FordBoy05

I was replacing number 1,2 and 8 coils and found a lot of brown sludge on the boots of the coils along with dirt. Number 2 boot had cracks but they weren't cracked all the way through. I also found that there was the same brown sludge on the tips on the metal electrode on the spark plugs. Could this be the source of the rough idle? Plugs not getting a solid connection? The truck seems to run better with the new coils but you could still feel it idle rough just not as bad. The ticking has seem to go away also with the new coil change. The only coil that's not oem is autozone is cylinder 3 so maybe I should just replace that with a oem coil and it will completely fix the roughness. I'm concerned about the sludge on the metal ends of the plugs that might be causing a bad connection.

BadFish523

Yes that brown sludge will cause a misfire. Most likely it was duty dielectric grease. Did you re seal the boots with fresh dielectric grease?

redfishtd

This could be blow by from not torquing plugs in at 25 foot pounds . Loose plugs damage boots . Carbon from blowby causes misfires .
Aluminum heads are not damaged by torquing plugs in fact if they are loose they can be ejected damaging threads as it goes .
As far as the boots go replace them all . Would you hold these old boots in your hand while I put 30,000 volts thru the center . No you wouldn't- my guess so why aren't you getting that headache out of the equation .
This brown sludge on plugs may also be anti seize some one put on there as per temporary ford tsb before new sp515 plugs were designed . Put all new sp515's in there no anti seize needed anymore . Anti Seize can track and cause misfires .
Sp515 's can be bought on amazon rather inexpensively .
$64.81 for 8

FordBoy05

I did put antisieze on all the plugs and did not torque them down so what you are saying redfish is probably the cause. The most sludge that one of the boots had was cylinder 2 but all of them boots had some sort of dirt on them most likely from blowby which explains why the boots are brown.

FordBoy05

My main question is if the plugs where replaced 4,000 miles ago, why would they need to be changed? Another question is why would the truck have a slight buck at idle sometimes, and other times idle with a constant vibration and shake? All COPs are changed with motorcraft except for one duralast coil. The truck also seems to tick less when it idles better. Maybe fuel injectors? This is a 05 5.4. Forgot to mention the uneven acceleration and blinking cel hasnt happened since the coil replacement only the rough idle.