I bought my 3.0 V6 (5spd) Flex-Fuel Ranger new back in 1999. Shortly after I had it, I was driving up into the mountains and it started pinging terribly. I took it to a number of dealers who told me the same thing: "Ford's service bulletin for that truck says you MUST burn premium fuel in it." So, that's what I did.
Fast forward to 82 thousand miles later when my wife called me to say that the truck was running terribly. She got it home and I quickly diagnosed it as a misfiring cylinder. I replaced the wires. Nope. I replaced the plugs. Nope. What could it be? There was no check engine light nor any error code.
After 3 days of talking to anyone who would listen, a buddy of mine loaned me his infrared thermometer and suggested I use it to measure the temperature of the exhaust manifolds. As soon as I started running the truck to heat it up, the check engine light came on. The code was "engine lean, bank 2." Measuring the manifold temp, #4 was hot, #5 was cooler and I couldn't get a good measurement on #6. So, back to the dealership I went.
I told the service writer that one of my injectors was bad, probably #5. He assured me with a ****-sure attitude that fuel injectors NEVER go bad in 3.0 Rangers. In all his years as a mechanic and service writer, he had NEVER seen one go bad. Then he raised the ante and said that if injector #5 was bad, he'd waive the diagnosis fee. Then he suggested it was probably a faulty compter or wiring harness or something else. I started to smell a $700 to $900 rat. I went to the parts department, bought a $3.80 plenum gasket, asked about an injector and was told they were $90 each and would have to be ordered in. I thanked them and came back home.
After a search on the internet, I discovered the internal resistance of each injector should be 14.6 ohms. I was able to test bank one, but they were all good. For bank 2, I had to take off the plenum. Once I could get to the injectors, #5 and #6 were BOTH open. Meaning, they had infinite resistance and were both bad.
Here's my theory. I think #5 went bad years ago. Injectors #4 and #6 supplied fuel to all three cylinders and caused a lean condition which I had been compensating for by burning premium. Once #6 died, there wasn't enough fuel for the whole bank of cylinders and the check engine light eventually came on.
Anyway, after calling every parts store in town, I came up empty handed for injectors. The idea of Flex-Fuel threw confusion on the parts guys. But, www.fiveomotorsport.com has them. They are NOT listed as a Ford part. I called Bruce at Five-O and told him what the part number was on my original injector. He has them, but they are listed as injectors for Jeeps built between 1987-1995. They are DENSO XL5E-A2A and have the FORD logo molded right into them! For the price of 2 injectors at the dealership, I was able to buy all 6 and have them overnighted to me.
I hope this helps. I originally bought the truck new because I was sick of fixing my old Mazda with 230,000 miles on it. But, I was forced to do-it-myself on this project and saved who knows how much. I am CONVINCED the dealership would have tried to sell me injectors, a computer and 5 to 7 hours of labor.
Oh. I have tried plain old regular 85 octane and there are NO pings!!! I'm also burning E-85 ethanol and have wonderful results with that too (1.59/gal).
If your Ranger has a problem with pinging.... check those injectors. Bruce at Five-O-motorsports did me right!
Kevin in Denver

 

Welcome to FTE and thanks for the feedback!

Sounds like those new injectors did the trick. How many miles on your 3.0L?.

I recently had my 4.0L injectors professionally cleaned and they were found to be running an average of over 12% lean.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...6&postcount=12

So I agree with the premise that poor-performing fuel injectors can contribute to a lean condition and hence pinging.

I would tend to think that the old suspect injectors in your 3.0L were going bad but never completely failed. Each injector is the only source of fuel in its respective cylinder, and hence you would have had some serious misfiring and the CEL would have come on a lot sooner, identifying the particular misfiring cylinder, had a fuel injector stopped spraying fuel entirely.

 

It has 82,000 miles. The pinging showed up shortly after I bought it. I don't know how much more I spent on premium over the years, but now that I'm burning a higher octane ethanol blend ( www.e85fuel.com and www.ethanolmt.org ) I'm on the money saving end of the stick.
I'm now considering replacing both O2 sensors. Anyone seen a dramatic change of performance after replacing them?
Kevin in Denver

 

Only if the sensors are bad to begin with! Just replaceing good ones will not change anything at all.
Big Jim

 

If you were running rich you risk carboning up the o2 sensors but I doubt running lean would have any negitive effects on them. Just out of curiosity, is the flex fuel a stock, from the factory kinda deal or did a previous owner put that on. Just wondering how hard and expensive it would be to put one on my 4.0.

 

The Flex Fuel option came from the factory that way. I had no idea it was a "feature." Now that I've discovered an outlet for ethanol near me, I'm glad to have it. The truck gets slightly lower gas mileage. I haven't calculated cost per mile (and it may be more costly than when burning premium), but I'm happy to purchase fuel knowing that my money is funding Iowa farmers, not islamic terrorists.
Could running too lean (but apparantly not lean enough to burn a valve) cause an 02 sensor to degrade? As far as I can tell, they work just fine. Is there a way to know when they go bad without a Check Engine light coming on?
Kevin in Denver

 

An O2 sensor will go bad if it gets covered in carbon. The tip of the sensors is a pourus material that allows some of the exhaust gas in. A bad sensor is one that is slow to react. I don't see how running lean would cause them to go bad but then they're only rated for 100,000 miles and 82,000 is pretty darn close to the end of their life cycle. To test you probably should have an obd II scanner monitor the o2 readings once it is warmed up. They should operated between something like .2 and 1.7 volts. Can't remember exactly. Probably best to go to autozone and see if thier scanners will allow to view real time data. However, be careful cause they love to sell o2 sensors.

 

Something else I just thought of ...FFV injectors are bigger (i.e., allow more fuel flow) than the injectors in the conventional 3.0L and 4.0L OHV engines. That means that the PCM in a FFV is calibrated for smaller injector "pulse times", since more fuel can be squirted in less time with the bigger injectors. But I think that this could actually help contribute more to lean problems when the injectors start going bad or become restricted, since (fuel delivery-wise) more is riding on the design (size) of the injectors themselves.

 

I just bought a used 1999 Ranger with the 3.0l V6 FFV and I just left the dealership for the third time for the same pinging! The mechanic brought me correspondance between himself and the engineer who suggested a PCM and Coil replacement and I quote"...some degree of pinging is common to the 3.0L FFV and should be treated as normal..." I feel like I am being lied to by the dealership...but if the engineer doesn't have a clue??? I appreciate the info earlier about the injectors and I will be at my dealership in the morning...

 

For more information on the 3.0L "vulcan" pinging issue, refer to Section V of the following 3.0L Tech Page:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=131256

 

Yes...but...it is still doing it!!! Just as if they had not touched it...

 

Tool box.

The FFV injectors fail, I see them all the time. FFV injectors don't like to be run on gas for long periods of time and then hit with E85 either. Most FFV injectors I get are smoked (1 or 2 of 6) from just that. High mileage builds up a lot of wax/sludge that is instantly released with the E85. This clogs the fuel filter and then you wind up with a burned coil from the injector being stuck closed.

Premium fuel in a Ranger is COMPLETE BS. The test is to run 100 octane and if it pings then reflash the PCM. This is a known Ranger 3.0L issue that goes way back and is normally a bad injector, DPFE, carbon or all the above.

 

Bob Ayers who owns a pinging 3.0L flex fuel & says to make sure you are using AGSF12PP plugs. Check it out here. https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...fv-owners.html