I recently stumbled upon a nice '04 Mustang V6 with 3 pedals and, being an addict, I immediately got lost in Solo2 and RallyCross fantasy land. I'm not very familiar with the 3.9. Is it a different animal than the 3.8 or just a slightly stroked or bored out version of it?
The 4.2 didn't have head gasket issues.
The issues were related to the old 3.8 non-split-port, port fuel injected engines. I seriously think that the assembly line equipment was simply torquing the bolts improperly, because the gaskets always failed in the same spot, the failure happened early in the engine's life, and there was never a need to have the head decked.
And the problem was only on that one series of engine.
Interesting...I thought it was something similar to the dreaded DOHC EJ25.
Having taken several apart the early 3.8's were the biggest problem. Every one I took apart looked like there was an assembly issue. The gaskets were deformed in a way that suggests over torquing at the factory.
It wasn't overtorquing per se. Ford put a coolant passage in just the wrong spot. So when the head gets torqued down, it distorts the coolant passage in the gasket. It doesn't help that the coolant passage is too close to the cylinder either.
It is exactly the same as the OHV 3.8L with exception of a bit longer stroke. Ex wife had an '04 coupe for a bit. It was decent car. I remember it pulled down 30MPG (hand calculated) going east on I-80 through Iowa one time. They are tough engines.
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