How many miles do you have on your engine?
Re: How many miles do you have on your engine?
welcome to the forum. I am no expert on the v10, but did similar research. What I found was that on average, a well maintained v10 engine went about 300k. There were some anomalies at roughly 90k miles though. Spark plug misfire stuff was fairly common and wasn't a huge deal.
Re: How many miles do you have on your engine?
WOW! Damned thing is like a parrot- will outlive its owners!Manitou wrote: ↑June 15th, 2020, 8:21 am welcome to the forum. I am no expert on the v10, but did similar research. What I found was that on average, a well maintained v10 engine went about 300k. There were some anomalies at roughly 90k miles though. Spark plug misfire stuff was fairly common and wasn't a huge deal.
2001 Premier aka "Anookie"
Dallas, TX area
Dallas, TX area
Re: How many miles do you have on your engine?
But you still need to take care of it. My neighbor killed him parrot when he overheat his Telfon pot he just got as a gift.
2000 Concourse dinette, on 1999 6.8L Ford E350 Triton V-10 Chassis
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Willywalderbeast
- Posts: 232
- Joined: July 17th, 2016, 5:00 pm
Re: How many miles do you have on your engine?
Figured Id make a post here since I just had a 8k engine bill with my triton V10 at 141k. We popped the first spark plug in Utah. Inserted a Napa “quick fix” to limp into town. Started searching the topic and found the best kit on the market, Calvan Insert Kit that I found out later you can get right at Napa, they just rebrand it. Before the kit comes in another plug pops out 
Quick fixed it with the cheap Napa kit to hold over till the Calvan kit came in and I had gathered all the tools I would need. I ran the generator to power the compressor. Reamed out the holes using the provided guides and retapped each hole again using the provided tool. It sounds like a big job but actually if I wasn’t in a random parking lot and in my garage/driveway it wouldn’t be too bad. Everything went smooth. 3 weeks later I popped out one of the inserts Heads have to come out now. It was too big of a job for me to do on the road so I luckily have a shop I trust in Denver CO and had him remove the motor. We installed new heads with inserts already in place and pinned over so they should never come out. While we were in there he changed everything that needed to be changed and some stuff that didn’t haha. I said “Treat it like it was your rig your fixing to travel around with your family.” 8k later she’s running tops haha. I’m still overall happy with this motor and I’m going to hopefully keep it forever so I’m happy with all the preventative we were able to do.
Quick fixed it with the cheap Napa kit to hold over till the Calvan kit came in and I had gathered all the tools I would need. I ran the generator to power the compressor. Reamed out the holes using the provided guides and retapped each hole again using the provided tool. It sounds like a big job but actually if I wasn’t in a random parking lot and in my garage/driveway it wouldn’t be too bad. Everything went smooth. 3 weeks later I popped out one of the inserts Heads have to come out now. It was too big of a job for me to do on the road so I luckily have a shop I trust in Denver CO and had him remove the motor. We installed new heads with inserts already in place and pinned over so they should never come out. While we were in there he changed everything that needed to be changed and some stuff that didn’t haha. I said “Treat it like it was your rig your fixing to travel around with your family.” 8k later she’s running tops haha. I’m still overall happy with this motor and I’m going to hopefully keep it forever so I’m happy with all the preventative we were able to do.Re: How many miles do you have on your engine?
Willywalderbeast, when would you do the spark plugs if none of the pop yet? Mine is a 2000 Ford E350, and it has about 80k on the odometer, and I don't know if I need to do this preventative maintenance, or just wait until one of them pops. Would it be a good idea to carry the Calvan kit in the rig just in case it pops, or it is useless when the rig is on the road?
2000 Concourse dinette, on 1999 6.8L Ford E350 Triton V-10 Chassis
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Willywalderbeast
- Posts: 232
- Joined: July 17th, 2016, 5:00 pm
Re: How many miles do you have on your engine?
No, I would not wait till one pops. At 80,000 miles I would hope the plugs have it done at least once already. I met Justin, the shop owner who did my swap, in Colorado a few years back randomly at a buddies wedding. He was a Ford master tech for years but his passion was Volvos. He owns Baker garage in Denver Colorado. More of a Volvo Shop but he works on everything and now has been leaning towards doing more off-road applications due to demand. He also has a E350 triton himself. From what he said and info I gathered, the only way to try to prevent this is to re-toque your spark plugs often. Maybe every 10K even though that sounds like overkill and it’s hard to get to all the plugs in a van configuration it’s still worth doing. The basic overall suggestion is you tuque them down to around 21 foot pounds. It’s really more of a design flaw in the head with only four threads holding the plugs in the aluminum head. It seems like the same four cylinders are the most common ones to pop so that makes it even more seems like a design flaw and not an issue of mechanics over tightening spark plugs. There’s a ton of info online about the subject, read it all and make your own decision in the end.
