My buddy has an 01 5.4 SCrew. Under load, and occasionally at idle, it sputters and bucks. Going to check the plugs tonight. Any other things I should look at/for? Thanks

Cheers,
James

 

Coils. Our expedition with the 5.4 was doing the same thing last year. Was worse trying to accelerate at around 35-40mph. Never threw a code. I replaced all 8 coils and plugs. 7 hour job and lots of cursing. I went cheap on the coils and got them from ebay for around $100 for all 8. 10,000 miles and no problems on them so far. Plugs were motorcraft platinums. I kep the old ones as I figured most of them were still good and if I had future issues I could swap one in. Make sure you read up on changing the plugs in this generation motor. Do a search and you'll find tons of write ups on the subject. It could be a different problem but I bet it's your coils. Oh and it never hurts to clean your MAF and IAC to smooth it out.....

 

coils and plugs very common on these

 

Yeah, I had this same issue on my old Expedition, but I wanted to be sure before we dumped money into it. In any case, it was the #5 coil. Problem solved. Thanks guys!

 

I had a little 3.0 ranger that did the same thing. Idled pretty decent but up a hill it sputtered. Threw a coil pack on it and no problems.