Hey Slymer,

Those headers and the 2.5" exhaust would work dandy on a 351w too...... Better rod angle and a stonger crank!


Anyhow a bit off topic but I don;t feel like starting a new thread, what kind of fuel milage are you getting from your 88 MGM??

I may have found a sucker err gentleman who is willing to trade me his 91 MGM and some cash for my Sable...

 

depending on condition of how car was taken care of and what gears are in the rear... my 1987 has a 3.27 trac-lok in the rear and my girlfriends 1989 Crown Vic has 2.73 open...

my 1987 gets close to 20 or so on the highway
her 1989 gets close to 25 on the highway....

of course i have hers modded a lil more than mine at the present time too...

pictures of her car...

 

I just got a chance to go over the car a bit more thorougly today... and WOW it has service records.. It belonged to this guys father and he inherited it.. Of course it's too big, sucks too much gas, and won't go in snow. (Yeah whatever I tried to tell him that the Sable ain;t much better except for being smaller)

Anywho the old guy bought it new it has 108K. Aux trans cooler installed at 2K.. Oil changed every 2500, trans serviced, tune up, gear oil channged every 25K.. Belts hoses and water pump changed at 100K.. And some other things (shocks, brakes, starter) along the way. I don;t think you could get much better maintained than that..

I'm guessing it has the 2.73 open diff as it's more luxury oriented with leather and all that crap.. Has some funky seat covers on it which I'm betting have been there since pretty close new, the seats are excellent.. (I'm guessing he didn;t like cold leather seats)...

THe bad is just typical crap.. Headliner it starting to sag, clear coat is peeling, vinyl top is dried out, wheels need cleaned something fierce.. It was smoked in, I'm gonna smoke in it.. No biggie.. My biggest worry that it has been putted around alot and not really run as I am probably gonna run it.. I figure some perma dry v/c gaskets and intake gaskets will be in the near future...

I had the Sable unofficially for sale for a while now.. I don;t really need another car but he offered me this MGM and $500 for the Sable, even after I told him about all the issues I've had with it... He's running the Sable over the weekend to try it out... I probably have everything fixed on it now and it'll make HIM a great car..

 

currently I'm getting about 14mpg in town and 19mpg highway. I'm still tweaking the TV cable so I may be able to bump it up a bit. also, I upgraded my trans to a wide range gear-set, so it's not stock any more. stock without problems should give you about 13/19.

 

i would get a trans. cable brass bushing to replace the plastic brittle one in there. to know the difference in the rearend gears, cheack the driver door and look at where it says ax... that will give you the code for rearend...

Axle codes
Open rear/Trac-Lok/Ratio #
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
G / H / 2.26
B / C / 2.47
8 / M / 2.73
7 / ------- / 3.07
Y / Z / 3.08
4 / D / 3.42
F / R / 3.45
5 / E / 3.27
6 / W / 3.73
2 / K / 3.55
A / ------- / 3.63
J / ------- / 3.85

if you get to a junkyard, get a HO upper plenum to replace stock since you will pull that for the valve covers. when it is removed, use some B-12 carb cleaner or something and spray the lower intake channels and clean the crap outta the upper plenum. i use a small wire toothbrush looking thing to clean them up nice. when reassembled it will start hard, and blow black smoke from the crap that just got cleaned out. another thing, get EGR spacer gaskets and where the small hose connects to the return line from heater core, bypass that to the nipple on the lower intake in the back so if the EGR gaskets go bad it doesnt suck coolant into the intake. and also change the PCV and the screen under it since it will be accessible. below are pictures of dirty and cleaned up lower intake the way i described how to do it...

 

Slymer, How you like the wide ratio?? I involentarily had to tear the trans down in the Mustang and did the same swap.. It's NICE! Not to mention I have a stronger trans now.. If I can manage to break it again though I think I'm either going to go all out and use a 4r70w like in the Cougar or a Lentech valve body.. I'd like the option to manually shift 1-2-3 and lock out overdrive...


X2 on the brass TV cable bushing if you don;t have one already.. I used to keep those things in stock for any time I had a trans job.. Who the hell had the bright idea to connect a cable (that when disconnected can quickley fry the trans) with a cheapo rubber bushing..

The MGM has been sitting for a year so I can;t gauge how bad it leaks, but it definitely looks like the V/C and the ends of the lower intake are leaking. I may attack the valve seals for good measure.. I have the upper and lower intake from the 94-95 Mustang Cobra I may use on it.. Not sure about hood clearance yet.. If not I guess it'll be time to clean the basement and see what goodies I have around..