Carrying the kit and the tools to perform the job isn’t a bad idea although you could carry a much easier to install application to get you home in this situation. Although you could run the risk of damaging the hole beyond what could be fixed with the Calvan kit using the quick/cheap fix, its highly unlikely. The cheaper kit is meant to just cut new-ish threads in the hole so it’s not really opening it up much. The Calvan kit, you run a reamer down the hole first to totally get rid of all the original threads. That’s the reason if it was me I would carry the cheaper/easier application for road side install and then have the Calvan kit at home. Do the easy application roadside to limp her home and do the calvan job in a more controlled environment. I would have much rather been in my garage then a hotel parking lot during Covid haha.
I actually still have the Calvan kit. I’m going to be ordering two extra plugs to replace the ones I used and then selling the kit as a practically brand new kit if anyone’s interested. This kit usually has long-term success in most applications. Not sure why mine popped out but it’s not the normal. Possibly I made a mistake during install but it’s fairly straight forward and I built helicopters for 12yrs so I’m fairly confident in my ability to perform the task but things do happen. I’ve talked to many people who have installed these inserts and never had problems again. Just bad luck on my part I believe.
Search YouTube for the issue too, I found a guy on there that has done 10,000 plus insert jobs on tritons. He explained everything from a in-depth talk on the design issue where he has a head on a bench in front of him. He also has install videos and videos comparing every insert on the market. Hell he even picks up his phone when you call him to talk about this exact issue free of charge (have your questions ready and be courteous). Although you probably won’t have any questions because his videos are thorough.
Carrying the kit and the tools to perform the job isn’t a bad idea although you could carry a much easier to install application to get you home in this situation. Although you could run the risk of damaging the hole beyond what could be fixed with the Calvan kit using the quick/cheap fix, its highly unlikely. The cheaper kit is meant to just cut new-ish threads in the hole so it’s not really opening it up much. The Calvan kit, you run a reamer down the hole first to totally get rid of all the original threads. That’s the reason if it was me I would carry the cheaper/easier application for road side install and then have the Calvan kit at home. Do the easy application roadside to limp her home and do the calvan job in a more controlled environment. I would have much rather been in my garage then a hotel parking lot during Covid haha.
I actually still have the Calvan kit. I’m going to be ordering two extra plugs to replace the ones I used and then selling the kit as a practically brand new kit if anyone’s interested. This kit usually has long-term success in most applications. Not sure why mine popped out but it’s not the normal. Possibly I made a mistake during install but it’s fairly straight forward and I built helicopters for 12yrs so I’m fairly confident in my ability to perform the task but things do happen. I’ve talked to many people who have installed these inserts and never had problems again. Just bad luck on my part I believe.
Search YouTube for the issue too, I found a guy on there that has done 10,000 plus insert jobs on tritons. He explained everything from a in-depth talk on the design issue where he has a head on a bench in front of him. He also has install videos and videos comparing every insert on the market. Hell he even picks up his phone when you call him to talk about this exact issue free of charge (have your questions ready and be courteous). Although you probably won’t have any questions because his videos are thorough.
Re: How many miles do you have on your engine?
You should know what vintage your Modular V10 is to take the correct path. Do a search as it has been discussed here. Some have traditional plugs others have the extended plugs that can break off and I believe there is one head design that fixed the plug issue by extending the threads. Don't spend money on the wrong issue.
Steve aka SMan
2004 Premier V10
2004 Premier V10
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Willywalderbeast
- Posts: 232
- Joined: July 17th, 2016, 5:00 pm
Re: How many miles do you have on your engine?
A 2000 Chinook would make it a 2 valve motor and the bad heads. The problem wasn’t truly fixed from what I have gathered till the 2nd revised 3 valve heads. And that wasn’t till like 05 or something, Chinook as a company folded right about then so I would assume most Chinook owners are prone to this problem. And on top of that, if you find the guy on YouTube I was previously talking about, he actually explains how even the 3 valve V10 motors that are in most RV’s on E350 platforms, still have issues with the spark plugs. The V8 tritons 3 valves should be fine after 05, but most RVs came with the V10 unfortunately. I’m going to try to find that video when I can. He’s videos are long so I’ll have to sit through a few to find it.
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Willywalderbeast
- Posts: 232
- Joined: July 17th, 2016, 5:00 pm
Re: How many miles do you have on your engine?
I learned a year after I bought it that my 1998 Triton was rather vulnerable to the plug shooting.
Being a belt and suspenders sort, who fully expects machinery to fail, as well as previously a submarine mechanic, trained to make installations bulletproof, I preemptively had my trusty auto mechanic install these inserts in all 10 cylinders. I did this at 20..something k miles, and felt good about it thereafter. My Northern California mechanic, back in 2015, said a couple of the plug holes were real hard to get at, so he had to charge $700.
Roly
Being a belt and suspenders sort, who fully expects machinery to fail, as well as previously a submarine mechanic, trained to make installations bulletproof, I preemptively had my trusty auto mechanic install these inserts in all 10 cylinders. I did this at 20..something k miles, and felt good about it thereafter. My Northern California mechanic, back in 2015, said a couple of the plug holes were real hard to get at, so he had to charge $700.
Roly
1998 Premier