Hi from Ontario Canada

[SeanP]

Just wanted to introduce myself!

I have recently acquired a 1985 2 tone-blue crown vic 4 door. She's a bit of a family hand-me-down. Pretty solid shape and good mechanical condition, but still needs some TLC.

She will likely be the recipient of some motor upgrades, but right now I'm just focussing on making her road worthy. I will be documenting the work I do on her in my blog: http://automophiliac.blogspot.ca/.

I will likely be turning to the members of this community for advice, since my experience working on cars is fairly limited. I have successfully taken on every project I have undertaken thus far though, so hopefully I'm never in over my head.

Really glad to be part of the box panther club and sharing experiences with everyone as the process unfolds.


PS - If anyone has a rear bumper in good shape that they wouldn't mind parting with, I would certainly like to be notified!

[Hearsesrock427]

Welcome!

Oh man, that thing's gonna be a wicked summer cruiser after some TLC. Besides the surface rust in the usual places (rear quarters, probably some on the bottoms and sides of the doors), and the aforementioned hole in the rear bumper, she's mint cosmetically. I absolutely love that two tone blue- looks even better on the LTD Crown Victoria compared to the Grand Marquis. Wow! Can't wait to see photoshoots, build progress, etc.
You were smart to buy a car with a good body.

Body parts for these cars usually need to be NOS, junkyard parts, or fabbed from scratch. There are some places you can go for big body parts, but they don't tend to be well stocked. Expect to pay hundreds for quality parts like the ones linked below.

Rear bumper: https://www.bluespringsfordparts.com...diagram=JA9230

You're probably wondering on where to start for performance for your '85. It's a pretty good year overall. I'd say it was the best year for the non EFI cars.

Benefits of an '85 model year 302 equipped panther:
-You have EEC-IV (started that in '84, huge improvement over EEC-III).
-You have a roller cam (huge improvement over the flat tappet cam).
-You have the horn relocated to its proper position! (Ford moved it back to the steering wheel pad in '84 IIRC).

Disadvantages of an '85 model year 302 equipped panther:
-CFI. This deserves to be fleshed out a bit.

You see, Ford called it Central Fuel Injection. It's colloquially known as Crappy Fuel Injection. If you haven't come to hate it now, you will. When they run right, they run VERY smooth. But it's a major hassle to get one running right if it's not, or keep one running right if it is. The system is super sensitive to changes in the worst way possible. The solution? Switch an '86-'91 EFI system, or throw on a carb of your choice. Lots of knowledable people here to help steer you through this. Either route is a HUGE improvement over CFI.

-Earlier AOD. I'm sure others will chime in about this, but I know that some really early AODs didn't even have a torque converter drain plug. Also had weak (ie: not performance oriented) valve bodies and stuff. Thankfully, there's an aftermarket for the AOD. If you prefer to row your own gears, there's always the beefed up T-5 manual transmission route! Very cool and interesting setup- got a couple guys on here that run it.

What about going faster? Enjoy my copy-pasta'd guide to box panther performance, written for and by a new enthusiast.

Enter the Windsor aftermarket. Going faster is just a couple thosand dollars away.

Recall that the lopo 5.0's biggest advantage (besides its reliability) is its great low-RPM thrust. Therefore, you want to play to this advantage as much as possible throughout your build.

Let's get to it!

-Headers: Your car comes with a set of very poorly designed short tube headers. All '79-'91 LTD Crown Victorias & Grand Marquis have this problem. They stock headers are really not what you want for going fast- sell them for scrap. Replace with ceramic coated aftermarket headers.

I prefer long tubes. Why? Long tubes make excellent low-RPM thrust, which is your lopo's biggest plus. Ceramic coating makes them all but impervious to heat and warping. Win-win Just know that you'll need to work some fitment magic with most long tubes. They hit any/all of the following: Frame rail, steering shaft, column shift linkage, tranny fluid dipstick tube, oil dipstick tube. Not saying yours will hit all of them. My BBK long tubes only hit the frame and the transmission bellhousing. Nothing a BFH can't fix!

If you don't want to deal with those header fitment issues, there are always Mustang short tube headers. Even those are a big improvement over your stock headers! And they're not even designed for your motor's power range. Regardless of which route you take, just know you'll need to move stuff around.

