Short story...
Any suggestions or ideas how to mitigate any oil seepage into the combustion chamber upon removal of the spark plug? I taped together some straws and sucked out a couple shot glasses worth of oil and splattered some more every where with the air hose. I have no doubt a teaspoons worth will make its way in there.
I dont want my brand new platinums all carboned up right out the gate. Is there something I could put down there to break it down. Or a spray or something I could prime the throttle body with?
I'm also somewhat concerned that this is more than a leaky valve cover..

The long story is a good read and has more background and details.
Thanks!
P.s. this is my first Ford..... felt like I should say that.
So Im in the process of changing plugs and COPs on My 01 5.4 Expedition developed a miss under low acceleration/light throttle and cruising above 45. It eventually flashed the MIL at me so I got ELM out and read P0305 and P0308. Being an optimist I drove it for a few more days in case it was a "bad tank" then I filled up and threw in some B12 just in case. The problem was somewhat intermittent more noticeable at times and others much less so. Fuel economy was not noticeably impacted at all and though I could occasionally "feel" it impacting performance after about 2500rpm the miss subsided and the truck would power through the gears just fine.
My long winded point is that I could tell I wasn't looking at two faulted coil packs from the get go and expected something else to be a miss no pun intended.
While I burned two tanks I was monitoring things with the ELM. The MIL only lit one other time despite occasionally antagonizing the situation and p0307 never came back just 303. Playing back the logs I observed the activity on the miss-fire monitor and realized that the codes must operate on a threshold. The ECU was observing miss-fires but not assigning a code or throwing a fault.
Having recently hit 200k miles and knowing the previous owners who were responsible from 45k to 195k I just knew it was still using the OE plugs and COPs. So I had amazon next day me some COPs and a (link below) nifty curved and offset ratchet with a floppy head that included magnetic spark plug sockets with built in 6 wobble extensions. I had been researching the issue the entire time and had absorbed a lot of information from this and other forums and consider myself well prepared to tackle this. However when I pulled the #6 COP and saw oil dripping from the boot I was surprised (but vindicated) and then I saw the oil pooled up in the bottom of the hole.
I was unaware of any oil leak on the truck - I had never smelt it being burnt or seen that any had leaked or noticed movement on the dipstick. I got worried and went in to google but as I typed in '2001 5.4 oil on the spark plugs' google completed my query as soon as I got to '.. oil on' so I was relieved. Sure enough some kinda common issue with a gasket.. apart the additional work all I needed to do was source the gasket. I found the gasket on amazon for $10 less than PepBoys and for 3.99 they'll overnight it (I anticipated the install to span a couple days anyways kind of intentionally) so I go back to pulling COPs and plugs and everything is moving along fine until I get to 8 and find that it boot dripping oil too. I look down the plug is damn near submerged and with what looks like only a quarter of an inch of the plug poking up. I was initially concerned about what would seep or drip down into the hole upon removing the plug in #6 but I did what I could with air and cotton ***** on a stick and put it out of my mind. This was a different story. I tapped together 3 bendy straws and on the first pull I had sucked oil up 1.5 straws worth of oil and figured it might be wise to go ahead and empty that draw out. Needless to say but there was still more down some of which I tried to slurp our and more of which I splatter every where with the air host. The rest of it though ran right into the combustion chamber when I pulled the plug. I have no doubt that between then and by the time I get out there to address the issue a good teaspoon of oil and whatever the f%^k will have dripped in there... I have no intention of pulling the head or anything else for that matter. So here we are. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Thanks in advance!



I have a video I'll be sticking up on youtube and some pics should be in here soon too. once i find the attach button.
<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/tEYI9sXMIGk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

welcome to FTE.
i put a few paper towels over the hole and a shop rag over them. then blow it out with compressed air. this gets all the oil out of the plug well, and the paper towels/shop rag collect it instead of blowing it all over the engine/me.

 

and thats precisely what i did after I sucked up some with a straw. However there was still about a teaspoon left in there when i pulled the plug. i i was looking for someone suggestions of what i might put down there to help break down what got swallowed.
but hey thanks for the reply! I take it you found yourself in the same situation. Did you replace the valve gasket right then? anything remarkable about the process?

 

nope on the valve gasket, mine was from my father "helping me" do an oil change on his car. he was putting oil in the engine and missed the fill hole. he did not have his glasses on and did not see he missed and poured a quart of oil on top of the engine