It sounds like a DOHC engine. You have to remove the center covers on the valve covers to access the plugs.
Hey Krewat, you ever put a DPFE sensor on a Mark VIII? Man, they sandwiched that thing between the rear of the head and the firewall. It was quite a pain. I think I even had to remove the master cylinder to get my arm back there to the hoses!!!

 

Never worked on a DOHC, so no, can't say I have

Ever changed the plugs on a V10 in a Superduty? Now THAT'S fun

 

Negative on the V10. I haven't even tackled my 5.4L yet. Only 58,000 miles. I'll probably do them before the extended warranty runs out just in case U-Know-What happens!!

The DOHC heads have the plugs in the center of the heads between the cams. This kinda resembles the old Hemi valve covers with the plugs in the middle.

 

I did the plugs on my V10 a few weeks ago, it has 22K miles, but it's 5 years old. LOTS of dirt got past the top dust seal on the plug boot, one was getting slightly rusty - and that's with no mudding/water-bogging With any modular, even the two 4.6L's I've had, it's a good idea to check out those spark plug holes ...

The DOHC I take it, has no problems with the plug boots getting exposed to crud?

 

No crud due to the cover, but there is always a risk of oil leaking in them when the valve cover sparkplug tube seals start leaking.

 

OK - got it all back together. I have pix, but have to set them up for viewing, and scale them back to something reasonable.

Impressions of the aftermarket intake from NAPA:

Unimpressive molding. There were obvious "steps" in the intake runners as they come up to the injector. But they were worse on one side compared to the other. Ground them out with a die-grinder. Used 600 wet-dry paper to smooth out the rough spots after the die-grinder.

Ran the car today, road-tested it, seems to have at least as much power as it had with the stock Ford intake. But that's after my "porting" job.

Alternator bracket, had to cut out whatever didn't exist on the original '97 cougar bracket. And, of course, paint (and bake) it.

Otherwise, seems a decent fit overall, except like I said, burr removal on the outside, and final finishing on the inside.

art k.

 

I wonder if anybody got Ford to pay for or replace the intake after it was 7yrs. old?
my dealer soaked me $1046 to replace mine when it was only 8yrs old, zackly 8 yrs. to the day of when I purchased it.
I just heard of the Class action suite in California and it brought back that day when it blew out antifreeze.
I've been E mailing and haunting my dealer and told them of the Hard Feelings between me and their serivce dept.

 

I doubt they will cover it anymore, but it's worth a try.

It might help to go to a new dealer and try with them. Sometimes a helpful guy on the computer can find that "program" when no one else can.

I got the job done... A few things:

The new aftermarket intake certainly had some "core shift" in the molding process around where the intake runner runs past the injector. Lots of steps that would certainly hurt performance by blocking air flow.

I used the die grinder and took any burrs and ridges out of it

Runs good, hasn't completed all it's diagnostics yet, but feels at least as strong as the old intake. Maybe a little more high-end power. I'll report back more when I find out.

Turns out this intake had the screw holes for COP which I didn't need, but that didn't hurt anything either.

Overall, seems to be a decent product, but like I said, any serious motorhead would be "porting" the darn thing before installation, although it might not matter to the general driver.

One note: This is at 23K miles, and is coming up on 9 years old, in April 2006.

 

One other note, those "ridges" or "steps" were as much as a 1/4" wide and right in front of the injector!

 

I just may try another dealer, some relative of my bro's 3rd wife works as a serv.writer there.
Another thing about my dealer is a friend bought a toal wreck 250 with a bad deisel eng. and they ran Id.# off another 250 for a engine him.
If they liked me for a customer, they could of ran the #'s off another car. I guess I know thw answer now, they didn't like me !

 

Tell them if they don't "hook you up" at least with a cut-rate on the intake, you'll report them to Ford! That should shake them up a bit

Of course, that's extortion, which can get YOU in trouble ...

 

Well that sounds like a plan, but, it's been a few years now sence they changed it and I did get over it until the other day when I was told ford was paying on that claim again and I get over it again.
WhenI left the ford serv.I told them they would get another chance and now I mean it. Sold my F150 and the salesman must of spead the word around, serv.writer knew it and I bought from the same salesman at another store.-M- owned by the same company.

 

See my gallery for pix... since it's somewhat truck-related... the original pix were at 7.2 megapixels, the site software scaled it way back...

https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...&albumid=19794

 

krewat, go here http://www.fordmanifoldsettlement.com The case is final and Ford lost, although they refuse to admit there was ever a problem with these intakes. I have a '97 Towncar that will be covered in this suit. I used th dorman intak eand was happy with the quality and ease of the job overall. Loose your recipts and fudge the time, you'll likely find that you are elligible for a $735 refund. All you have to do is verify that your car is covered under the suit and drive it to a dealer to verify that the manifold is indeed a new one. Good luck

 

PROSTOCK, thanks for trying, but my '97 Cougar is not covered under that "Class" action suit. It has a build date of April '97.

Which, by the way, is probably one of the last '97's off the line... a build date after June '97 for t-bird/cougar is a WASTE as there were plenty of cars built from '96-'97 that had the problem and not a lot of cars were produced after June of '97 - that's practically '98 model year. My '96 t-bird was done under the 7-year/unlimited mileage program.