Recently I noticed a whistling sound, under acceleration, coming from the  
engine area and an associated power loss. The engine doesn't want to make  
power at higher rpm's and wont pull redline. I realize it is probably a  
vacuum related problem (whistle) but my initial search failed to locate  
the offending line.

Has anyone here experienced a similiar problem and succesfully sorted it  
out?

I dont believe it's related but I recently had a shuddering problem in  
reverse and intermittent power loss. The engine would drop two cyl's and  
several heartbeats later pick them up again. Eventually the engine only  
ran on 2 cyl's. It turns out the coilpack wiring harnesses are too short.  
Mine fatigued and broke one of the three wires leading in to the  
coilppack. Ford sells a replacement harness complete with connectors and  
shrinkwrap.