I mentioned this in the other thread that was originally about baby seats. The car was in West Virginia at my grandfather's house. He died back in November and they are cleaning out his house and trying to get rid of some stuff. Nobody else wanted it and the price was right so it is now in my driveway.










I took the hubcaps off because it was easier to reach the valve stems to air up the tires without them. I don't dislike the look so I captained the USS barcalounger all the way back home with the caps in the trunk. Unfortunately I think my wife hates them so I'm gonna get some new wheels. I will be looking for some suggestions/photoshop work for any new wheels. The bolt pattern and offset is identical to the 2005-2009 Mustangs so I was leaning toward a set of the plain-jane 17" five-spoke.

Other things to do will be an upgraded stereo, I thought it may have had only a tape player but thankfully I was wrong. Just a single disk CD player AM/FM radio. Still trying to decide what I want to do as far as audio.
New paint
Dual exhaust, I may just slap on the police interceptor setup or maybe some magnaflows, again still undecided.
Passenger side exterior mirror is shattered so that's probably the first thing I'll do but it's the least exciting so I mention it last.


Other noteworthy things, it's only got 26000 miles and on the 600 mile journey I averaged 29.6 MPG.

Nice, but I agree with your wife that those steelies gotta go. Sometimes I like steelies but not in this case.

You should slap my old heads and cams on there.
I have no idea how you're getting that kind of mileage, though.

I'm not gonna fight it, I'm going to use the opportunity to upgrade to 17". The steelies are only 16".

Here's the ones I'm leaning towards:




I checked the door tag: 2.73 ring and pinion.

Yup, that's too bad. 96-98 mustangs had 2.73's and auto's had 3.08's. They only carried the 2.73's past 1999 with lincolns and merc's like yours.

omg, fiber. You bought a landbarge.

the grand marquis/crown vic is probably one of the best selling cars in saudi, and many people i know got them as hand-me-downs from their parents. i believe ford offered an upgrade package of some sort, i'd grab the subtle trunk lid spoiler from that. the wheels you have picked out are pretty decent, but more than anything, you need to tighten up the handling on that boat. go for some beefed-up anti-roll bars, and just concentrate on the suspension for now. i've seen some crazy things done to them, and the end results have been absolutely astonishing. proper handling, and v8 power turns them into proper modern day muscle. congrats btw.

More like he got it for free.



Hot damn. I only get about 26 mpg in my Jetta with 2/3s highway driving, but I'm not always the easiest on the gas pedal.

Yep, there's quite a few guys on the panther forums from saudi.

A quick ebay search just turned up the spoiler, it looks nice but it's $200-$300 and probably 99.99% a cosmetic upgrade. I suspect the upgrade package might be similar to the one offered here which was called LX Sport for the Crown Vics. Fancy alloy wheels, floor mounted shifter, body colored grille, etc.

It looks like I can get front and rear sway bars for $400 total. It's not high on my list of priorities to get the yacht faster through corners but for $400 I'll most likely end up doing it eventually. I don't have any delusions to super great handling. At the end of the day it's still a fat 4000 pounder with a moment of inertia like an oil tanker.

Paint it black and don't dump anymore money into it. Maybe lower it a little bit. Make it into a ghetto cruiser

^Paint it flat black!

Bolt on that Eagle (that's over your garage door in the pics) as a hood ornament!!!!!
Now that's what a REAL American would do.

That's not my garage.

Wheel choice #4 works. Ultraleggaras? No way!

None of those, fiber. Here's the real ticket...

Ha, they were on sale so I threw them on there. They're too spindly for such a bulky car.

Why do you hate my road-going sofa?

Great photoshop work btw, phix. That looks like that car is REEALLY getting crushed.

ms paint all the way

he doesn't understand how appealing luxobarges are to da wimmenz

My uncle's grand marquis is currently at 226k miles and still ticking. Those things last forver.

Paint it black and always wear a suit, tie and sunglasses driving it.
NOBODY will dare to cut you off.