I'm betting on this thing being cruddy even with the frequent oil changes, unless pappy had a lead foot.. What scares me the most is what's under the lower intake.. If it's too crusty the engine just may come out.. I wonder how nasty it would be to shoehorn a 4.6 in there... 87_Crown_Vic, your intake was ALOT cleaner to begin with than alot of them I've seen... I should pull the tube off the throttle body and peek in there to get an idea of how bad it might be..


Darnit I need to stop making plans, I won;t know till tomorrow afternoon if the Sable worked, err I mean if the guy is gonna take it...
I haven;t broken the better half into the idea that I may not be not downsizing either.. I made the impression that the Sable was going and the 96 MGM and the VW were gonna be the daily drivers... Maybe I can hide it somewhere for a while...

 

I really like the wide gearset. take off is much easier on the car and OD is a little higher ratio. My car won't even shift into OD until it get to at least 45 (though this may just need some more tweeking of the cable to get that lower - would like it around 40-43). My trans allows locking out OD, but I can't manually shift the gears... it's 1-D-OD. Of course, that shift kit that was installed in mine when the gearset was makes first and second shifts really well. third seems to come early in my opinion, but that's been the case on every car I've ever driven. Third gear is always weird (on a 4/5 speed trans).

X3 on the brass bushing for the TV cable.

The problem with taking the upper plenum off of my car is that the throttle body and everything attached there seems to be welded in place (someone used make gasket instead of actual gaskets and it's basically welded itself together) and I can't even pry the stuff off. Last time I took the plenum off to change the vacuum hoses that attach under it (there's another major gripe against ford... why not extend those metal pipes to the edge of the plenum so that changing hoses can be done WITHOUT taking the plenum off) I had to leave the throttle body and everything there on it and just balance it on end while I worked with the hoses. The major beef I have about the 4.6 engine is the heater hose that goes under the intake and having to remove the entire intake to change 3 inches of hose crimped to a pipe. If there's ever a next time on that one, I may just put a hose inside some of that plastic cable wrap (the corrugated kind) and run the hose all the way back to the heater. (grrr)

 

I've been toying with the early 3rd issue on the Mustang. Doesn;t help that 3rd is 40% hydraulic drive and 60% direct drive that seems to make it feel worse.. THe Lentech valve body changes it so the shifter positions would be 1 2 D/OD with an electric lockout for overdrive like the AODE and such... Darn thing is 400 bucks though, about the same as a programmable stand alone controller for a 4R70w... I'm starting to really like that little electronic bugger...

I'll x2 about the hoses under the plentum, and the heater hose under the intake on the 4.6.. It couldn;t have been that hard to have the metal tube slide into the block with an 0-ring.. When I replaced the plastic POS intake on my 96 MGM I replaced that hose for good measure.. I cut the crimp off the pipe and replaced the rubber portion with low pressure hydraulic hose.. (not the stuff with the metal braiding in it) It's rated for 300 PSI or something like that and is supposed to be flame retardent.. I figure it'll last as long as the car, however long that may be...

 

cobra intake is same as an exploder intake... just different cover plate... thought i would share... since i know the exploder intake setup and the typhoon intake stuff i have will fit under the hood, your cobra intake will work and fit. dont plan on using regular underdrive pullies on the car... only one company makes the underdrive setup for our cars.

 

THe lower intake is the same ole GT40 but the upper is different...

This is the exploder intake
http://www.section525.com/asp84/intake.jpg

This is the Mustang
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/1...y200706dr4.jpg

The exploder intake was specific to the exploder, the Cobra intake was used on the 94-95 5.0 Cobra, and the '95 5.8 Cobra R.. (The 95 Cobra R intake actually has "5.8" cast into it rare as hell!) Exploder intake is a tad lower..

Don;t think the Cobra intake is gonna work even if it does clear the hood.. I think the throttle body is gonna be smakin the a/c compressor.. THe 91-93 T-Bird/Cougar also had their own upper intake on the 5.0HO.. Similar in shape to the Cobra, much lower, bolts to the standard ole MGM lower intake.. The Cobra and the Cougar/T-Bird intake both use the same throttle body which is different from the others... Got a crap load of those, but once again throttle body is gonna be either agains the A/c or if turned against the firewall...

I dunno if I would even bother with the underdrive pulles.. I thought the gain was pretty minimal on the Cougar and Mustang.. Just had dim headlights at low speeds when electrical loads were high..

The guy with the 91 MGM brought my Sable back today and seemed pretty happy with it.. I guess he's gotta get some paperwork to be able to transfer the tittle from his deceased father.. So far it sounds like I may be getting a new toy... I think I'll start working on the better half tomorrow at dinner....