1988 Ford LTD Crown Victoria Build

[cherniydiavel]

I'm still pretty new to posting here, so forgive me if this is posted in the wrong place! I'd like to discuss some mods I've done and ideas I have on modifying my land yacht for better efficiency. I've already done a lot of little things to it, and right now it is getting more MPG than it is rated at in the city, and on the freeway MPG is lower than it should be. That could be due to driving habits more than anything else.

First of all, the old motor overheated and destroyed itself; I pulled it out and got it back in with new everything. I got the block honed and refinished 0.030" overbore, teflon coated popup pistons with valve relief notches, stronger valve springs, thicker pushrods, racing hydraulic roller lifters. I've been rigidly maintaining it since the rebuild with the "severe duty" schedule, aka frequent inspections and services.

The pistons increased compression a little, I am not sure the current value but stock it was 8.9:1. The teflon coating should help reduce friction. The lifters increase lift at high rpm and reduce lift at low rpm because of the stiffer springs, so I now have a primitive form of VVT. I don't know if it makes a difference but it should be better than stock!

The increase in displacement (302 ci to 306 ci) has caused the CPU to stumble a little when idling after the car is warmed up. The lumpy idle could also be because of a vacuum leak… It's a minor issue that could be fixed with a chip tune. I also should install a boost/vacuum gauge to confirm the ancient vacuum lines aren't leaking and messing up my EFI.

I only fill up on top tier fuel. I use 87 octane. My car is designed to run on 10% ethanol, 5% methanol, and oxygenated gasoline. I try to fill up at Chevron or Texaco because they have good additives in their low octane.

I use 10w40 standard oil. My car sees 120F+ conditions in the summer, and I have no temperature gauge, so I like to play it safe. The thicker oil is what Ford specifies for 100 degree driving. I will "upgrade" to a slicker oil viscosity once I install my police gauge cluster (oil press, volts, water temp) and can ensure the motor is not too hot.

Another gauge I need to install is the Tripminder! I got one on eBay because my car didn't come with one. It is a very neat little computer that replaces the standard clock and can calculate times, distances, instant and average mpg. Very useful! Combined with the standard cruise control it should help MPG a bunch.

I also remove my antennas when I'm not using them. The radio antenna simply screws off, and my CB whip is magnetically mounted on the roof. Both I stick on my rear dashboard when I'm not using them… every bit of drag counts!

A few weeks ago I overhauled the front wheel bearings with brembo grease. Originally the wheels would barely turn when spun by hand. After driving them around the block to circulate the new grease, I jacked the front up and spun them by hand… they actually could spin for a dozen or so seconds before stopping! The rear axle however has some residue near the driveshaft u joint. I need to overhaul the rear axle soon. It hasn't been touched in decades.

Another mod I've done, albeit small, was adjusting the rain gutters to be as close to the body as possible. I noticed the wind is quieter on the freeway now, especially near the side mirrors. I have also adjusted the hood to be as flush as possible with the front engine bay edge. The wipers are the "hidden" kind so I will leave those alone.

My car originally came with steelies. I found some aluminum turbine rims in a junkyard and put them on the car. They are lighter and should help mpg a little bit. Once I wear out this set of tires, I am going to upgrade from 215/70r15 to 225/70r15. That might help economy a little bit, and will definitely help traction and ride quality. I fill them up to 32/32 cold. I don't know how much I can fill them without negatively affecting tire wear… how much do you guys recommend?

That's about it for the current state of my car. After I get some gauges installed, I want to fabricate an underbody tray! I'll post pictures of my progress when I get time to work on it. After that, a windage tray, roller lifters, dual exhaust, K&N air filter, and MAF conversion/chiptune are on the to-do list.

Thanks for reading… do you guys have any comments or suggestions? Any feedback is appreciated

[spacemanspif]

E-fan conversion?

[cherniydiavel]

That's a good idea! I'll have to look into a kit for that

[MobilOne]

10w40 should be plenty heavy. Why not synthetic?

Replace all the vacuum lines. Not worth "checking". One does not fix a vacuum leak with a chip tune. Also, on that car, iirc, Ford had all the vacuum lines hooked to a little black plastic distribution connector attached to the firewall. I had one go bad. So you may want to check that. If, after you replace the vacuum hoses and you still have a vacuum leak, spray around the intake manifold connections with some carb cleaner. That should help you find the leak. BTW, how do you know that you have a vacuum leak? Misfire at idle could be several things. Get a vacuum gauge. VERY handy.

Why did the engine overheat? Radiator? Water pump? Coolant leak?

BTW, welcome to the site and good Ecomodding!

Hwy mileage, could be the torque converter is not locking up. Or a brake dragging.

How are you going to chip a 1988 car?

[cherniydiavel]

Can my motor use synthetic oil? I get mixed responses from mechanics on whether or not the engine will work well with synthetic oil…

To clarify, I used some bad grammar! The chip tune would address the small displacement increase, not the potential leak.

The engine overheated because some of the coolant passages in the block were blocked. This caused a piston to melt (unnoticed to me) which caused a lot of metal flakes to go in the oil. Which seized the oil pump, which seized the engine. I had no clue any of this was going on until my car broke down, because a couple years ago I had no clue how cars worked or how to maintain them. I'm a little smarter now hopefully…

My torque converter does not lock up. But in 3rd and 4th gear the transmission bypasses the torque converter, with full lockup in 4th gear. I overhauled the transmission a while back and it is working ok. TV cable is adjusted properly too. There is a slight shudder in 3rd gear which only happens at certain loads as the trans hops between "bypass" and "torque converter" settings, but I just push my foot down another inch and that fixes it. 4th gear does not have this issue.

