2003 E250, 5.4 gas motor.

Recently felt a hesitation or stumble just off idle, felt like a misfire but no MIL showing. Scan tool showed two pending codes; P0316 (random misfire, first 1,000 prm's) and P0301 (misfire cylinder #1). Checking new boot and plug (>5,000 miles) and figured it was a COP failure.

Having a stock of OEM COP's from an '00 E250 I thought what a smart guy I was, saving things for later use. Lo and behold what a (minor) shock to learn the COP connectors from the '03 chassis wiring are NOT compatible with my stock pile of parts!

Quick trip to NAPA for one of their IC369 COP's, $54.39 and that chore was done----motor runs fine once again. Just for giggles and grins here's a few photos of the affected parts.

2000 COP:


2003 COP:


Oddly enough the COP pigtail lead is NAPA p/n EC259 which does fit both COP's despite the terminal width difference---a good to know and cool feature as it simplifies that selection process across the 5.4 modular motor.



^^^NAPA's EC259 Replacement connector^^^

Anyway hope this is interesting or proves helpful to others!

 

Well damn! I have the 16valve 5.4 (with PI heads) that I took out of my 99 Expedition downstairs in the basement collecting dust and I was going to rob it of a COP once I figured out which COP on my 6.8 was intermittently failing (without throwing a code). The Expy is a late 99 while my E-350 is an 01. Maybe they are the same, but I didn't think to check when I replaced my plugs & boots on the van a week or so ago. And knowing my luck, they are different.

I'd love to sit down with a Ford engineer one day so they could explain all these small, running changes. Sometimes Ford will make a bunch of small changes to a model (98 vs. 99 Expedition), sometimes they wait until the vehicle is redesigned before changing stuff.

 

JWA, that looks like the same pin difference that I ran into on the fuel injectors when I did my '97/'99 E350 body swap, that forced me to change out all of the injectors when I swapped engine wiring harnesses.

 

OSHS you might at least try mating your basement COP's to your van--I "think" you might get luck there----hoping anyway!

As for their running changes of small things like this---I'm paranoid enough to think its by design, making parts incompatible in order to sell more, sometimes huge price differences.

A good example was wiper arms for a '97 E250---cost me a cool $27 each from Ford, NAPA didn't have them at the time. Next I needed the same parts but this time for a '99 & '00 E250----like $13 each?!?! They would and did look exactly the same as well as could be easily swapped between any '97 and later E250?? WTH?

(I double checked my receipts for part numbers and they were indeed unique but as I raise my hands to heaven could NOT find a single difference in them!)

I'm not shocked at all HAJ----Ford and their tricks huh?

I guess if there's a saving grace to our discovery is the NAPA et al replacement connectors seem to accommodate both versions.

My only real disappointment was I have 7 known good COP's (2000) of the older style so hoped could swap one into my '03 and save the $71 at NAPA---needed it that day, no time to wait for Rock Auto etc.

Thanks for the input HAJ & OSHS!