04 F-150 New VCT

[BISCUT]

Speaking of the 150 in my sig (5.4 3V). Mine only has 84k miles on it; bought it with 60k. I changed plugs and none broke. No problems with this truck ever. I knew the guy I bought it from and he was original owner. Always used PYB and Fram Ultra and 3k OCI. I moved to MC 5-20 and MC820 and doing 5k OCI now.

We all know about the potential cam phaser issues in the 5.4 04-06 years especially. Mine makes noise but its more like noisy injectors. This engine was never meant to be quiet. I did read a lot on the original spec of the VCT solenoid's not having the correct orifice size. So I figured I'd change them out and ake the chance to see what the top of the motor looked like.

With the covers off the top of the engine was sparkling clean and my chains on bot sides showed no slack at all, nice and tight. Changed out the VCT's and closed her back up.

It's been months and a few miles. Slight improvement (not much) in gas mileage, guessing that the VCT will effect the cam.

I'm wondering how many guys went through the entire cam phaser replacement without needing too. Ford dealer's all seem to throw out there replace cam phaser to any one who complains about a diesel sound. Often only to NOT remove the noise after the job is done.

I'm not saying the cam phaser issue on the 04-06 isn't real I'm thinking many of the repairs were probably net driven and not needed.

 

[KD0AXS]

I bought mine at 85K, now have 105K on it. I bought it from a dealer so I have no idea about the maintenance history before I had it, but I'm just assuming the cam phasers are original. It did have a slight tick, I tried a few different brands of oil in it and I found that Maxlife almost completely eliminated the tick. What I'm hearing now may just be the injectors.

I'm doing 5K OCIs with the Maxlife. I was using the FL-820S, but I'll be using Pure Ones for my next few OCIs since I picked up a bunch of them with the recent BOGO deal at Pep Boys.