Sam Spade wrote:
I thought there also was a problem for several years with insufficient threads in the heads, causing it to be easy to strip the plug mounts.....which required removing the heads to fix.
Then maybe I'm getting that mixed up with another model ??
'97-'99 V10 had less threads. That on its own didn't cause spark plugs to pop out, it just made it more likely to happen from over-torquing plugs during a change. The real cause was a machining fixture error which allowed threads to be cut off-axis from the bore, making them weak. That wasn't corrected until 2003. The bad news is, if one plug blows the remaining in that bank probably will go at some point. The good news is that by now, if a motor hasn't had a plug blow yet, it probably never will.
