Build Thread - "Carl Winslow" - 2002 Ford Crown Vic Police Interceptor

[mechcd]

The starting point is described pretty well in my intro thread.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...r-31873-2.html


I usually measure my mileage using my commute to and from work. I have about a 45 minute drive, with 30-40 minutes being steady highway with little traffic. I use Torque Pro for Android and reset the Trip Avg. MPG when I pass a certain mile marker on a flat section of road. The overall avg mpg gets reset and checked when I fill up. It has been very accurate without any adjustments.

I'm a dorky engineer so I actually have too much data collected. Anything I post has already been sifted through unless its a direct comparison on something new. Here's my criteria

• Car is warmed up. Thermostat must have opened at least once, trans must be above 90F. Crown Vic runs 185F steady on the hwy
• Normal weather - no rain, snow, or high winds. Temperatures below 45F are noted as such
• Use cruise control - Hwy speed must be set to 50-55 or 65-72, depending on the road.
• Rear defrost off, climate blower set to 2nd notch, radio between 8-14 volume
• Windows closed unless it is summer (no AC )

I've done a few things since the last update

Added spotlight and folded in passenger side mirror

Results: Hole where spotlight used to be is filled and doesn't let water and air in anymore. Tossup on mileage, -0.25 to 0 MPG


Sealed hood edges . The gap between the front fascia and the hood collects quite a bit of air judging by the amount of road crud spread over the top of the radiator and by the hood latch. I initially would just tape over the gap using vinyl masking tape that could be removed. It was like electrical tape but could be peeled off with no residue as long as it was removed within 14 days. I finally found some self-sticky EDPM weather stripping along the front and side edges of the hood to make it permanent. There are still big .75 to 1" gaps around the headlights. I need some better looking bulb seals or something for these. I had some thick stuff but it ended up crumbling and making a huge gooey mess. It also turns out that I like to remove the headlights frequently for some reason and the foam made it difficult to get them back in place.

Results: cleaner engine compartment! less hood wiggles! Less highway wind noise! Marginal MPG improvement +0.5 MPG


Underdrive pullies from Summit Racing - $25 scratch 'n dent!!
These were the plain Jane cheapie underdrive pulleys. The set came with a bigger alternator and water pump pulley, and a smaller crank pulley that bolts onto the existing harmonic balancer and stock crank pulley. They are anodized blue. I usually prefer to hide this sort of thing with less obnoxious colors like black, gray, or clear anodizing. Oh well. It makes it looks like I "did something" to it .

The alternator pulley is a bit too big (slower) and my voltage drops down to about 12v at stops if I have more than one large accessory on. The cooling capacity seems unchanged. I am going to swap it out for one of the smaller ones I have scattered across the garage. The underdrive is 60mm, which is the same as the stock 3G large case 1997 alternator I got at the junkyard. The stock 2002 police 6G alternator on the '02 was 54 mm

How to Identify and Select Ford Alternators


Results: Between +0.5 to +1.5 MPG depending on speed and electrical load. It gets in excess of 30 mpg going 35 mph, but I rarely drive at that speed for very long


That leaves me at
24-26 mpg going 55
21-22 mpg going 65

[mcrews]

I would think going a size up on the tires (not the rims) would help the mileage. I was able to pick up about 4mpg on the 02 InfinitiQ45S going 1 six up. I did a lot of hgwy driving.
Also, are you at 40+ psi?
Welcome!

[mechcd]

The 70mm throttle body from an E150 van or F250 SD or something. I think the stock one was 65mm. The engine is a lot more responsive now. I cleaned it up and painted it red. The throttle lever was pretty corroded so I dunked in phosphoric acid to get down to the bare steel and then DIY zinc plated it. I haven't seen any corrosion on it yet after 3 months.

The 70 mm TB came with this reusable gasket with some vanes on it. I figured Ford put them on for a reason and left them there. A lot of the Mustang guys cut them off. The E-150 uses a different intake elbow after the TB so maybe that helps straighten the air out





The water pump pulley is substantially larger than the OEM one to slow down the pump. There are 2-3 different pumps I could have gotten. The police one has an extra vane and larger diameter vanes to have more flow, while the one for a Mustang Cobra has 7 shorter vanes to free up some HP. I got the police one when I replaced it since I didn't know about the differences at the time.

[mechcd]

Originally Posted by mcrews

I would think going a size up on the tires (not the rims) would help the mileage. I was able to pick up about 4mpg on the 02 InfinitiQ45S going 1 six up. I did a lot of hgwy driving.
Also, are you at 40+ psi?
Welcome!

I would give that a shot if I didn't already have a pile of extra 225/60/16s. 4 mpg is a lot for a relatively simple change!

I have the tire pressure up to 44 PSI which is the sidewall max rating. I haven't seen any increased wear in the center of the tire. There is some other weird wear but that is because the steering system needs overhauled. I'm afraid to go higher for reliability reasons. I drive around 60 miles a day and the tires are getting old

[mechcd]

Heated Intake / WAI


I cut a hole in the bottom of the airbox and stuck a power steering cooler over the opening. I just used some Tees to get hot coolant from the heater core. It seems to add about 15-30 degrees to the incoming air according to the ECM.

I got quicker warm-ups and 1-2 more mpg when it was below 50 degrees outside. The power steering cooler isn't really big enough and can't keep up at higher speeds, probably because the engine is drawing air in faster than it can transfer heat. I found that 1985 Chevette's had a very small 6wide x 6 long x 2 deep heater core that has a lot more surface area but I'm not convinced that it would be worth the cost and effort of hacking up the air box more. Maybe before next winter.

