ive been doing nothing but working on a 1992 crown vic manual swap for the last 3 months and was curious what the cutoff for off topic is? would be cool to share how much ive learned about general drivetrain knowledge here. aswell as installing an era correct sound system.
Well, nothing like starting off a thread with a couple miles of pictures, write up, prefacing and explaining. keep in mind, im still not done, fixing cars was definitely easier in high school despite also working. if it werent for my dad saving my ass with a car to borrow id be SOL. first things first. why i needed to start this. my daily died from hitting a pothole which dragged the rear axle back, its too rough to fix. i essentially need a whole rear axle, fix the control arm mounts, fix the shock mounts, new brake hoses (again), possibly a new driveshaft, at this point the car is too beat up to really invest 2k into it to get it roadworthy again. so i decided to move onto something i bought for cheap last fall. meet the 1992 crown victoria LX. optioned with a minimal power drivers seat and manual passenger seat. blue interior, base heater, deluxe radio, etc. has 30k actual miles. the oil was changed minimally, every 7k miles. last recorded maintenance i saw was in 1997 (when the still new tires got installed) before the previous owner got it in 2019. unfortunately, the tick that i thought was top end ended up being a knock so i sidelined it for a little bit while i tried to source an engine. then the above happened. within a week i had bought a mustang. meet the 2003 mustang owned by some kid 2 years older than me in dayton. he thought he had fashioned himself a drift car. it then reminded him these cars struggle to go straight, let alone make controlled slides. it ate a pole at 50mph. whole car is tweaked, the car was only his for 3k miles, previously old man owned. jacked it up, pulled the driveshaft, transmission, flywheel, and clutch cable. any other parts i need for the swap will be pulled off of it until i scrap it/part it out. (my camera is absolutely ruined, by the way) below is my parts hoard. i reorganized it later. because of the fact I have no idea what "priorities" are i decided to import a one year only radio from Europe because its cooler than the version of it we recieved here. (this will later prove to be an addiction until i got every optional accessory for it, which i did) test fitting, unfortunately it didnt come with a trim ring, i will eventually make one for it, its not high on the list. drove the clickity clackity 4.6 for the last time up to the slab, and started pulling it apart. getting down to bare bones. pulled the exhaust off, those cats will be used to make test pipes then promptly scrapped. they are basically plugged so no loss. it was a rainy day next so i worked on some other small parts replaced the wear surface on the aftermarket flywheel, should be a nice new bedding surface for the new clutch. old clutch was pretty badly murdered. swapped out the brakes+wheels and tires for a set of hpps(basically bbs rs) and nice new (2022 mastercraft all season) tires. waited about a week before deciding to send it, used a jack and hoist to one person lift the engine and trans out as one piece. talk about sketch. also it started pouring, this was about march 25th? when you cant work on it every day projects take a long time. but i feel more confident in modifying things. loaded up the engine and trans and hauled it to the backyard. converting the column to a manual transmission column, thank god ford uses the same column cast piece for mustangs, vics, rangers, and trucks. ended up converting my original cluster to a police style speedometer finally got the pedals in and finally the part that has caused me lots of trouble. this is where my issues with setting up the clutch cable started. i marked too high, drilled too high, and then tried to fix it. im still learning and instead of bending the steel a little bit flatter, i decided to move the hole down a little. RRRIP! holesaw tore a chunk from the firewall. immediately went and made a patch and braced the area around the firewall with it. i will then need to use a piece of 3/16-1/4 in steel to brace the firewall itself. ive gotten good at tracing metal, just need to actually weld it, for something like this that is 20 gauge im better off using tiny self tappers in large numbers like the many others who have made this same mistake. im out of pictures for this post and i have to be up for work in 5ish hours, youre pretty caught up to how i am currently. the reason i dont have an engine currently is partially because im very attached to what would be the donor, and partially because of what i want to do to the motor i put in it. lets just say i want a wee bit more than 190hp 220 torque. so im doing a PI swap on an NPI bottom end. that increase the compression and flow enough to make nearly 300 hp! (in theory). the go fast parts on the mustang would be useful if i didn't realize the previous owner had jacked it up on the oil pan, killing this engine. oh well... i have more plans. also i just realized my alliance lapsed, gotta pay the 50 again, good investment!
