Originally posted by Importslayer:
MUSICNUT: That's cool that yours came stock with double plat plugs, guess I got the cheap tour.



Actually, it was my understanding that (for at least some significant portion of the Duratec's manufacture) Ford installed single plats on factory engines.

However, there was some reason behind this: The plugs used had platinum on the center electrode of the front bank set (where the plugs fire in a conventional direction) and on the ground electrode of the rear set (where plugs fire backwards to conventional ignition). In an effort to save pennies per vehicle (which comes out to millions of dollars per year), Ford only specified platinum where it was needed.

However, the service recommendation was for double plats to lessen confusion and allow the dealerships to carry a smaller amount of stock in common part numbers.

I am 99.999% sure all Duratecs came with platinum plugs from the factory. The other 0.001% is due to the possibility of UAW incompetence or supplier mistake in material available at the point of installation.

If any Contour Duratec had AWSF32C installed in them, it was either an assembly mistake or they weren't the OEM plugs (i.e. had been changed at some point).