The current set up gets to about 100 degrees when it is 70 outside and I have not recorded any significant differences. This is a MAF engine. I do not have the tools to read and write this ECM, but I have a bin from an '05 Mustang 3 valve 4.6L and the ECM does not start to subtract very much fuel until you get into the 150F and above range in MAF mode. MAP mode (speed density) has a bigger fuel cutoff, but honestly, you'd probably be getting bad mileage just from running in speed density mode. Plus I'm not entirely sure this engine even has a MAP sensor, I think it just goes full blown limp home mode with fixed timing if the MAF fails (unplugged). I could trick the ECM by changing the IAT value with a potentiometer, but I don't want to run too lean and overheat the 4 catalytic converters or risk detonation because Ford didn't include a knock sensor on the 2002 model year .

I'm going to try to retest it on a few more very controlled runs and then move on to the next idea

[mechcd]

Up next - the obvious

[mechcd]

Fair warning, this posts rambles on and on and on

The cardboard grill block didn't make any appreciable differences

However, I did go whole hog on the heated intake. I got a heater core for a '93 Geo Metro on sale for $10 locally and decided to give it a try


Most people either just remove the trumpet cone thing and make a cut on one side of the box like this. I had already cut the entire bottom out of the air cleaner box to promote airflow.


Mine is well-gutted. The aluminum angle is to keep the filter sealing edge straight. Even before gutting it, it would warp and let unfiltered air into the engine.


The heater core was a very tight fit. It sits just below the filter. The open area by the tubes was blocked with some aluminum chimney flashing. I then just used silver tape to attach the heater core to the air box and seal any leaks. All air entering has to pass through the heater core before going through the filter. The whole assembly is actually pretty sturdy once the top of the air box is snapped on. It doesn't quite fit right because the heater core sticks out 2 inches from the bottom. The tubes and hose are very close to being pinched on the fender liner but are ok for now. Everything just lays in place since the mounting studs are broken due to age. The snorkel seems to keep it all from moving very much.




Once everything was warmed up, the cruise IAT was around 110-120F. I noticed that the throttle needed to be open about 1%-2% more to maintain speed. LFTs stayed between -3% and +4% so the computer's fuel tables are probably correct for the higher temperature range. I'm assuming it also uses less fuel as the temps go up.

At idle, the IAT starts to creep up into the 130F range and the LFTs go down to -12%. This makes me think the IAT isn't accurate since the computer is subtracting fuel. It is stuck in a corner of the airbox and isn't really in the air stream. It's circled in red and the MAF is blue. I used a thermometer to measure the center of the air box temperature through the IAT opening and got readings about 20F higher. The temperatures were close to the IAT values when I put the thermometer in the same spot as the IAT. Time to relocate it?

City driving and traffic lights might be a problem because the temperature keeps going up. Obviously it can't get higher than the coolant temp, but how high is too high? I don't want the already fickle plastic intake manifold to get damaged. I would love to get a nice aluminum aftermarket one but they are phenomenally expensive compared to most other engines. I'm also not sure what the higher temperature would do to the intake valves. The cylinder head is usually around 220F, so probably nothing? I might do some test runs and measure the head temps

(not my car but similar)



I have a few ideas to control the temperature but haven't went through with any of them due to cost and complexity. There is no room to add a fresh air vent or damper to bypass the heater core, so that's out.

• Electric solenoid heater valve w/ click-on thermo-switch- $$$ - Least complex
• Vacuum operated heater valve - $$ - medium complexity
• Cable actuated or manual heater valve - $ - high complexity

The electric valve would use a coffee maker style switch to turn on and off the valve based on temperature. These switches can be found in just about any temperature. Splice in the valve, run 12V to it, maybe a manual off switch, and call it a day. Crude, but quite simple and reliable.

I think an arduino or similar would add too much complexity and potential for it to not work right.

Vac controlled - I was actually considering using a thermac valve or a temp. sensitive vacuum switch for vacuum advance distributors for control. The switch and vac. operated heater valve would make an analog control system. I can't find any switches that go much over 116F though. The valve and actuator would need to be mounted solidly in the vicinity of the air box.

The manual option would use a manual heater valve with a choke cable in the passenger compartment to allow manual adjustment of the coolant. This would also require several brackets to hold everything in place, plus figuring out how to run the choke cable to the dash without it binding up or getting pinched


Now for the numbers!!!!

Run 1 - no WAI
Ambient 52F
Trans: 152F
Engine 186F
IAT - 54F (ambient +2)
Distance - 10.1 mi
Speed - 55 mph
MPG - 22.8

Run 2 - WAI
Ambient 54F
Trans: 149F
Engine 186F
IAT - 116F - the sensor is in a bad spot, it is probably getting much hotter
Distance - 10.1 mi
Speed - 55 mph
MPG - 26.2

Run 3 - WAI
Ambient 50F
Trans: 149F
Engine 186F
IAT - 114F
Distance - 10.1 mi
Speed - 55 mph
MPG - 25.8

Run 4 - no WAI
Ambient 51F
Trans: 160F
Engine 186F
IAT - 52F
Distance - 10.1 mi
Speed - 55 mph
MPG - 24.1


Looks like a success to me!

[svt98t]

With the under drive pullies, I would not recommend running the after market pulley.

Your CVPI would benefit from a Mach 1 chin spoiler. It is a direct fit and creates a nice air dam on the front. They're like $60 from American Muscle.

I'd bump up the tire pressure, and try and drop the car, if you can.

I have 2.73 gears In the back of mine and it makes a big difference on the highway (where I do most of my driving).
I'm sure yours is 3.27s although they did have a 3.55 option.
You can upgrade the coil packs as well. A C&L intake plenum could make a little difference as well.

Oh, and DROP WEIGHT!!! I've taken 108 lbs (and counting) out of my Grand Marquis.

Welcome to the Party!!


-ryan s.