The old Crown Vic’s are pretty much bullet proof guys beat the snot of them around here. A manual in one will be absolutely cool. Dan
i know this wont interest many of the folks here, being all computerey and such. i like old stuff, even if it isnt as old as some of my other old stuff. continuing from yesterday, moreso regarding the sound system and less so the mechanicals. I was talking with a buddy on a different forum, and he had a video of his cva-1000r, he lives in poland purchased his from a thrift store and pieced it together, and i i immediately knew, i needed to have one. he got me in contact with someone who had one that was in box, opened box granted, but nearly 100%. 300 dollars later, (a VERY fair price) it was a bit of a struggle for the wiring, this is a very advanced radio. luckily this car lacks a passenger side airbag so i stuck the radios brain there. with the DSP im using i wont need speaker outputs, only RCA on the dsp itself, i simply taped up the wires that would be for the speakers. and then connected the front speaker wires to the rear, which will allow me to use the amplifier for the speakers without running new wires for them. over the last couple months i have amassed a massive pile of everything i need. the subwoofer(s) misc parts pile center speaker (will be mounted in the plenum for the center vents) test sizing up the "amp rack" that i got cut out of aluminum. i found this in a thrift store of all places, a very rare dvd player for my exact system. i nearly forgot to mention what amps i am running! i sourced a pair of alpine V12 amps from the mid 90s. an mrv-f300 4 channel for the speakers (75wx4), and an mrv-1000 2 channel (will be bridged for 630w) the speakers i am running are two front 6x8 2 ways and two 6x9 3 ways. all era correct s series speakers. and the final part of this writeup is me replacing the power antenna that got ripped off at some point. and that is all, i will be back again next time to talk about the driveshaft, rear axle, suspension, and springs
PI head swap is decent. I'm sure you've probably read into it. Guess the main thing is if your sourcing parts there is differences in the Romeo and Windsor Heads. If you're really going to benefit from it you'll want the PI intake as well. Some small things like brackets, etc are different. I'd try to get everything from one source to avoid mix matching, and I'd get the head change kit. Different models like the vic, f150, etc got the PI upgrades at different year spans so you're not just limited to mustangs. Modular motors are fun.
Terrible picture, took me a minute to find it. Work at a shop alittle bit out of dayton off route 4. Kid in a cobra mustang went to pass a car out front of work and lost it into a pole.
theres a junkyard near me with a 1999 marquis with 75k miles. and a 2008 crown vic with 82k miles. im going to grab the 08 vics intake as theres no sign of it leaking. im grabbing coil brackets off of a 1997 and running the waste spark setup still. by keeping everything crown vic it should prevent issues with incompatibility from popping up. by using the 99 bottom end i will also evade the crappy timing guides and tensioners from later years, and by using the 08 top end i will evade the spark plug chucking heads. im also running the 78mm bbk plenum that came with the mustang, a 2004 p71 zip tube and MAF, and doing some slight adapting to the harness of the 92 i can keep the obd1 ecu and have it chipped for a much lower price (435) than swapping to obd 2 and then having it tuned. (would cost nearly 1k! almost as much as a stand alone) the driveshaft is getting swapped to my 1993 cvpi aluminum driveshaft, by using a 5/8 spacer on the yoke, and swapping the yoke from the mustangs driveshaft, also swapping to 354 greasable MOOG joints. later this month im driving down to Cincinnati and picking up a torsen limited slip, to pair with my 4.10 rear gears. so much for no hot rodding... i cant help myself.
its a pretty common fate for these mustangs to get wrecked. luckily they are decently safe. my next winter beater will likely be a 5 speed v6.
Sounds like you pretty much have it figured out, good luck in your endeavors. Waiting on the updates.
It is a bit of a shame, but I can see the need for reality. [we are all "aging out"] In the last month I've noticed the content has stalled on the main forums, BUT there is a lot of activity in this section. Personally [and a suggestion to the moderators] there should be a trail on the cut-off year eg: 55 years and older That would now qualify a 1969 or older car Hopefully this is only a temporary thing until some new blood gets injected [we need to show encouragement] Something we all forget is the perils of time .[and our memories playing tricks on us] If we considered 50 years old as a medium age demographic, that person would have been driving to high school at 16 in 1990 [not 1962] Ouch!!! That is why my daily driver is a Prius "C" [I own the car , It doesn't own me] Then I have some toys [for different sorts of "Off Road" experiences] View attachment 6056317
. Even if all this doesn't work out. I am a fan of a lot of car related content in general. I can see something like this not fitting in well (Understandable). I think the sub forum in general is a great idea in other more year related builds that can't be shown. All over a modern or non-traditional suspension, steering, electrical, etc upgrade or modification and you can't post your build? Or why bother when you have to conceal most of it. Some fine tuning might have to happen but i'm sure not going out to try to find a good flat head ford block and sell my left nut to buy it and have it machined. Ill buy a ls and trans with a harness and drop it into something for a 2 weeks pay check lol.
Events (edgewaterrace.com) Depending when you go down, Edgewater is a little bit out of Cincinatti. Might see what's going on and really make a day of it. If you're ever around the Dayton area, can PM me if you need anything or just around the area.
