I vaguely remember as a child while on a trip with my mother, we were going down the road in our station wagon and we suddenly heard a 'POW', and then it sounded like the engine was about to give up making an awful noise. One shop we stopped at just listened and said we needed an engine change. We wanted a 2nd opinion and moved on. The next shop we stopped at, the mechanic opened the hood and looked around and found a sparkplug dangling at the end of its sparkplug wire. He went and got a wrench and put it back in the hole and sent us on our way.

I have a 2012, new to me, E-350 with a 5.4 L and after I changed the battery and the starter and finally got it running, it sounds like it may be on the verge of catastrophic failure. But then there was that fuel smell after only letting it run with this noise for 10 or 15 seconds.

Does an ejected or blown sparkplug sound like the engine is about to come apart?

I am going to look for that before I schedule an engine change, but at 250K on a 2012 5.4 L with no previous maintenance records, I will keep an open mind to an engine change.

I know it is a low percentage of engines that have ejected plugs, but not knowing the maintenance this has received, I am just wondering what it sounds like.

Thank you,
Bill

 

Rather than trying to hear an ejected plug you're better advise actually checking them individually to see if the COP's are broken or otherwise not sitting normally. An ejected plug will have a "chuffing" sound. Post a video of this sound if you can.