montanaman

Good morning guys -

I’m still driving The Blue Ox, my 2011 XLT 5.0, with 150,000 miles on it.

Its using a quart of oil to 1500 miles, so I think that if it gets much worse I’ll have to deal with it.

In the ‘old’ days, such as a ‘77 Granada, I’d pull out the 302, take the heads, short block, and tin to a machine shop,

bore it out, rebuild the heads, install new pistons and rod bolts, and put it back together, etc.

I don’t hear many of us talking like that - are we buying long blocks just to save time, or is there something about the coyote that makes them difficult to repair?

Any input?

RLXXI

Bunch of special tools required to rebuild one of these engines. If it were me I'd go long block for the warranty and avoid the expense. Turn the old in for core charge. If I had the special tools, I'd dive right in and do it my self.

SALEEN961

iTrader: (1)

It's not nearly as common to rebuild engines as it once was simply because the costs to do so have risen substantially as engines have gotten more complex and labor times to rebuild them have increased. Rebuilds simply don't offer the value they once did, especially if you have to pay for labor, or put a price to your own time. Typically when a customer of mine needs a new engine we install a good, low mile, used engine which helps them save money and avoid extended down time. On the vehicles I work on, it's not uncommon for a good used engine to come in under 20% of the cost of a new one or a rebuild, but I work on European vehicles and on domestics the price gap normally isn't nearly that large.

Right now I can get a 2014 F150 5.0 engine with 49K delivered to my shop for $2760, and install it in 18.9hrs for $2,835. The book time to remove, rebuild, and re-install the engine is 41.9hrs which is $6,285 in labor alone, once you add in the costs of gaskets, bearings, machining, and other miscellaneous parts a rebuilt 5.0 in a 4WD F150 could easily cost you $7500 if no problems are found compared to $6000 for a factory stock used engine with low miles. If a re-bore is needed, you may need to re-sleeve the block, which can add $1000 to a rebuild cost depending on who does the work.

Not all rebuilds will be as good as bone stock factory engines because people try to save money by not buying the expensive specialty tools to rebuild them properly. If you get an engine rebuilt my recommendation is to find someone who specializes in the engine you have, has the proper tools, and knows how to do things properly. Don't go to the local guy who mainly just does SBC and SBF rebuilds that thinks he can handle it. There are coyote specialists all over the country that know what they're doing, so finding one shouldn't be hard.

On a side note, what oil are you using? I've owned a few vehicles that burned 1 quart of Valvoline or other cheaper oils every 1,000 miles that only burned 1 quart every 5,000 when running oils from other brands. I personally like Royal Purple, Castrol Edge, and Pennzoil Platinum

montanaman

It was worse on 5W20 Mobil 1, and then I switched it to 5W30 Mobil 1.

SALEEN961

iTrader: (1)

Something else I just remembered is that the PCV valve on the 5.0 is a known weak point that can let a lot of oil past, many tuners recommend upgrading to the better PCV valve used in the ecoboost trucks. I stumbled across this when I noticed my truck acting a little sluggish and found that my PCV valve had failed at 60K. I replaced it with the ecoboost PCV valve which was a direct fit replacement and after cleaning the oil out of my intake manifold I noticed an immediate improvement in my ignition timing and my oil consumption which had suddenly appeared went away.

The PCV valve I used is MOTORCRAFT EV289