2002 SMB - Ex Studs - Plug Blowouts ?

[doublevan2]

Bought a 2002 SMB V10 - less than 4,000 miles on it last December out of Utah. I knew about exhaust studs and spark plug blowouts on that year rig - so up front I asked for photos of ex-studs (those easily visible versus tearing out everything and photoing each one). Shows some mild rust/corrosion - but seems overall quite clean. REMEMBER - only 4,000 miles on engine --

Would you "guess" that with such low original miles - I should be good to go for quite some time before ex-studs fail ? Anybody have any real world knowledge of the age at which "your" exh-studs started to fail on this age of van and how many miles driven before failures ?

Kinda the same question on the plug blowouts - at what range of mileage could/should I expect it could happen ? I had viewed a couple of YouTube videos - showing/stating that Fords specs on ft/pds/torque was 16-18 -- and mechanics on YouTube - stated they had done multiple V10's - 5.4's - and 4.6's -- torqued to 20-22 ft/pds/torque - and no plug blows --

Anyone with real world experience on this topic out there ?

Thoughts ? Comments ?

[arctictraveller]

I can only share my experience, but when I bought my 2001 5.4 with around 100K miles, there were a couple missing exh studs. I finally replaced them all around 110K miles. As for plugs, they have been changed twice, once at abour 100K and again in another 75K. They have been torqued to around 24ft/lbs each time with zero issues. I'm now at 200K miles. I assume the V10 is nearly identical.

[BrianW]

Had a 98 5.4. Changed plugs at 100k with no issues. Sold it with 117k on it and no issues at all with the exhaust studs in that time.

[86Scotty]

In your case I would not worry about it. Most of the ones that did have issues were the early Triton years (97-99 or so).

Plenty more online on this subject than you'd probably ever care to read. I wouldn't worry about it at all if you have no symptoms.