Hi.

[TcRo]

Hello my name is Mark, I live in traverse city Michigan and I just bought a 89 grand marquis ls 5.0 (Gina Marie). Shes crystal blue metallic and has only about a foot of rust, very good considering where I live. My dad had an 86 gm when I was growing up and jumped at the opportunity to be the third owner of Gina for 1300 plus plates and so forth.

I'm here to get advice on getting as much hp outta her 302 cu and to soak up the culture. I wanted a fun summer tinkering project. Don't know very much about these cars but god do I love them.

[TcRo]

Bam

[johnunit]

Welcome! that's very clean looking for a michigan car.

[gadget73]

Welcome

I suppose the first question is how deep are your pockets? Power output is very closely related to this. There are a few things you can do on the cheap, but any serious power production involves either an engine swap or at least a fair bit of teardown and component changing on the stock motor. As they come, the stock parts pretty much suck. You can get some more out of it with better exhaust and upgrading the intake, but the cam and heads are a serious bottleneck. To make any sort of real power, those have to change. Depending what you change them to depends on what you want to get out of it, and how involved and expensive you want to make the process.

[87gtVIC]

Welcome to the forum.

[TcRo]

recommendations on intake, exhaust, and filters would be great! I've got 1,500 and change I'd be willing to put into her. Thanks.

[VicCrownVic]

Welcome!

Very nice car, in much better shape than mine. Same color as my 91 MGM except mine, as seen in my current signature picture, has a white top instead of the dark blue that yours has.
I'm also in MI but I'm 20 miles North of Detroit, quite a drive from Traverse City.

[Hearsesrock427]

That's a very sharp '89 you've got there! You stole her for $1300. Absolutely love that light metallic teal.... there's a super clean '88-'91 LTD Crown Victoria I see around town sometimes in that exact shade as yours, with the black vinyl top too.

I'm betting the surface rust is on the rear quarters, or perhaps the bottoms of the doors. Nothing some wheel grinder, primer, and paint can't fix! Or a good body shop if you're not body work inclined.

Will definitely make for a fun summertime cruiser/hot rod, a damn reliable one at that. $1500 is a good start for your build. Definitely enough for some nice BBK ceramic coated headers & dual exhaust piping. Don't know much about dual exhaust parts- I had a local speed shop do a custom job starting after the headers and ending with the tips. Cost a ton, but they fit and sound epic. Mandrel bent pipes FTW!

I'm biased toward long runner intake plenums..... but I can't seem to find anything cast iron. (I don't like the idea of running aluminum plenum over iron heads. Premature intake gasket failures are no bueno.) Could possibly just port the stock lopo 5.0 plenum.... people have seen gains from it. turbo2256b should be able to shed some more light on this.

Welcome to GMN!

[DerekTheGreat]

Welome from a fellow Michigander!

Like gadget said what we've got under the hood is a turd already. If it's clean I suggest finding an HO motor out of a late 80's stang or 88-91 Lincoln Mark VII and swapping that in and then selling your original motor to recoup some cash. Theres more to it than that but nothing the fine folks here can't help with. I recently put a true dual exhaust on my car and it helped a bit and I've noticed an increase in MPG's. Next up I plan to swap out the LoPo upper intake manifold & throttlebody for HiPo goodies, that's worth about another 10hp. I think Hearsesrock mentioned in another post about his header swap, but he didn't notice any gains so not sure I'm going to worry about those any time soon. Good luck with the car though, looks great and you can tell she's got plenty of options!

Derek

[TcRo]

Thanks to you all! Vic, I was just in Belleville last weekend, my family is pretty much down in the thumb but I have a few cousins in the Detroit area.

Hearserock, how hard is it to do a duel exhaust? The rust is only on the right rear quarter, I'm more body work inclined than mechanical things so that shouldn't be a problem.

[VicCrownVic]

I grew up in the thumb, in the little dot on the map called Brown City. Having grown up in the middle of nowhere I can't stand being this close to Detroit, (most) people are so rude around here.

[DerekTheGreat]

I think that's just how most people are nowadays, only have time for themselves. Been in the city my entire life but I still have manners and show courtesy to strangers but man, I'll never get used to having the door slammed in my face no matter how many times it happens.

[miamibob]

I think that's just how most people are nowadays, only have time for themselves. Been in the city my entire life but I still have manners and show courtesy to strangers but man, I'll never get used to having the door slammed in my face no matter how many times it happens.

People make these things (like civility and courtesy) to be like "rocket science". It is really VERY simple. Apply the "Golden Rule" and you're all set.

[TcRo]

I know brown city, I used to live in port sanilac before moving to traverse city. I love how they put city at the end of small town names. Even tc only has a population of 15k or so. And Derek my grandma used to live in warren.

[BigT]

Welcome!