Where my F-150 peeps at?
I was driving my dad's F-150 with the Audi on a trailer last night and I got a flashing CEL. Oh boy, misfires. No loss of power or stutter was detected by the old butt dyno, so I stayed in it. I was at WOT at 4,000 ripp'ems when it happened and I wanted to see of it would become noticeable. Nope. The rest of the drive was uneventful.
At 76,000 miles, my guess is that the original spark buddies are fried chicken. ChatGPT agrees, but it also suggested I look at cleaning the intake valves because this is a direct injection engine. (It suggested a spray, as preventative maintenance, and, I quote, "an Italian Tune-Up") It's convinced the old sparkelators are not sparkelating though.
What sayeth the hive? Are there any hidden gems that the 3.5 has for us?
Plugs. Those 3.5's are hard on them. If they havent been done yet they are well overdue. May want to do the rubber boots on the coils while you are in there.
OK, I'm glad to hear that. I'll get the boots for it, too. We'll dig into it this weekend and give it a tune-up. Thanks!
My 2015 Expedition has the exact same engine as the 2014 3.5 F150's do the plugs every 50k-60k miles and oil change every 5k miles. Mine is currently over 160k miles.
I just changed the plugs. Hats off to any Ford engineers in the room. That was a 1 out of 10 in terms of difficulty. The plugs were definitely worn. The side electrodes even had little hemispherical erosion marks in them, increasing the gap even more than the worn center electrode was responsible for.
On my '13 until '18 I had no issues,I did change plugs at 50k though. Then one very humid day cruising at 70 then WOT up to 100,making a multiple pass every light on the dash lit up(or so it seemed) and the power just went away. I had to eat crow when the line of cars all passed as I coasted to the shoulder ,then as quick as it died it came back to life and within 3 miles the lights all went off. I was 500 miles + from home,no other problems. When I got home I went to F150 on line eco boost section. Yes others had this problem,the consensus was water in the inter cooler ,at WOT the water got pulled into the manifold and engine. Well I had just drove 800 miles since the incident ,1/16" drill in hand I poked a hole in the outlet side of the bottom of the intercooler. I got a solid quart of fluid out of that new hole,I had a pan ready because it ,the fluid, sometimes has a bit of oil in it and I didn't want it on my driveway. From that day forward my lower air deflector always had a wet film and I never had another mis fire. I traded it in with 175,000 miles last year.
i changed plugs at 35k mile intervals and they were always worn from what i'd gapped them at when putting them in. got 140k miles out of it before replacing with a lightning after the valve covers started to leak oil and stink up the cabin. (that was NOT a fun job to replace). always use the proper thread lubricant.
things that I had to deal with in that time:
the vacuum pump that runs off the passenger side cams will leak it's seal down the back of the head onto the exhaust. it's a pita to replace. (about 80k miles)
the turbos will start to leak coolant at some point. (did not happen to me but it's a known issue people deal with).
coolant line that runs across the front of the motor will age out.
at 100-120k miles the valve cover seals will degrade and start weeping a considerable amount of oil onto the headers, which will immediately get sucked into the cabin and stink it up quick.
spark plugs, every 30-35k miles. Yes it makes a difference.
just randomly the throttle body died on me. Came back from the lake, parked for the night, next day it was hard to start and felt like it'd blown a hole in the block when it did start. code was throttle body, 10 minutes to swap and all was well again.
I got 22mpg when new on the highway at 90mph. and by the time i sold it could only get 18.5 mpg on the same family vacation trip. (i never had the valves blasted or cleaned, Just could not find anyone willing to do it for me.)
The tune from 5star was well worth it. the transmission never did it's mystery shift where it gets stupid and just sits there then all of a sudden chirps the tires again after tuning. and the 93 octane performance tune added a TON of giddy up to the truck.
The seats were more comfortable in my xlt f150 (leather/HID package) than my 2024 lightning lariat. They were just better in every way.
In reply to Mad_Ratel :
I replaced the vacuum pump in my Expedition and it started leaking again 25k miles later. I havent touched it again.
How many miles were you at when you added the tune?
yupididit said:
In reply to Mad_Ratel :
I replaced the vacuum pump in my Expedition and it started leaking again 25k miles later. I havent touched it again.
How many miles were you at when you added the tune?
I ran the tune from the moment the factory warranty expired until i sold it.
I will admit when I hit 100k miles I did take the 93 perf tune down to the 87 perf tune (gas skyrocketed around that time too). (there's a noticeable difference at each level, stock to 87 and 87 to 93).
so iirc probably 100k miles of total tune usage? I think the factory warranty expired at 36k miles.
I'm at 175k miles. I wonder how much longer it would last if I added some tunes now lol. I was thinking that once the turbos need to be replaced (still original) I would get some aftermarket turbos with some downpipes and a tune.
