diff --git a/apps/fc-ttsreader/fc-ttsreader.yaml b/apps/fc-ttsreader/fc-ttsreader.yaml
index 8326efb..44d7c80 100644
--- a/apps/fc-ttsreader/fc-ttsreader.yaml
+++ b/apps/fc-ttsreader/fc-ttsreader.yaml
@@ -296,14 +296,23 @@ spec:
             periodSeconds: 10
             timeoutSeconds: 5
             failureThreshold: 18
+          # Sprint E Phase 1a (kokoro stability) — 4 restarts in 2d6h with
+          # exit 143 traced to liveness probe `context deadline exceeded` while
+          # kokoro was busy synthesizing. /v1/audio/voices shares the FastAPI
+          # worker pool with /v1/audio/speech, so a long synth can starve the
+          # probe out within the prior 5s × 3 = 15s window. Bump timeoutSeconds
+          # 5 → 15 and failureThreshold 3 → 5 → 75s grace before kubelet kills
+          # the pod. The TtsCircuitBreaker on the synthesizer side (Phase 1b)
+          # backs this up so the FC backend stops slamming kokoro during
+          # recovery.
           livenessProbe:
             httpGet:
               path: /v1/audio/voices
               port: 8880
             initialDelaySeconds: 180
             periodSeconds: 30
-            timeoutSeconds: 5
-            failureThreshold: 3
+            timeoutSeconds: 15
+            failureThreshold: 5
 ---
 # fc-biblical-tts — eSpeak-NG-backed Ancient Greek + Hebrew TTS with
 # word-level timing for read-along playback. Companion to ttsreader-kokoro