spark plugs every so often to make sure they are not backing out. Read the below link it has some good information on the subject.


http://www.fordproblems.com/spark-pl...m-engine.shtml

and here is a link to company that has the heli coil kit and shows the repair is done.

http://www.timesert.com/html/triton_repair.html

Dan"Gerous"

Hmmmm, I never heard of any other engine than the V-10 spitting out plugs. Is this caused by the plugs simply loosening up?