Wheel option 4 suits the car. If I had a choice I'd go for those.

I used to run into one of these on a commute frequently. It was black, lowered a tad bit, had dual chrome exhauts, tinted windows all around and looks as if it were piano black. I gave it space whenever I saw it.

These fill up the wheel well so much nicer.

This thread is begging for Umberto.

#4 looks good btw, Fiber.

Umberto died when Paulie left.

Mexican heart attack.

The #4 that everybody likes are the 18" wheels for a Mustang GT commonly called "Sawblades". I like that set a lot but I'm not crazy about running 18" tires. I might do a 'big and little" setup with the tires like a Marauder.

How about corvette sawblades? They can be had for super cheap.

Not sure if it's the same bolt pattern for both cars (5x4.75)

Hah, yes this is a volkswagen.

It's not the same. The Grand Marq uses a 5 on 4.5" pattern. Offset is 50mm.

Wheel choice 4 works perfect. 1 is also good. Get tints for the car, long radio antennas and maybe red and blue lights in the rear window . Drive on the far left lane of the freeway But congrats man, car looks comfy. And Hex, JTI's look so bad IMO, I dont even know why people have conversions GOLF<->JETTA vice versa. Total waste.

I like the Bora front-end on the Golf. I think it looks good. Those 'Vette wheels just don't work though.

Fiber, why don't you just rock the wheels from the Crown Vic LX Sport package? They were designed for the car, and they look really good on it too.

They're tough to find. Guys with the LX Sports like their wheels so it's rare they show up on ebay. I found a place that sells OEM replacement wheels but they're almost $200 per.

Nice buy. Honestly, I had an old Crown Vic and it was a great road-tripper.

These look decent on there - http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/WheelCloseU...&sort=Brand

Dude, where have you been?


I thought about those Elbrus wheels but:
Manufactured in China

If the 18" ones from the Mustang are still on sale when I'm ready to buy I'll get those. Otherwise they are on ebay often enough that I shouldn't have a problem.

Honestly...I got really involved in running another website and lost interest here. Saw a bookmark and thought, "hey, that place was cool." I think I'll add it back to my daily stops.

Welcome back old timer. Do you still visit the 1911 forum or anand tech?

Yeah, I still visit 1911 Forum and shoot 1-2 days a week. Anandtech I'm not on too often, unless I'm looking to pick up some used hardware.

mitlov leaves and EVERYONE COMES BACK !!!

This is so hiliarious. Seriously. This is the best ever.

Today was muffler day for me:


X-pipe crossover


2.5" Magnaflows, it's a dual system but it's hard to photograph both of them simultaneously.

I had them run the tailpipes in the stock location so it's very stealthy. The sound is slightly more aggressive than stock while accelerating but while cruising at a constant speed it's not very noticeable. I'd say slightly quieter than my truck, at least inside the cabin.

Nice. Have you made a decision on the wheels? Any suspension bits yet?

The wheels is still up in the air. These are the front runners:



The paint color I decided on is Regal Blue Pearl which is a Subaru color. I'm going to discuss that with my painter next week to see what kind of schedule he has.

mmm sounds like everything is coming together nicely. it seems pretty tough to find some decent suspension for the mariner.

There are beefier swaybars and better shocks. Addco for the swaybars and Bilstein shocks were the names I heard, but I'm not familiar with them. I probably won't get too deep into the suspension anyway. The ability to float down the road is part of the appeal, particularly after becoming so accustomed to my truck.

^ Haha, that is one badass sounding Merc.

Sounds subtle but good.

Magnaflow's are about as subtle and smoothe as it gets.

It's hard to believe the same company makes mine:

It's exactly what I was after. I have watched too many videos on youtube trying to get a feel for what it would sound like. And the muffler shop did a VERY impressive job on it, I don't think I could be more pleased with how it turned out.

But while I was under there admiring their work I noticed my differential is leaking.