Hey guys, my 2008 F150 with heavy duty payload package is acting quite strangely. It's a 5.4L 3V motor 2 wheel drive automatic with 222K miles. The running issues I'm having are sometimes there and sometimes not. They come and go at any given point, but are more frequently there than not.

Basically at small throttle openings such as while cruising on the highway the truck sort of bucks, like it's misfiring. And whilst it's doing this there is pretty much always some black smoke puffing out of the tail pipe. It was doing it off and on my whole way to and from work, but on the way home it was sort of clearing itself up from time to time. Frequently when going up hill it would suddenly surge forward and smooth out. Sometimes it would stay like that for a few miles, other times it'd start bucking again as soon as I'd start going down the hill.

I've already checked the check engine light and I've got 3 codes

P0053
P2915
P0171

and the P0053 and P0171 also show up again under pending for some reason?

Anyways, from what I've found so far those are codes for the bank 1 02 sensor 2 of which are related to a lean condition. Now what I don't get is that if it's running lean why is it bucking and blowing black smoke? When the bucking stops, the smoke stops so they are definitely related.

I don't know the age or condition of the ignition coils other than some(don't know which ones) have been replaced in the past. It was a company truck where I work and I bought it out. They only replaced parts when they were bad, not as a whole set when only 1 or 2 were bad.

I also seem to have the passenger cam phaser tapping noise, although it seems to have gotten somewhat quieter after my oil change. So not sure if thats got any relation to my current problem or not. I can't really afford to dump a ton into it at once so I'm sort of trying to prioritize the most serious and/or obnoxious issues first.

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to include as much detail as possible.

Thanks a million in advance.

 

Replace all the plugs and coils and look for vacuum leaks.

 

Sooo, want to hear something neat? I went out last night to dig around a bit and see how hard the O2 sensor would be to change on the passenger side. Well I went and reached up to try to reach the sensor, see if I could reach to unplug it for a new one. I just barely grabbed the wire and the plugs came apart. I fought for a while to get it plugged back in. Ultimately ended up removing the sensor, cleaning it, then moving the plug attached to the truck so I could reach it with the sensor back in. Anyways, drove all the way to work and back today (around 110 miles round trip) and 0 codes are showing up in my scanner. I also never felt it bucking or surging, MPG appears to be a bit better, although still feels dismal, and I noticed no smoking from the tail pipe.

Hopefully that poor plug connection was the only real issue with it. Coils and plugs will still be coming in the not too distant future though. I was considering going with aftermarket "performance" coils mostly because after seeing how frequently we had issues with our fleet of trucks at work running the stockers I was hoping that Accel's or something of the like would have more longevity and if anything, maybe help my mileage by a touch. Any thoughts?

Thanks for the reply btw GLC, I was out looking for vacuum leaks last night too after getting the 02 sensor resolved.

 

Just saw in another thread where alanisdeals on Ebay now has genuine Motorcraft DG511 coils for $190 a set of 8. There really aren't any coils that work better or last longer.

They last a long time if you grease them properly and replace the boots when you change the plugs.

 

Wow! Good to hear that you got over 200,000 miles on your truck. I have a 08' with the Max Tow Pkg. also. This gives my hope.

 

Yeah mine runs just a fine at the 222k and climbing. I put about 600 miles on it a week. My cam phasers are starting to tick a bit and it needs a tune up and down could use coils which will be coming soon. But this motor is pretty sound by the way it seems.