I'm all for mods that make a car safer and more usable [unfortunately some don't become safer because people get out of their depth] This includes Radial tyres, Tandem M/C's , Disc Brake conversions, T5 trans or O/D autos, Sway bars Anything that can get more of these old dinosaurs out on the roads. Being a suspension and brake person, I think some people should not tamper with steering and brakes unless they really know what they're doing. One area where me and the moderators have disagreed on is electric power steering columns [I am all for it] The reasoning is we are all aging and the curse of aging [ aka arthritis ] creeps up on some of us. Electric power steering columns allows somebody to still use their old car without ruining the steering geometry. Some people should never go near steering geometry at all. But if the easy way out is what we are really seeking [eg LS or Coyote swap], then don't bother modify old cars at all. Just buy a modern car like a S550 Mustang or C8 Corvette and jump onto another forum. This still is the HAMB not Reality TV [like Chip Fooze] The HAMB is all about pedigree . If somebody can disguise a Roller 302 as a 260 , or a Roller 350 as a 283 and put it in an old car then I am all for this. I appreciate @Ryan putting the brakes on [even I've overstepped his boundaries and had my fingers smacked ] This stops the whole forum running away from it's original intent. Here is my old girl I've been temped many times to modify it [but glad I haven't]
Very nice car, and I am with you on a majority of what you say. I'd hardly say a ls or coyote swap etc, is the easyway out. Any type of motor swap presents its own challenges, especially when you get into more electrical and computer controlled products. I'm not saying i'd buy a car and swap a ls in because I can. There's plenty of older motors I'd rather build and are building. I'm not buying or agree with buying a older car with a perfectly fine or rebuildable motor and just dropping a ls in. But if I buy a 50's chevy roller and my choices are going back to a inline, doing a sbc or a ls drive train. Anymore right now for cruising, reliability, affordability, etc. I'd honestly rather do a ls. . Think I find more Enginuity in a ls or modern swap than I do in a sbc swap everyone else in the world does. "But if the easy way out is what we are really seeking [eg LS or Coyote swap], then don't bother modify old cars at all. Just buy a modern car like a S550 Mustang or C8 Corvette and jump onto another forum." Find it alittle hypocritical since both those cars come with everything you mentioned as upgrades, But it's the easy way out to put a modern motor in a standard chassis with none of that? I'd think if you put any motor in one of those two cars you wouldn't tell the difference rideability wise just as if you put a modern motor in any old chassis.
The hard reality is, its getting much harder to get any motor rebuilt these days. With the recent down turn in quality of flat tappet lifters, rebuilding any non-roller cam motor got even more difficult. Its not the old days where you can take your stuff to a machine shop and pick up a rebuilt motor in a couple months, around here its a year before you can even bring it in, and if its not a roller motor, they won't touch it. The car hobby has changed a lot over the last few years. Hot rod ownership crosses many lines today. Trying to fit them (us) into any little box limits how much participation we will (or can) become involved with. Personally, I have never fit very well into any "car" box. I love the old body styles with modern drivetrains, but even those old body styles have become limited by my not well taken care of, and aging body. I don't fit well into those vehicles much older then the 1940s, as much as I do love some of those older styles. How about as this off topic part of the HAMB plays out, we enjoy it as we ride along. How about we all try not to put limitations on what can or can't be be here? If we just check out the stuff we like, skip over the stuff we don't like, and we all be civilized about it, maybe we can attract a much wider group of people and hot rods.
The hard reality is ........... Getting a suitable car for a project [our cut-off year was 60 years ago] Which I am all for preserving an era . But I am probably the most guilty of "sleight of hand" as anybody [disguising new engines as old etc] But as the perils of time creep up, these old hot rods start getting accepted along side vintage cars Cars like my 57 were stock in 1957 ,it probably took until 1967 before they got cheap enough for people to modify them [during the flower power, summer of love era ??? ]
from everything ive read, cars lost value much faster than they do today. look at this picture, the newest car i see is a 1960ish ford falcon, these cars are barely 6 years old and already less than a hundred dollars
Back in the 50s, 60, and early 70s, a 3-4 year old car was considered an old, very cheap, back row car. When almost none it to 100,000 miles, a car with 60,000 on it was pretty wore out. There was a very good reason they made turning the vehicle mileage back illegal. My 1st job was pumping gas and doing service work at a gas station (started working there in 1972). That gas station was one of the highest volume gas selling places in our town and had 3 repair bays. Back then, I could count the cars that came into that station that made it to 100,000 miles on one hand, out of probably 10,000 cars in the town at the time. My 69 Buick I bought in 73 was 4 years old with 49,000 miles on it. I bought it without a trade in for less then a $1,000 at a dealership.
My suggestion is to limit it to 2000 (so only cars from the last century are allowed, but any engine is acceptable as long as it burns fossil fuels.
The Jalopy Journal
