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LWARRIOR1016

Warrior's grandpa car build

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Well, here we go again. I sold some of my 2v parts to Frank for his engine but I still had my 13:1 compression long block sitting in my shed, itching to go in a car. So I hunted around for a crown vic, or another mustang and nothing really came up. Until now! I found this car for $700, in good shape, with a locked up engine. It fit the criteria perfectly.

2001 Licoln Town car, congressional town sedan edition (whatever that means). Its got about 180k miles on it, just had a/c replaced and their son drove it without oil. Apparently they liked to drive without coolant also because the aluminum crossover on this POS dorman intake wasnt bolted down to the intake at all.

The plan here is to port some NPI heads and out them on my aluminum block. 12:1 compression with PI cams, PI intake, j-mod to the transmission, and a 3600 stall converter. Probably a 3.73 gear swap.

The day I got it home.
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Interior is in good shape, other than the carpet.
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Starting tear down

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Ill keep it updated!

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33 minutes ago, Prokiller said:

old man tan!  should actually be a really fun car when its done

lol

Thats what Im hoping for. Maybe Ill get the old engine pulled out this weekend, who knows.

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Got the engine out this weekend. Had to pull the torque converter with the engine because it was locked up tight. I am here to say, if anyone ever asks you guys to pull the engine out of their town car (Im assuming the crown vic and whatnot are the same), you should politely decline and then kick them in the nuts and run away as fast as you can. I would rather pull mustang engines all day long instead of doing these! There are a bunch of random brackets and bolts and ground wires everywhere. I had to pull the motor mounts off the block because it wouldnt come out by just taking the mount loose from the frame bracket. Either way, I got it out. The story continues.

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Ok, spent a couple hours working on the grandpa car yesterday afternoon.

Got the torque converter installed
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And the engine ready to go.
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And set it in the car.
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I got almost everything finished in about 3 hours. Ive got to put the intake manifold on it and should be able to fire it up tonight.

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Well, I fired it up yesterday afternoon when I got home from work. It ran alright, mostly lol. There is an oil port plug that I missed on the driver side head, its gone. I kept reminding myself to put it in and still forgot to do it. So fired the car up and left a puddle of oil under it. All good though, its running now. I just have to get it all finished up. 

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I also discovered that the mustang cam and crank sensors are just different enough so they don't plug in to the harness. I had to swap them over to the town car stuff, which meant pulling the a/c compressor back off and swapping the crank sensor out. I guess this is their way of selling two different sensors that do the same thing and marking one up higher than the other one. 

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Just now, Prokiller said:

don't let the EPA see that

Dont worry, I have had the area dug out. 10'x10'x10' and the contaminated oil has been disposed of properly. The new dirt has already arrived and been put down.

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3 minutes ago, Evilcw311 said:

What about sod?  

I took a bunch of small patches from various places around the yard and put those down on the new spot. That way, the yard look completely undisturbed. You'd never know I was there if I didnt tell you

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Today will be the first real drive with the grandpa car. I trailered it to work today (75 miles away) and will be driving it home. Looks like we will be in rain and heat, on top of new orleans rush hour traffic. That sounds like a good way to break it in and see if there are any issues.

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The first drive (and many following) did good. I’ve got about 1k miles on it now and all seems well. It’s getting about 23 mpg and is so smooth and quiet. I’m really digging it. I started a new job last week and this has been my daily and has been doing great. 
 
Today I did pads and rotors all around and changed the pitman arm and idler arm that tightened up the steering nicely. I am also working on collecting parts for the rear end build, going 3.73 and have to install a trac loc unit as this one is open diff. Then I’ve got a line on a guy that will build me a full custom exhaust as all the pre fab kits are much too expensive. Until then, I’ll keep on driving it. 
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No evil, I will not turbo this one. It has to stay semi mild lol. 

 

The he plan for exhaust is maybe some shorty headers with 2.5” pipe, two cats, and chambered magnaflow mufflers. It’ll flow nice and have a really mild sound with a growl when I get in to it. 

 

I thought about doing cutouts but I don’t think I would use them enough to warrant the cost. 

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Alrighty fellas, its time for a little update. I should be updating the mustang build, but I haven't touched it.

 

I got home from Virginia and started driving the car again, found out my cats were clogged up so I built a new exhaust. I just ordered a fab you own kit from ebay that had bends in it and I made it work. The welds are ugly but they are leak free. I really need to get a better machine.

 

Stock exhaust out

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Next to the new setup I built

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Magnaflow mufflers

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Tailpipes

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Then the transmission took a shit. So it came out for a rebuild, then I had to go to another military school so it is waiting on me to get home and finish it up.

 

Ready to be pulled

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Got it out

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And tore down. This is where it currently waits for me to get home

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Well, the transmission got rebuilt and installed. Only to find out that I cut a seal when I assembled it. So I pulled it out again and fixed it. Reinstalled, only to find out the torque converter was bad. This converter was rebuilt by roadrunner converters and failed right out of the box. So I ordered a 2800 stall from FTI. Pulled the transmission AGAIN and installed the new converter. All is right in the world again. 

 

After all that, I picked up a trac lok diff from @White95 so I can build the rear end next. Probably going to end up with 3.73’s. 

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