[DanB]

So what you are telling me is that a cylinder produces no more compression off of idle than it does during idle??? Also the reason you don’t have the blue stipe is because you your self just stated that you have an 2004 motor so why would you have a 2003 head with a blue strip

Originally Posted by tr32valve

A couple of things. I just purchased an 04 mach1 TR with only 3,500 miles on it. Whoo Hoo! OK Now that that this is over with let me voice in. I have been building engines for a very long time. I have also had some very ferocioulsy fast cars as well. This is what I know. I have an 04' with a build date of 10/07 second shift. My cylinder heads have no blue paint on them and also have 8 thread spark plug holes. That kind of adds a twist to some of the earlier posts claiming that I should have a blue painted cylinder head and that the 8 thread design didn't start until until 11/15. Ok no big deal here because weird things happen during manufacturing all the time. .

your build date is 11/2007 not before 10/2003
the reason you don’t have the blue stipe is because you your self just stated that you have an 2004 motor so why would you have a 2003 head with a blue strip. You wouldn’t you actually have the updated FR500 head as do all 2004 producer AFTER 11/03

As for the noise...........This is also what I know. Most of your posts are all right. Mis-detonation and heat will cause pistons to do some very strange things like scoring, marring, cracking, breaking etc. As for us having soft blocks.......that shouldn't matter much as our cylinders are sleeved due to the aluminum blocks.

Granted that our block are aluminum however that does not change the fact that the material that is used to manufacture the cylinder sleeves is soft. The iron blocks has this same problem. Welcome to the world of modular motors

There should be no issues there.

But there is thus is why all of the high HP guys including my self run the Darton wet sleeve set up for racing

A piston slap usually only occurs when the engine is cold and this is fact.

You also get piston slap when you have a low cylinder that cont produce enough combustion to stabilize the cylinder during the ignition process. Now we all know that forged pistons make noise in the morning due to the added clearances that is needed for the piston to wall clearances between the two metals however after the car is warm you should not hear the noise any longer

I do admit that I do not understand the water circuit diagrams of our engines and how the water flows, as I just haven't had the darn thing long enough to understand it. Heat will also do some strange things to valve guides.

To a point! There is no way you can hurt a valve guide at 225* now at 250* you can thus is why when you over heat a motor the valves turn all different shades of the rainbow because when you heat the item to distortion then you close the clearances thus causeing added heat and eventually seizure of the valve or destruction of the guide. However if you ever get your car that hot then say good night to your piston rings as well.

The ticking noise many of us hear usually calms down for the most part as our engines cool down (idling for about 2 or so minutes) so the heat theory seams to hold some water. As for how detrimental it is to our engines........that is another story.

Do some more research on this please

The tick most of us hear isn't much more loud than the normal noise from our injectors. This isn't too alarming as our engines are made entirely of aluminum and that stuff really conducts sound, much more so than iron.

Humm then why do the iron block make the same noise ??? if you don’t believe me check in to the dreaded tick 2003- 2004 cobra

The tick could be caused by a number of more issues. For any of us old timers (not that old really, under 40) I remember a TSB Ford had out in the day for the #5 cylinder lifters in the 5.0's (1991 or so) would tick if operated with synthetic motor oil.

You cant use push rod theory on these motor that is the most common mistake

That certainly didn't stop anyone from using sythetic oil and certainly didn't stop any of us from beating the tar out of those cars. Oil does strange things when it's heated too. It gets very thin. Thin enough to where lifters will not pump up as much as they should due to blead off. Since the tick I hear isn't present when the motor is cold and calms down quite a bit if I let the engine idle for a few minutes before shut down, I believe it to be a oil thinning issue.

Our oil is already thin 5-20 this is needed because of the super tight clearances and emissions regulations set fourth by EPA

I may be wrong, and have been wrong before but this would also agree with the heat issue just not related to the engine coolant but rather the engine oil. Two of my friends also have Mach 1's and to be honest they also have a very slight tick when hot and more noticable right before shut down but again if alllowed to idle for a bit this too seems to settle the noise down. I also own an 08' GT/CS and this engine also experiences a more noisy vlave train when the engine is hot and even more noticable if pulled into the garage after a hard running and not permitted to cool down further before shut down. It would be great if we could get our hands on the oil circuit diagrams as well as coolant circuit diagrams. I am sure they exist somewhere. That is my .02 worth and I am sticking to it. BTW - this board has some very passionate members and I hope I will be able to strengthen the community. I am glad to be here and more importantly I am glad to be a proud owner of these fine cars

The info that I share on this site is not BS. I work on these cars everyday and have done so for many years. We are here to help and if you need some more information please feel free to contact us and we will tell you what we know and how we received the information that we have.
Have a nice day and congratulations on your new car I hope you stay here for a long time to come