And, for the chip, I'm going to get a Moates Quarterhorse someday. It allows me to change how the computer runs on the fly, and also is useful for data logging while driving. The EEC-IV computer is a beautiful piece of technology for the time period and is very good, but I think there should be ways to make it more efficient once I get past the steep learning curve of the Quarterhorse.

Thanks for the vacuum advice, I definitely need to replace those old, brittle plastic pieces!

[Frank Lee]

ECU/chip won't notice 4ci.

[101Volts]

First, welcome. I'm riding a 1984 Caprice and a 1990 Mercury so you're not the only one on here with a car of such an age.

Re: Your questions regarding synthetic oil: In early years (This is over 40 years ago by this date) at least some synthetics caused seals to enlarge or shrink. This most likely isn't an issue anymore and I'm running the Caprice on Pennzoil Platinum 5w30, no issues. There's also the part that a synthetic can clean up an abused engine so well that it shows leaks (just like when detergent motor oil hit the market, whenever that was) or it could break sludge loose quickly and starve the engine of oil in some cases of abused engines, but you just had the engine worked on.

Dad's van, a 2000 Caravan, did end up leaking oil once I started using synthetics. However, Dad has/had (I'm telling him about it if he does it) a habit where he'd start the van and, before oil has been pumped, switch into gear and drove. I'm not saying "Warm the van up for minutes", I'm saying let it idle for five to fifteen seconds (depending on temperature and the engine) before switching to gear. Now when the van starts we hear metal on metal contact somewhere until the oil has been pumped and the crankshaft rattles at the drive belt when hot.

As for the temperature/engine oil suggestions, I'd just stick with a synthetic or biosynthetic 5w30 year round if it were my car (and I'm using a semi-synthetic, Castrol Magnatec 5w30, in the Mercury right now.) The recommendation for 10w40 was written in the 1980s or earlier keep in mind, oil wasn't quite to the same quality as it is today. 10w40 now is a bit overkill if you're going for economy (and it might not even be the best thing for engine longevity now either with synthetics available) and the reason being why they recommended 10w40 then was for extra fluid strength for reduced chances of metal to metal contact, but synthetics hold together better (even though they're thinner) and you don't need something as thick with a synthetic. Or that's what I've been told in the articles I read... And keep in mind even though it says "Synthetic" on the bottle, not all are made equal. Even what it says on the bottle doesn't tell you the whole story, Mobil 1 0w30 is literally thicker than Pennzoil Platinum 5w30 both at start and operating temperature. Mobil 1 0w30 is however thinner at startup than the same company's 5w30s.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by spacemanspif

E-fan conversion?

I'll second that. Anyway, what about a manual transmission conversion?

[101Volts]

Originally Posted by cherniydiavel

My car originally came with steelies. I found some aluminum turbine rims in a junkyard and put them on the car. They are lighter and should help mpg a little bit. Once I wear out this set of tires, I am going to upgrade from 215/70r15 to 225/70r15. That might help economy a little bit, and will definitely help traction and ride quality. I fill them up to 32/32 cold. I don't know how much I can fill them without negatively affecting tire wear… how much do you guys recommend?

You might want to try for a larger tire. Make sure the tires fit the car of course without needing to make modifications, but when I switched from 205/75R15s to 225/70R15s it didn't effect the mileage much. The big difference was the old tires were dry rotted and were rated for 35 PSI max, the ones I have now (General Grabber HTS) are rated for 44 Max. Personally, I'd go as high in PSI as I possibly can without causing abnormal tread wear in the center. But, that's me and is it really the best option considering the suspension also takes more of a hit on a higher PSI? Also keep in mind that when you switch tires to a bigger size your speedometer and in turn odometer are going to be off if you don't fix them so you'll need to compensate; going to a larger size will mean both speedometer and odometer shall read lower than you're actually going. For my larger tires, (going from 205/75 to 225/70) that seems to be 2.2 miles per hundred if that (though I only checked that once shortly after I got the tires) and the speedometer reads 55 when I'm going 59 or 60 yet at other times the speedometer is not as inaccurate at slower speeds; it varies, sometimes the GPS reads that I really am going 30 when the needle is there.

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

I'll second that. Anyway, what about a manual transmission conversion?

Manual Trans + 6.2 Diesel Engine = 30+ MPG HWY even in that aerodynamically draggy car. Pulsing and gliding can be done downhill at least. I've thought of doing it myself. But, of course there's the increased cost of Diesel fuel yet comparing 30 MPG to approx. 18 MPG even if Diesel is 15-25 cents per gallon more expensive it's still cheaper to use Diesel as far as fuel goes.

Repairs, on the other hand... I'm not experienced here so I can't comment. Diesels are more expensive to repair if I understood correctly, but at the same time as long as they're maintained well they tend to last longer than gasoline engines?

[Ecky]

I dunno about larger tires like 225, but I've found I can run my 165's at 51PSI (max sidewall) and still not have abnormal wear patterns. Does anyone make LLR tires in that size?

The biggest improvement you can make to freeway MPG is to slow down a little. Driving to Montreal over the weekend, I decided to take it at 50mph instead of my normal ~60-62, and was rewarded with a huge improvement.

This image was stolen from another member here on Ecomodder, but my car's numbers line up almost exactly: