Pretty soon I'm going to be doing some maintenance on my truck. I'm am well aware that these trucks prefer motorcraft or autolite plugs. My question is are they picky with plug material? Should I stay platinum or can I use iridium?

 

Not sure the 2.3ls cared much about brands, 4.0l sure did, lol.

Use regular copper or Double Platinum, don't use single platinum

Iridium is OK, but you do have to use the ones that are iridium electrode and platinum tip.

Ford uses a Waste Spark system, which means 1 coil in a coil pack fires TWO spark plugs at the same time.
So the two spark plugs are wires in Series, one spark plug sparks from center(electrode) to Tip(normal) the other one sparks from Tip to Center(reverse)
This means the Tip wears down on one and the Center wears down on the other.

This is why you avoid single Platinum or Iridium, because 1/2 the spark plugs will wear out just like regular copper would.

Regular copper are high performance spark plugs, best thing you can use in racing engines, they simply spark better than any other conductor.
But they do wear out faster, which is fine for racing but not for street cars and changing your own spark plugs, lol.

The 2.3l has some hard to get at spark plugs so you do not want to do too often.
Iridium will last the same as double platinum on 1/2 the spark plugs, on regular spark systems they last 15-20% longer.
So I wouldn't waste extra money on Iridium, just get the double platinum

 

Thanks. The truck originally came with single platinum but I will get some double platinum then when I do the timing belt early next year. I know about the hard to get to spark plugs. I replaced the intake manifold gaskets recently and am kicking myself for not doing the plugs at the same time.

 

Well Ford use two kinds of single platinum, platinum electrode and platinum tips on one engine.
Normal spark got the tips and Reverse spark got the electrodes
That's why you often see single platinum listed as original, but they usually don't list both versions

When you are buying millions of spark plugs the savings on single platinum over double adds up fast, lol

For 8 spark plugs its best to just get double platinum, as you are doing