-Exhaust: Anything beats the crappy stock Y-piped single exhaust. I personally prefer a catless H-pipe true dual exhaust system. Part #s and links available if interested. Regardless, you'll need a pipe bender to bend the pipes up. Box panthers don't have an aftermarket- we mostly just buy 5.0 Mustang parts and make em' work. So expect there to be lots of pipe bending. It's worth it though. These cars sound EPIC with loud, free-flowing dual exhausts.

Camshaft: I'd run either a unit from a 5.0 Exploder (forgot what model years exactly, I'm thinking '95-'99). Or a Comp Cams XE258 unit. Either one is great for the lopo.

NOTE: You'll need the HO firing order for pretty much all aftermarket cams. This means you need to swap your stock computer out for a unit from either a Lincoln Mark 7 or automatic transmission equipped Fox Mustang. The code for the new computers is "D9S" or "A9L". Also need to switch some plug wires around, obviously.

Benefits of HO firing order?
-Allows access to aftermarket camshafts.
-Prevents the lopo knock. (Assuming your lopo doesn't have it yet. My '89 Grand Marquis with only 72,000 on her already has it. Curse you, 1-5 firing order!)

Valve Springs: Strongly reccomend these if you're running any kind of aftermarket cam. Definitely need new valve springs if you run a cam that makes high RPM power (HO cam, E303 cam, etc.) Start with these: http://www.alexsparts.com/sb-ford-gt...ller-580-lift/

Need more? Buy these: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/tfs-2500100

Roller Rocker Arms: Might as well throw these on when you're swapping the cam. 1.7s by Crane are great from what I hear.

Transmission: Before you do ANYTHING to improve performance, throw on a stacked plate tranny cooler. B&M Racing units sell for like, $80. Well worth it. Remember, heat is a bad thing for AODs. (Don't be an idiot like me and put on the AOD-HP kit from TransGo, and do a bunch of WOT runs. You WILL cook your fluid.)

Once you've got the cooler up, you can start looking at AOD upgrades. I run the AOD-HP Shift Reprogramming Kit from TransGo. Trans shifts harder the harder you push the go-pedal down. Very cool. And for less than 100, it's a great value. More info here: http://www.transgo.com/products.php?...product_id=126

That's just the beginning.

There are TONS of aftermarket high performance torque converters out there- both with and without lockup. I'm a B&M Racing Torq Master 2000 RPM stall torque converter, with lockup. It's great fun. Link: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/bmm-40437/overview/

There are also higher performance valve bodies (a la pantera77's 1987 Grand Marquis wagon), and hardened one-piece input shafts. (Need to find links for those. Me want! haha.) If you run a single input shaft, you'll need to delete the lockup on your torque converter.

Brakes: Your car has rear drum brakes. All 1979-1991 LTD CVs & MGMs and all 1979-1990 Townies suffer from this problem. It's all kinds of awful. Rear discs are always good idea, especially if you plan on making your Vic quicker. Bigger front discs are great too. Stiffer suspension completes the package. Remember, going fast has to be balanced with stopping fast. Hopefully some more seasoned members can give you specifics on the Big Brake Swap.

Wheels: 15 inchers are.... not the best. 16 inch wheels however, are great. You've got lots of choices. You can run up to 265 width tires with 16s, a HUGE improvement over stock. My personal choice is 16 inch CVPI steel wheels with police-style center caps. Cheap and tough!

Tires: Is your car seeing winter? If not, run max performance or ultra max (or whatever they call it) tires. The wider, the better.

///End tech-gasm.

[89TownCar]

Sweet, another Ontario member. Welcome!

[VicCrownVic]

Welcome!

Once you think you have the car ready to be back on the road take it on a lot of short trips (10-20 miles/16-32km or less oughta do) to make sure things that have been sitting for that long are going to hold up.
My 91 MGM sat for about 7 years in a barn before I bought it, after replacing rusted out brake lines and swapping the trans it ran and drove quite well. Then the alternator went, then a fuel line split inside the fuel tank (I don't think 85 has this issue), then the starter went, then one of the bake calipers decided it wasn't in any hurry to return.
All of this was discovered with lots of short trips between houses roughly 10 miles apart while helping my parents move throughout the first week that I owned the car.
Over the next year leaks developed, the first was lower intake gasket leaking oil, not long after that was fixed the oil presser switch started leaking oil, not long after that the power steering gearbox started leaking fluid.

This is my daily driver and has been since I got it, I've had it 2 years now. During the second year of ownership issues have been fewer and farther between since I have addressed all the issues mentioned above. Hopefully the the 3rd year of ownership will being much less daily driving and work that isn't just keeping it running.

