Mikey's new four-door

[1987cp]

Well guys, I've finally managed to acquire a four-door! Hearing that our pal Greg (torquelover) was thinking about selling his black '87 P72 affectionately nicknamed "The POS" got the mental gears turning, and doggone if I didn't manage to buy the thing. I sent him a check last week, and rode the train out on Saturday and drove the car back yesterday (Wed, 9/10). Turns out I was able to stop by my local Secretary of State office on the way home and applied for a Michigan title and transferred the plate from the '81 two-door that's been sitting in the garage for seeming decades. So far I haven't done much with the car, just some minor electrical tinkering and peeling off some of the window tint.

Current details on the car, as I can remember them:

Body - stock, slicktop
Suspension - stock, police package
Interior - stock, base model/police with 140mph speedo and nonadjustable bucket seats
Engine - '87 351W, rebuilt 1998, 9.6:1 compression, E7 heads
Edelbrock Performer 2122 cam, 2181 intake, 1406 carb
Crane 1.6:1 roller rockers with conversion kit
Stock Duraspark distributor with Crane Hi-6 ignition box and coil
BBK 351-swap headers, custom 2.25" dual exhaust with Flowmaster 40 series mufflers and no crossover pipe
Currently running a pair of 2.5" high-flow catalytic converters
AOD transmission rebuilt in 2004 at Atlas Transmissions, Lake Station, IN, featuring ~2400 stall converter and full TransGo AOD-HP shift reprogrammer kit (incl. HIREV governor mod) in "Stage 1" calibration (RV/heavy-duty mode)
Aluminum driveshaft, 3.27 open rearend
'98 police wheels and hubcaps with 235/60/16 Kuhmo Ecsta ASX tires

Desktop Dyno readout for current engine specs - see attached

[86VickyLX]

Awesome mang!!!

[85crownHPP]

hooray it went into good hands!!!!

You are getting quite a collection there!

[gabegt90]

nice mike will I be able to see the pos in action next January ?

[1987cp]

nice mike will I be able to see the pos in action next January ?

Most likely! I've thought of lending it to my mom, but the way things are going I'll be needing it myself, at least during the winter months.

[torquelover]

Wow, Michael. The desktop dyno results confirm the seat of the pants feel of the car in it's current state, IMHO. Did you get the paperwork from Atlas Transmissions? I do not recall it being in the folder, but I have been a bit under the weather lately.

[1987cp]

Don't remember if the Atlas receipts are in there; I'll try to have a look today, since I need to put that folder somewhere safe anyway.

[1987cp]

Linky to new picture thread: http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthread.php?p=382414

[1987cp]

Tonight I couldn't sleep and went out and fixed a minor seatbelt issue Greg told me about when I picked up the car. The latch on the driver's belt had failed and he'd temporarily substituted a latch from the rear seat, center position. Turns out it was pretty easy to harvest the needed parts from one of the '79 latches I have, and even with two or three false starts at reassembly I had the driver's latch working again in pretty short order.

While reinstalling the rear-center latch in its correct position so I can easily install our child safety seat, I discovered a bunch of water underneath the seat pad by the p/s rear door. Long, hard rain showers like we've had the last day or two are great for discovering these things. At least water doesn't rain right on my head or leg while driving as I've experienced with certain other vehicles, but I'll have to do some head-scratching on where this water is coming from so I can hopefully keep the floor from rusting from the inside out!

Another oddity that you may notice from my signature pic; the Vic has a Mercury front bumper on it!



Just to make sure, I measured against the bumpers from the wagon and from the '81 - the Ford bumper guards are about 39" on-center, and the Mercury ones about 32". Since I'm told the header panel and d/s fender were non-original as of quite a number of years ago, perhaps this Mercury piece was simply what they found handy when doing the repairs. When I get a chance I'll have to swap over my '81 Ford outer bumper and maybe test-fit this thing on the wagon along with the non-striped rear bumper that came off the late Country Squire.

That in turn reminds me, this car sports a super-nice front air dam on the lower radiator support. If I'm not much mistaken, the paperwork I got with the car includes somewhere the part number for this air dam .... so I guess if it's still available, I can see about putting some on the other cars!

Edit: Here it is, invoice from Art Hill Ford dated July 23 1998 (same place I bought my wagon eight months before!!) reading D9AZ-8349-A, DEFL RAD AIR L, $15.11 list, $11.33 net. Now let's all go try to buy front air dams!

Finally, contrary to previous conclusions, I think I'll be removing the remaining lower chrome strip from the car's driver's side to match the other side where the original brightwork fell off a few months ago, presumably as a result of a bit of a rust hole on the rocker panel that it had been hiding. Having an extra bright strip is a nice complement to the brightwork around the windows, but this car already has one in the form of the very nice bumper strips on the doors that are actually backed with real metal.

Speaking of which, I really appreciate the quality of these particular door strips, given my strong distaste for the more common entirely-rubber ones that tend to be significantly warped by this point in a car's life ... anyone know the background information on the different types of door strips?

[1987cp]

Second edit about air dam: Team Ford Parts and one or two other sources list that part number as "Cooling - Radiator support - Air deflector - Lower seal". List $9.38, TFP price $7.50. Could that in fact be the air deflector itself? And if so, what does the listing mean by "Lower seal"?

[Nathan in MI]

I wonder if those door bumpers are original or if someone put them on later. I say this for two reasons; first, I've never seen door bumpers on a Panther that were anything other than entirely rubber, and second, my '89 doesn't have any door bumpers whatsoever, something I'm guessing is due to the fact that it's a stripped down model and the department that originally ordered it didn't think they needed them. This car also being a police edition, it wouldn't surprise me if it was the same situation when it was originally ordered.

[1987cp]

Either way, they're darn nice door bumpers. The rubber inserts have shrunk somewhat, but they still look great. If they were aftermarket, I wonder if they're still available ....

If this new-for-2008 Michigan monsoon season ever lets up, I shall have to spend more time with tuning to try to regain some of the power that was presumably lost in the quest to detune it in hopes of passing Northwest Indiana emissions checks.

[79lincolnlover]

Enjoy your new toy!!!

[1987cp]

Thanks!

New factoid of interest: I threw my vacuum gauge on the engine and found it to be pulling only 15 inches of vacuum at idle. I'm used to seeing 20-22 with the 208/216 degree Crane hydraulic roller in the wagon, so it seems odd to me to see vacuum that low with the 204/214 degree hydraulic flat-tappet Performer 2122. Only time I saw vacuum that low on the wagon was when I was learning the fun way that one of my carbs was rather screwed up in its lid (needle-and-seats alternately sticking open and closed). Oh well, perhaps there's just a vacuum leak somewhere .....

[Nathan in MI]

Golly gee whillickers, I hadn't realized that that car had the same cam in it that my '89 did.