I recently purchased a 2010 E150 with the 5.4L engine 160k miles. I purchased it not running. After some diagnostics I came to the conclusion that there is no compression. I was told that the timing tensioner go on these and the chain jumps, which would make sense why no compression.
My question is am I better off getting the kit and replacing chain tensioner etc. or replacing the entire engine with a used one?
Does the engine have to come out to do the timing chain kit ?
and If I do an engine swap what year will work and does it have to be an E series van engine ?
TIA
I only pulled the plug from cyl. 1 or 5 not sure it was the first one on Drivers side front. I could not feel anything coming out of spark plug hole while cranking it over.
I did eventually speak to owner and he said the vehicle was warming up in the am and when he came back out it was stalled and would not restart. It was towed to the dealer and they replace the battery and determined the engine needed to be replaced, because service records showed it went over 10k without a oil change and was low 2 quarts of oil no other diagnosis was done I guess. Sounds weird but I talked to service adviser.

 

It may have bent some valves if you are not getting compression out of the sparkplug hole. A cylinder leak down tester will tell which manifold the air is escaping from but will still require head removal if valves bent. Try more cylinders in case some rockers have jumped off. No abnormal noise when rotating engine? The heads replacement on a Modular engine are a large expense and you would probably be wiser replacing the engine with a warranty.

 

No Its sounds good when rotating, backfire through intake every now and then. At first I thought it was just fuel related issue. Would it be smarter to pull valve covers off to see what is or is not moving.

 

Yes and check the valve stem height and you may find some bent intake valves since it is backfiring through the intake.