I got this figured out. I found the engine build date sticker under a layer of grease on the left hand valve cover and it says the build date is March 1998 so the Ford parts guy was wrong and I need the gasket set that is for the earlier build date.


I currently am in the process of taking the intake manifold off to replace the intake gaskets and hopefully that will take care of my smoking problem. If anyone feels that I should be doing something else let me know because I haven't pulled the intake yet; all that is left is fuel lines, mounting bolts and the fun EGR that I couldn't get off today.

 

Monday morning bump

 

I got the smoking problem fixed. Since the leakdown test didn't show any obvious signs of a failure I rolled the dice and just replaced the intake gaskets, which was quite a chore on the V10 and it fixed my smoking issue! Upon examining the intake gaskets, see pics, you can tell why it was leaking. I'm guess the reason it only smoked before until the engine was warmed up is because the gaskets would "swell" up with heat and create a seal.


When I went to buy the intake gaskets there were two sets available depending on build date. My truck had the earlier version, the engine was built in April of '98. Does anyone know what the change was between the early and later heads? I'm wondering if Ford increased the spacing between the water ports and intake port? If you look at the gasket there is very little spacing inbetween the two.


Thanks to all that contributed and helped me get my truck on the road.


P.S. The 175K engine doesn't even puff a cloud of smoke in the morning.

 

Happy to hear the truck is running good! Honestly you did the majority of the diagnostics yourself, asking the right questions and posting a picture of the smoke for us to look at helped with the little we did.
I'm curious about how tight the intake manifold bolts were? Where they finger tight/loose? The gaskets look fairly good but possibly (hard to tell from the picture) see some signs of leakage on them, I have experienced that once on a friends non Ford car and fixed it by retorquing The intake manifold bolts (it was leaking out onto the motor not into the intake).
And just a heads up since it's been burning anti-freeze and leaking into the intake an Oil change would be a good idea ASAP, any antifreeze in the oil is a bad deal for engine bearings.

 

The truck is running great, other than a little valvetrain noise I will look into later. I have been hauling firewood and with the V10 I hardly notice it's back there, extremely proud of how it's doing.

I think the biggest help was you guys telling me the smoke looked more like coolant than oil which got my wheels turning.

The intake bolts were all tight, event though I found the spark plugs were only finger tight.


Looking closely at the gaskets in person you can see how it was possible for it to be leaking like it was; the rubber was pretty smushed down around the water ports, not to mention there is very little to no separation between the coolant ports and intake ports Here's a pic for comparison of the new gaskets

 

You asked about the changes in the head's between the years, i'm not sure of the exact changes but the difference as far as I know between the two was in I think 99 or 00 they changed to the PI (performance improved???) heads. As far as I know they just enlarged the intake holes on the head for more flow and increased the horsepower by doing that.

 

I know that the Mustangs went PI in '99, I would think the trucks did the same thing. I am pretty sure these heads and intake are PI so I was wondering what the change was from early '99 engines to later engines.

 

Just found this over at F150 online.

The "P.I" heads came out in "99" on the 5.4L in the F-150's. F-250's got then in "2000".

Maybe mine doesn't have PI heads which is kind of disappointing, but it has plenty of power anyway.