the coyote continues to bite... resolved! :)

[toadster]

What 2 things will affect one whole bank of cylinders? A power feed wire for the injectors or the coils as I believe each coil or injector has a separate ground to the ECM for operation.

yes, we did a pretty in depth test on the engine harness - the last test was to test a break to ground, all 8 cylinders failed - which was even more odd,
here's the test methodology we used from Ford: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

you'd think if all cylinders failed, nothing would fire, but Ford said maybe it wasn't fully broken but just enough to carry electrical load to 1/2 the engine

the driver side is a bit odd, the cylinders #6 and #8 are sometimes warmer than #5 and #7 - but not always... but none of the cylinders get to >= 350F like the passenger side - it's a very odd problem