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I want to start off by saying this forum has given me some great information regarding my current '01 and (now unfortunately gone) '02 ford excursion. I have a possible unique problem that has gotten pretty bad over some time now and have felt the need to create an account here to see if any of you could come up with a solution(s).
Some Background Info: We bought a 2001 Excursion recently after our last one, an 02, was incorrectly handled by a mechanic that let's just say... shouldn't be one. It was advertised with one problem which was the exhaust manifold. It had a crack in it which was fixed soon after we drove the 900 miles back home. Some time passed after the manifold was fixed and that's when cylinder #5's spark plug blew out of the head. Now after doing some research after this happened I quickly learned that this is a common problem amongst the 01 and older models of the Triton engine. Now, I'm not totally sure what was going through the heads of the engineers at ford when they decided to put like 4 threads on the head for the spark plug but whatever... Guess the customer has to pay the price with a repair kit.
So after the spark plug blowout, we brought the truck to a local mechanic who we know does good work and they used a ford repair kit specifically designed to fix this spark plug blowout issue. After that was taken care of, the truck was running once again with no issues. Again, some time goes by and cylinder #6 blows out... (There is a picture I snapped attached of the blowout below) So we bring it back yet another time to get it retapped and after it was fixed for the second time, the truck starts throwing codes for misfires. The truck was obviously misfiring with the blowout problem, but this time no plug was blown out. Checked the codes to find that cylinders #5 and #6 were the culprit so we brought it back to have the COP's changed and maybe that will fix it. Turns out it did for about a month and 1/2 till it started misfiring again on cylinder #6. Cylinder #6's COP was found melted (probably due to the plug backing out and burning the coil?). COP was replaced and it was running great for another month. Fast forward to today, and there are two misfires on #5 and #6.
Some Possible Solutions: From what I have seen, the repair kit is just a bandage for what the real problem could be: The cylinder head itself. Our mechanic told us that they could take the heads off and have them brought to a machine shop to have them fixed. The dilemma here though, is that let's say they do get the heads fixed. It's could take upwards of a month to get them serviced and installed, but there is that chance of them misfiring/blowing out again. One thought I have is to get the heads swapped from a newer year of those engines that have the correct amount of threads. Our old 02 never had any blowouts or misfiring issues due to the spark plug backing out.
I have seen some posts on here about PT (Performance Improvement) and NPT (Non-Performance Improvement) heads that could be swapped on specific newer/older years of the Triton. I'm not totally certain what to look for to make 100% sure the heads are compatible. That's why I'm asking here to see what yall suggest I should do in this situation. Another thing I wanted to add was if I were to get new heads, can I buy them brand new aftermarket/OEM?
Let me know what you guys recommend!
Cylinder #6 after the blowout
Last edited by MegaTurbski; Mar 7, 2023 at 10:45 PM.
These people Blownoutsparkplug.com Ford Spark Plug Thread Repair do a lot of these and torque the plugs to 28 ft lbs which is way past what Ford recommends but have not seen any problems doing that (with good threads) and it seems to work for them
I have a Crown Vic with a 4.6.i torque my spark plugs at 25 lb/ft and have never had a blowout plug. Currently 154,000 miles. Plugs were replaced at 120k. I did find #3 plug was loose and #4 was loose jsut a bit less.
i think that’s the real,issue is Ford Nasa 13-15 lb/ft recommendation and that’s not enough to keep the plug from loose it up.
when or if I ever blow a plug I’m gonna use the CalVan plug repair kit. I’ll just do all 8 plugs. The kit is $250 and I did a F150 and a Expedition. Both still running and have over 80,000 miles on the repairs
