Yes.
Could be a lifter or an exhaust leak on the manifold among hundreds of other things.
Loud exhaust noise from the front end is usually caused by one of several problems. The exhaust manifold gasket could be blown, the doughnut gasket could be bad, or there could be a crack in the exhaust itself.
sounds like you have a loose rocker arm NEW ANSWER: A exhaust manifold gasket leaking will sound like a lifter also.
you mean ticking, right? Had the same problem with my 97 with the 3.9. It was an exhaust leak between exhaust manifold & head. New gaskets fixed the problem.
Ignore the previous answer. Whoever posted that is WRONG. The 5.4 (As you obviously know) , is a GAS engine. A ticking noise in a 5.4 could be a number of things. Cracked exhaust manifold, Bad EGR Valve, a bad lash adjuster, or it's getting ready to blow a spark plug.
I have a 1989 Probe and also had a tick, I found that the exhaust manifold bolts were loose. I removed the heat shield and tighten the bolts. NO MORE TICK
It could.
A bad exhaust manifold gasket could do that.
As with all of these questions, the cause could be many things, but one common one is this: The clicking is being caused by a bad exhaust-manifold gasket, which allows exhaust to escape its normal route from exhaust manifold to pipe to muffler. And in escaping that route, the leak makes noise as often as the piston nearest the leak purges exhaust from the cylinder in which it is operating. Hence a clicking noise that increases in frequency with an increase in RPMs. If it's not a valve issue or some other issue, this problem won't hurt the car; it'll just get worse and more noticeable as the exhaust continues to erode the gasket material. Check for loose sparks plugs also, sometimes the smallest thing could be the problem, i had the same problem and that's what it turned out to be.
You could lose power if the exhaust manifold gasket has blown on a turbo equipped car because the turbo will not receive sufficient pressure. The turbo will produce less boost as it is powered directly by the exhaust gases.
If you do replace it correctly, it will work as designed.
in the exhaust manifold (it screws in) or if not there it could possibly be screwed into the converter