The tale of the 87' Colony Park

[87gtVIC]

Love this pic

[pantera77]

wagon is looking even more sexy! what spring rate did you end up going with?

925# front and 250# back. There still settling as well.




As most of you know, I was at STAP, which was a total absolute fucking blast. Got to meet a few GMNers and BS about boxes and their awesomeness.

Mandatory in front of the STAP sign:


In front of the plant:


Box city:




Cool pic a_d_a_m snapped of me:



Also went racing again. Ran my best time ever of 16.09 shuffling the AOD like a deck of cards.

Here's some of the runs I made, fastest was the last one.

[1990LTD]

That's a fine specimen of wagon. Do you know what it weighs? Any stripping or do you run it with full trim?

[sly]

nice running there in the wagon. nice win over the chebby.

[gabegt90]

great pics zach mang it was great to see you again I had a blast

[johnunit]

sweet. that thing has some nice top-end to it.

[pantera77]

That's a fine specimen of wagon. Do you know what it weighs? Any stripping or do you run it with full trim?

Besides for the smog and a/c being gone, it's bone stock weight wise. All I do is remove the spare when racing.

nice running there in the wagon. nice win over the chebby.

LT1 didn't know 'bout mah HO.

great pics zach mang it was great to see you again I had a blast

Hell ya it was

sweet. that thing has some nice top-end to it.

Ya, total dog out of the hole, but once I hit 3500 and the cam wakes up it pulls hard.

Have to shift it at about 5100, because it starts pinging bad. Even with 93 in the tank it was very unhappy. Have to pull some more timing out of it, but I think it's going pretty lean too.


Today I decided to change the tach. I really dislike gauges that are just "hangin out" which the old tach was. So I took the sunpro one out of my 91 marq and decided to put it in the drivers side vent. The vent wasn't the right one anyways, so I didn't feel bad about cutting it up. Now all my gauges match! Although next up on my list will be moving the trio right above the clock.

[87gtVIC]

Where do you have in mind to relocate the trio of gauges above the clock? Finishing up that custom speedometer/gauge cluster?

[pantera77]

Where do you have in mind to relocate the trio of gauges above the clock? Finishing up that custom speedometer/gauge cluster?

I was unhappy with where that project was heading. I'll think of something else.


Updates, finally went Mass Air. It's so much happier now. Also bought a "new" tranny for it.

[pantera77]

Got some work done today. Getting ready to get the new trans in.

First I got rid of the old cooler setup. It was the factory tow package cooler and a tube and fin looped together. I really didn't like how it looked, and it had a ton of slices in the lines and generayl was just ugly and complicated.




Replaced all of that with a nice sized plate cooler. It's mounted directly in front of the fan I usually turn on:



Cleaned and degreased the new trans:



All nice and painted. I used VHT's engine paint. Really nice stuff so far.





Bitches all jelly of my ProStand9000:




Ready for operation:




Hmmm, something looks to be missing:




There it is!




I realized the new tranny had the wrong style TV lever after I painted it of course:



Driveshaft, cross member, new and old converter's and the old fluid:

[1990LTD]

Was the old transmission bad? New one looks good!

[Grand_Marquis_LSS]

lookin good.. I be pulling my tranny next weekend to do all the seals.. The front especialy.

[pantera77]

Was the old transmission bad? New one looks good!

It wasn't bad, just not good.

lookin good.. I be pulling my tranny next weekend to do all the seals.. The front especialy.

Ya, I got lucky, mine already had all new seals. Although I should have done the rear main while it was out, but this engine is just coming back out next year anyways.


Got it buttoned up last week, hadn't really had time to do the finishing touches. Had to swap the shift levers which was a pain, but at least it's mostly done.

Summit finned aluminum +1qt pan, any deeper would have been to low for my liking:


Ready to go, unfortunately my ATV lift doesn't go high enough so this actually didn't work as intended:






After driving it today:

Still have pinging issues at ~5K. Dropped the timing to 10, and have a full tank of 93. It just starts getting bad right before it shifts. The first run I forced it to upshift by momentary taking my foot off the gas. The rest are just held to the floor. If you listen closely you can hear it. Otherwise, all seems well.

If you compare that video to this video last year with the old tranny, you can see (and hear) quite the difference.

[johnunit]

oh man. that shift always sounded horrible, but the back-to-back makes it cringeworthy. It looks like overally the WR helped acceleration a ton. Jealousy is creeping....

[1990LTD]

That Summit pan is interesting. Upon further investigation, pricy, but nice. It's weird seeing an AOD that isn't covered in dirt and grease.