Also after sitting in a barn for about 10 years, hows the smell? Mine truly smelled like barn when I bought it, and the layer of dust on it was impressive as well.

If that's a recent picture in your blog, that car looks to be in better shape than mine. Enjoy the ride!

[SVT98t]

Welcome to the Party!!

-ryan s.

[SeanP]

Wow! Thanks for the extensive write up, Hearsesrock427! Lots of good advice and resources there! I'm leaning towards a carb swap at the moment... but I'm at a crossroads with regards to my plan of attack:

1 - I know a 1985 HO Mustang motor that I may be able to get. Would need to be rebuilt, but I would essentially be rebuilding what's already under the hood of the car anyway. The pros to this would be I can drive my car while building its new motor.

2 - Add to the motor that's currently in it. New heads, cam, exhaust, intake, 4bbl, etc. This would put the car out of commission for a while, but it may be more cost effective. Pros for this is that I'm going to have to do some maintenance on the engine and I don't want to be putting a bunch of labour into a motor I'm just going to be pulling out anyway. But I do want to get her on the road next spring, so it just might be something I have to do anyway. A buddy of mine and I were looking at the motor and the head gaskets seem to be leaking a little. Nothing making puddles, but there's some wetness.

Also there's bound to be more and more that turns up as she starts stretching her legs again. So far parts have been reasonable as far as cost goes. But the less I have to do twice for two different motors the better.

Also planning on throwing a 3.73 rear end in. For that added zip!

89TownCar - You're not too far from me either! I'm in Woodstock.

VicCrownVic - Sounds like good advice to me! Luckily I'm in a position where I'm only going to be driving her a little bit every year, so it doesn't need to be daily driver dependible. But the less surprises the better! And if things are going to go wrong, it's much better to be close to home!

[RyPow]

Welcome! There seems to be lots of new Canadian members these days Where in Ontario are you located? I live in Guelph and rent shop space just north of Waterloo.

Was your CV originally sold in Canada? If so it probably has a 2-barrel carb, Motorcraft 2150 if still original. We got away with less strict emissions laws here until the SEFI harmonization in '86, so we still had the carb'd 302 after the USA cars went CFI (although it seems that the '85 Town Car had CFI while the CV/GM continued with a 2-barrel carb that year).

'86 was the first year of roller lifters, was it not? '85 was still flat tappet, so you will want to include a ZDDP additive like ZDDPlus with your oil changes since the EPA made the oil companies significantly lessen or remove it from most engine oils a few years ago.

I will echo the advice that you should stick to short trips for the time being, to work out any 'bugs' as a result of long-term storage. Sitting is often more detrimental to a vehicle's systems than gentle regular use with good maintenance.

[SeanP]

Thanks! Glad to be here!

Welcome to the Party!!

-ryan s.

[SeanP]

Welcome! There seems to be lots of new Canadian members these days Where in Ontario are you located? I live in Guelph and rent shop space just north of Waterloo.

I'm in Woodstock. Judging from your list of vehicles you seem like a good guy to know re: tech knowledge/experience! I'm up in Guelph every so often (at least once a year, since I throw at the heavy events at the International Festival) and it was my second home in the spring/early summer of 2002 (I was in a musical at the Riverrun Centre).

[SeanP]

Welcome!
Also after sitting in a barn for about 10 years, hows the smell? Mine truly smelled like barn when I bought it, and the layer of dust on it was impressive as well.

If that's a recent picture in your blog, that car looks to be in better shape than mine. Enjoy the ride!

The barn smell wasn't too bad, since it had been stuffed to the gills with bounce sheets. It basically smelled like stale fabric softener. Could be worse.

The photo was taken basically right after I got the car. That's the barn she was living in. The hubcaps are off (good story there, which I will share on my blog soon!) and new tires are installed, since a couple of the old ones had gone flat/were ancient and cracked. Basically that's the first photo of the car after she was up on all four legs. Other than that, that's the shape/location she was in when I found her.

[RyPow]

I'm not nearly as well-seasoned with performance mods as many of the guys on here, but I can hold my own with old (pre-'90s) Fords. Haven't needed to take any of my vehicles to a mechanic in quite a while

I hit Reply a bit prematurely above, I edited my previous post with some more comments.

