The launch application for this engine was the '91 Lincoln Town Car, followed by the Crown Victoria and Grand Marquis in 1992. It is a tough engine, and definitely one of my favorites.
Depending on year and application, you may have issues with plastic intake manifolds leaking coolant (1996 - early 2001), or with the nylon timing chain guides the bean counters at Ford thought was a brilliant idea (2001 - 2003). Spark plugs flying out were a concern with engines produced between 1997 - 2008.
The timing gear was replaced on my '01 before I bought it, but it did still have the plastic intake manifold that I replaced before it got failed. Over my ownership experiencing of 5 different Panther platform vehicles and an '03 Expedition with the 4.6L 2V, I haven't had any issues with the spark plugs. When I was building the engine on my Grand Marquis though, I did go out of my way to proactively fix the issue.
Originally Posted By: Pajero
Parts are not expensive compared to my Mitsubishi.
I wouldn't even compare the two - you need a gold mine to buy Mitsubishi parts compared to what similar parts cost for my Fords. $9.90 for the OE oil filter (MD352626), $26 for a PCV valve (MD104723) and $84 for a fuel pressure regulator (MD305927) when the same parts for a 6G72 built by Hyundai and sold by a Hyundai dealer are $3.30 (26300-35503), $4.60 (26740-35004) and $18.50 (35301-36050) respectively. That's exactly what I paid for them yesterday.