Tank of Justice III: 97 Ford Crown Victoria HPP

[svt98t]

Welcome to the Party, TANK OF JUSTICE III!!!

Yes, the new ride is here. It's a 1997 Ford Crown Victoria HPP with 165k on it. Rust-free, from Arizona, and it has a bad rod knock. It's supper clean. All for the princely sum of $400. So it's really hard to turn down that, especially since it was dropped in my lap.
And I just so happen to have a zero-mile, all aluminum engine that's ready for installation.
hmmm....

Interesting facts about the new Tank:
-HPP (Handling Performance Package), it has bigger sway bars, 3.27:1, dual exhaust, better suspension, sweet rims.
- it's a P73 variant. And it's apparently rare. Most all of the HPPs come in P74, which has power anything, auto everything, blah. My car doesn't even have ABS.
Which leads to:
Base weight of 3617 lbs.
Yes. This car is stock, what my goal was for the TOJ2. It's an amazing starting point. I still need to get it to the scales to verify. Essentially, I didn't know that this variant of the platform existed, and how light it truly was.

I removed the steel drive shaft which was 27 lbs. I'm installed my MMC (Metal Matrix Alcoa) drive shaft which weighs in at 17 lbs. So there's a 38% reduction in rotational mass, and a 10 lbs overall reduction.
I like it!
I also removed the cruise control box and cable, since it's useless and I don't care for it. -2.4 lbs

So my new goal is to have the TOJ3 at 3400 lbs, I'm sure I can remove 217 lbs out of this one. Which will make it 800 lbs lighter than my Marauder.


















As it sits:




-ryan s.

[Daox]

Looks great! Whats the next step?

[svt98t]

Well the newly built aluminum engine is in there. Time to start it up and get the ball rolling.

Here is the difference between the iron and aluminum block:

Iron:



Aluminum:



That's a drop of 77.6 lbs just for the block. That would theoretically drop the total vehicle weight to 3528 lbs. Pretty that's some great progress towards my goal of 3400 lbs.


Next is to install a lower grille block and chin spoiler. And install my Limited Slip diff. It makes winter a bit more tolerable.


-ryan s.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

That's a nice-looking ride, but it's quite surprising for me to figure out that it didn't have ABS as a standard feature at that time.

[svt98t]

Took it for a test drive finally and everything kind works. Except for the air ride system. There's an issue with the bags in the back. I have to trouble shoot that now.
But besides that, it hauls quite nicely.
It should be repaired and possibly registered by the end of the week.
Then onward to the Green Grand Prix!


-ryan s.

[svt98t]

Bags Will be here on Monday. Tonight, I'm removing the old bags, shocks, and diff.
Then I'm taking out the diff and shocks form the old Tank.
I should have the diff swapped over tonight. The car will be waiting for the bags on Monday and I'm driving it to work on Tuesday.
It might be a tight timeline.....


-ryan s.

[svt98t]

Lots to catch up on.

Bags were installed and KYB Gas-A-Just shocks installed in the rear. I also installed a Trac-Loc limited slip differential. I had to put my Marauder wheels on it for the Green Grand Prix.
I wanted a little extra grip for the auto cross event. (Which was a blast, by the way).
Raced the GGP and recorded 24.3 mpg, good for 1st in V8 Class, Modded. Pretty sweet, considering that I had the car on the road for 4 days.

On the following day, I had to drop off the transmission for my other car in PA. I didn't hypermile too much initially. About a third of the trip down, I filled up, and that's where the hypermiling started. I ended up with 406 miles, 17.81 gallons of gas used, for 25.3 mpg. Not too bad.
Then I realized that the tires were significantly taller than the stock tires. I used Google maps and retraced my exact route an realized that I actually traveled 456.7 miles. I adjusted my fuel log accordingly.
But the stock tires are going back on shortly.

Also:
I put the Tank though NY inspection.

You know, sometimes, it's just easier giving them the $21 and letting them do all the troubleshooting for you.
Overall: Fail
Safety: Fail
Emissions: Fail

1. Parking Brake failed
2. LF out tie rod shot
3. 1 bulb in the 3rd brake light is out

4. Check engine light bulb burnt out, resulting in:

-P0174: System too lean, Bank1
-P0303: #3 cylinder misfire
-P0420: Bank 1 catalyst system efficiency below threshold

New inner and outer tie rods, along with sleeves, and new parking brake shoes: $43. Rockauto.

The inspector was very adamant about it being a bad cat. I have to disagree. You're saying that I just drove the car 1400 miles in 6 days, and posted a 25.3 mpg, (EPA est 18) and that there's an issue with it? I'm not so sure.

I have to buy some parts and do a little work before it can be back on the road again.






-ryan s.

[Merlyn2220]

P0420 is probably caused by the lean misfire. That could be anything from a bad wiring connection to the injector or plug, clogged injector, bad spark plug, bad O2 sensor, etc. My wife's Miata would routinely throw a P0420 when the coil packs were dying. Nothing wrong with the cat, it was just getting a random misfire that made the computer think something was wrong with it. The computer never came up with a "too rich" or "too lean," go figure. At one point I had an injector die, and the stupid computer complained about P0420 instead of "cylinder 3 has no fuel."

[svt98t]

Update:
The motor I built has developed a knock. F.
Oh well. I'm stuck at a cross-roads now.

Option #1:
Get a junkyard Explorer motor with the aluminum block and PI heads. It has a 30 day warranty on it. Swap them out and go.

Option #2:
My buddy offered up a Teksid (aluminum) block with stock rotating assembly. If I put my PI heads on that with the flat topped pistons, it should be near 12.1:1 compression. That's outstanding, and will require premium gas.

Now, with the second option, will the increased engine efficiency from the higher compression be enough to offset the cost of running premium? I've been using my Google skills and reading up on this, and even from 8:1 to 9:1, the efficiency goes up 5%-6%.
I found a research paper on this, but I forgot where I saw it. Trying to find it now.

-ryan s.

[Frank Lee]

Burn E85.