[SeanP]

Was your CV originally sold in Canada? If so it probably has a 2-barrel carb, Motorcraft 2150 if still original. We got away with less strict emissions laws here until the SEFI harmonization in '86, so we still had the carb'd 302 after the USA cars went CFI (although it seems that the '85 Town Car had CFI while the CV/GM continued with a 2-barrel carb that year).

'86 was the first year of roller lifters, was it not? '85 was still flat tappet, so you will want to include a ZDDP additive like ZDDPlus with your oil changes since the EPA made the oil companies significantly lessen or remove it from most engine oils a few years ago.

I will echo the advice that you should stick to short trips for the time being, to work out any 'bugs' as a result of long-term storage. Sitting is often more detrimental to a vehicle's systems than gentle regular use with good maintenance.

She was purchased in Tillsonburg in April of 1985 by my wife's grandparents. The carb makes sense. I don't know what a CFI looks like, but if I didn't know any better I would swear it was a carb on her. Everywhere I read though says that it's CFI and it will like kind of like a carb... so I just went with that. Where can I check to see a part number (or any other method to confirm what I have mixing my air/fuel... I feel helpless/dumb not knowing).

Thanks for the advice on the additive. Again, I'm not sure where to check to confirm what kind of cam I have.

Also, I'm painfully aware of the bugaboos that work their way into a sitting car. The first car I ever bought with my own money was a 1980 VW Rabbit... it had been gently used it's whole life (I got it with just 95,000km on it), but had been sitting the last year and a half. Spent $1700 to buy it and another $2500 over the next 10 months fixing an endless stream of little niggly breakdowns before I sold it for something brand new (I would have kept it if I had somewhere to store her and work on her... it was a really fun little car).

[RyPow]

She was purchased in Tillsonburg in April of 1985 by my wife's grandparents. The carb makes sense. I don't know what a CFI looks like, but if I didn't know any better I would swear it was a carb on her. Everywhere I read though says that it's CFI and it will like kind of like a carb... so I just went with that. Where can I check to see a part number (or any other method to confirm what I have mixing my air/fuel... I feel helpless/dumb not knowing).

Easy way to tell: 2-barrel carb will have a single choke plate over the venturis and no wiring connections on top, whereas the CFI has open venturis with the two injectors on top with their respective wiring connectors.

I just picked up (aka "saved") an original Canadian '85 Grand Marquis and it has a factory 2-barrel carb. Canadian versions aren't very well documented/recognized on here, so it will usually be suggested that any '80-85 302 engine is CFI. Obviously, if a car in that year range was imported from the US, it will be factory CFI.

The other big powertrain difference with Canadian Panthers: availability of the 351W to civilians right through '91, whereas it was fleet-only in the USA (from what year exactly, I'm not sure). Rare, but they do pop up on Kijiji from time to time. This engine got the 7200VV 'variable venturi' carb right until the end.

I'm always interested in the subtle differences between the US and Canadian markets, that continue to this day. A couple examples:

- Canada got the Toyota Echo hatchback for 2005 M.Y. but the USA did not. The States got the Scion brand then, which only appeared in Canada a couple years ago

- The base-ish F150 pickup is available with a "chrome package" in the USA. Here, it is known as the F150 XTR (unique to Canada) which has been around since the '92-96 body style.

[SeanP]

Easy way to tell: 2-barrel carb will have a single choke plate over the venturis and no wiring connections on top, whereas the CFI has open venturis with the two injectors on top with their respective wiring connectors.

I just picked up (aka "saved") an original Canadian '85 Grand Marquis and it has a factory 2-barrel carb. Canadian versions aren't very well documented/recognized on here, so it will usually be suggested that any '80-85 302 engine is CFI. Obviously, if a car in that year range was imported from the US, it will be factory CFI.

The other big powertrain difference with Canadian Panthers: availability of the 351W to civilians right through '91, whereas it was fleet-only in the USA (from what year exactly, I'm not sure). Rare, but they do pop up on Kijiji from time to time.

My God, I think it's a carb.

So is a choke plate that brass looking flappy thing that flips open when you press the gas? (please forgive my technical lingo) If a CFI does not have this then I def. have a Carb. Also, I'm pretty sure there are no wires sticking out of the top. I'll have to double check when I get home.

That's pontentially great news! It means my conversion is already done! (I'm good!)

I was aware of the 351w deal vs US customers. I had secretly hoped she was a 351w car until a look at the VIN dashed those dreams to stardust. But a carb set up 302 is a good runner up prize!

[sly]

the 85 block should be roller capable, but if it's an early 85, may not be. 86+ to be on the safe side.