Hey guys...whats the moral? Is my truck a P.O.S.? I mean...am I gonna blow a plug, throw a rod or worse? Are these 02's bred for failure and if so, is there a damn recall that ford is running to give me/us 02 owners a new head and rods? Seriously...if this truck turns out to be the ANYWHERE NEAR the lemon my 99 cobra was I swear Ill never buy another ford...& my father works at world headquarters!...but I dont care..having my ride in for service 40% of its ownership(like my cobra was) isnt worth A plan, which I didnt even get on this thing anyway. I was so mad after my Cobra I was threatening to buy a honda...It was hard for my father to argue since at the time I had a Cobra with 4 recalls and and 6 broken I.R.S.'s and an 01 explorer sport that was all over the news for FLIPPING OVER AND KILLING PEOPLE! I was thinking about breaking out my BMX! Anyway...its obvious there are problems in the 02's with plugs & rods...is ford steppin' up to the plate er what? I have had 0 problems so far...but lately, as these 02's get some miles on 'em...Im reading so real horror stories, and I turned 6900 miles today..so she's still a newborn, but Im worried. Sorry to vent but...damn ford...what are you guys doin' over there...

 

My '00 Virgin L is getting more expensive all the time

 

The production date on mine was 12/09 and it rolled off the line on 12/09, so I am not sure what order or number it was.

Sorry about the quality of the pics, but my digital camera didn't want to fit in there.

Let us know what you find out on yours.

Rocks

 

It isn't just a 02 problem, or a Lightning problem. The spark plugs have been blowing out of the 2V 4.6 and 5.4 engines since 1997.

You wouldn't think it would take Ford 7 years to fix a simple problem like this.

I am thinking of helicoiling al 8 of my spark plug threads.

 

Ewwwwwww ... TMI

 

Don - Check a thread in the Engines forum "How to live with a blown plug" or something to that extent. In there they discuss an item called the Bigsert. It looks a hell-of-a-lot better than a helicoil.

 

All I can tell you about is my 11 second daily driven,430/560 ,8# lower and all the goodies with so far 0 mechanical problems.(2 bad coil packs).
Does that mean it won't blow up tomorrow.NO, but I think FoMoCo did a good job. I added 70 rwhp and 130 rwtq and it stills drives great.

Are the trucks perfect, NO. But what is?
VINNIE

 

How many turns did it take to get the plug out? That'd be the easiest way to determine how many threads there are.

 

An easy way to see how many threads are in the head is put anti sieze compound on the top half of the spark plug threads, thread it in ... then take it out and see if the anti sieze is still in the spark plug threads.
( that means you don't have the extra thread in the head )

good luck

 

I don't recommend putting anti-seize on your plugs. I just used an ink pen and made a few lines down the length of the plug threads. I screwed the plugs in and removed them and saw how many threads the ink had smeared on. also counted the number of turns to install/remove the plug repeatedly and came up with 9.

click here for more info!

later,
chris

 

So do you think you have the new style head ? Did the ink smear all the way to the bevel seat of the plug ?

 

hello.

 

LMFAO

 

Has anyone heard the $$$ on this new head ? If you can pick up the old one's for $400 / pr. , what is the upgrade worth ?

 

Somebody posted this p/n for the new heads- 2L3z6049BA. I searched some on-line parts databases to see if I could come up with a price, but all I got was no matching item found.