dukedkt442

I may be the minority but I don’t care here: stick with the upgraded plastic tensioners. “Metal to metal with no seal to blow out” means there’s no seal in the first place, and likely the only reason 3v engines are surviving is due to the upgraded pump. Metal tensioners would exhibit far more oil loss (especially under higher pump pressure) than a functioning plastic tensioner with upgraded seal will easily go 150-200k miles or more. Nothing to worry about there.

Other than the melling pump, I didn’t have any other aftermarket garbage in my engine. Using Genuine Ford parts purchased from Amazon, my timing job cost $1400. Aftermarket timing parts, even Melling or cloyes, have a much higher failure rate than The upgraded MC parts.

Buy an upgraded pan with a drain plug (or weld one in yourself like I just did on my Silverado) to make fluid changes easy. I do NOT recommend flushes, as they just reverse pump the garbage out of the filter and circulate through the transmission. Drop the pan, change the filter and clean the magnet, and then do fluid drain/fills every few hundred miles until the fluid comes out red. On the final fill, add a bottle of Lubeguard Red and thank me later. Also don’t be scared of the plastic plug you’ll find in your pan: it’s supposed to be there on the first pan drop. Just remove it and all is well. Use Mercon V in the trans and mercon in the transfer case (both of which are overdue for new fluid, btw).

For now, stick with the MC plugs, and *maybe* boots/springs if you want to stay ahead of future misfires. Your coils are nowhere near bad, and even if they were, there’s no way in heck I’d have a non-MC ignition (or timing) component in MY truck. Don’t yet go down the timing system rabbit hole. On the ‘04 you’ll have to dump the AC system to remove the accumulator to remove the starboard valve cover.

The whistling is likely the rotted seal on the air filter drawer. Replace with 3m foam window seal.

Toss that garbage K&N filter unlike you want your engine to breathe marginally filtered air and oil. Ford Tech Makuloco has a good video on why those hi flo filters are trash, so I’m not the only one.

SCORGE

X2 on the lubegard

ShirBlackspots

@dukedkt442 You can say what you want, but even FordTechMakuloco is using the cast iron tensioners in the 5.4L 3 valve trucks that he does the timing in. To be safe, I am going to use the Permatex Optimum Black gasket maker on the smooth surface, just in case anything does happen. But Ford went to the plastic tensioners to save a bit of money. The cast iron ones are what was used in the 2 valve engines, and they've been doing perfectly fine with them. Ford no longer sells the complete timing kit on Amazon, its only available through a variable number of 3rd party sellers.

BTW, the parts I received from Rock Auto for the Melling parts are the upgraded parts. The original cam phaser had a wide spring, the updated one has a narrow spring with an additional post. The upgraded VCT solenoids had a large oil exit hole, the upgraded version is smaller. (best post I can find that shows the difference https://www.f150forum.com/f68/5-4l-c...x3/#post617628)

Note: The only parts I bought for my truck that weren't made in North America were the Gates water pump (made in China) and the GMB fan clutch (made in the Republic of Korea). Its got me going "Hmm..." with the Gates water pump. All the Melling parts are made in the US. The Gates belt tensioner is made in Mexico, and the idler pulleys are made in Canada.

dukedkt442

Actually he uses upgraded plastic ones. Don’t believe me, check his videos.

2v engines use them because to my knowledge
they don’t run oil to them.

”Made in America” doesn’t mean jack if the company has poor quality control. If Made in america were the yardstick we’d all be driving Titans.

ShirBlackspots

And I watched a video or two of him using the metal ones. This is what they look like.

dukedkt442

I’ve never seen them. Please post the links. The OP should watch many videos.

ShirBlackspots

This video here
April of this year. Its a 2 valve, but it had the plastic tensioners (at 11:20), and he installed the cast iron ones (at 29 minutes in), and he says its a good idea to do. And they are oil controlled with the tension. From 2003 on, Ford used the plastic ones. He even links the timing set with the cast iron tensioners on Amazon (both and versions)

SCORGE

But that's a 2v, not a 3v. I think it's the video comparing mileage on two 5.4's, or something where he mentions the plastic ones. I'd personally use the plastic. My plastic guides have made it 251k miles, so I'll stick with it

ShirBlackspots

Doesn't matter. They're essentially the same engine (the only difference is the number of valves and the heads to accommodate them). The older videos (the four part series) was three years ago, and the cast iron tensioners probably weren't available until recently (just like the M340HV and M360HV weren't available until a year ago). Personally, I don't like plastic being used in an engine. (but it is smart to use plastic guides).


His referral to "metal backed" is the chain guides. He says he uses the updated plastic tensioners because of the improved gasket, but that's a year before the previous video I linked (that's in April) where he says its a good idea to use the metal chain tensioners.

dukedkt442

OK I stand corrected on hydraulically fed tensioners on the 2vs; research shows they were designed meter oil to lubricate the chains. I still stand by my statements of 1) never using them on a 3v (at least not my 3v) and 2) FTM never recommended them for a 3v; if he had thought they were a good idea, he would have said so in his 3v videos, seeing as how the cast tensioners have been around for decades. 3v and 2v engines differ quite a bit more than simply number of valves. I see no plausible reason for purposefully introducing an oil leak and pressure loss to an engine design whose top-end is far more reliant on oil pressure than the 2v (those knocking phasers, remember). I also don't see anything bad about plastic, the issue is in the seals not the case.

And with that I'll apologize to the OP for being complicit in the derailment of his thread.