So, I thought I would make a thread for my car since I haven't yet haha anyway. I got the car about a year and a half ago my 4th panther btw. So my buddy owns a towing company, and i guess the old lady who had it died and it set for a couple years, then her grand kids decided to take a joy ride and the car got towed by my buddy and he somehow or the other came into ownership of it and offered it to me. I couldn't resist almost perfect interior, the clear on the hood roof and deck lid is faded and coming off but almost no rust at all. But it was in horrible mechanical condition from sitting for 2 years, but I didn't care. So I picked it up. Then on the way home it broke down, alternator belt broke, which caused the battery to die and left me stranded. It had gotten dark so I had to wait till the next day to put the new belt on, got the new belt on and away I went. Then the tranny starts acting up not wanting to shift and such, So I thought it would just need the fluid and filter changed and the TV pressure set and we would be good. So I got it home and did all the maitinence that weekend full tune up, along with the tranny fluid and filter change. Everything was good started driving it to work and getting it cleaned up. So I drove it for about 2 weeks and the tranny started acting up again, then within 3 days it was dead haha, every gear was first gear you know the story. I got it to my house and started reading a little and decided on a mustang tranny, for the higher shift points and the sprag retainer fix or whatever it is. I then went to my favorite local mustang junk yard and picked up an aod out of a 90 gt for a cool $200, I also snagged a set of stock mustang headers as a freebie while I was there, time for some new exhaust lol. So I went home and chopped off the stock exhaust, it needed to go anyway the the whole side of the muffler was blown out, then I pulled the old tranny out, and swapped out the shifter levers on the trannys, and stuck the new one in the car. I replaced both U joints while I was under there also. So I was back on the road and cruising again haha. That lasted for about 2 months and the poor lopo developed a very bad bottom end knock. Time for a H.O. swap, and mass air conversion YAY! Back to my favorite mustang junk yard to pick up the H.O., got one from a 92 LX 5.0. for $600. Then I did a little shopping on ebay and picked up and A9P ecu, a 70mm mass air meter cal'd for 19lb injectors, and a MAF meter wiring pigtail, got everything for $200. Started pulling out the old engine, yuck what a leaking greasy POS, good ridence. I then set the engines down side by side and started swapping brackets over and reversing the upper intake. Also at this time I put on a new water pump, replaced the pcv screen and gave it a good degreasing bath, and replaced the valve cover gaskets also. I was ready to put it back in, had it in there and hooked up in about 2 hours. I also decided to replace all my hoses at this time. Now hrmm what to do about my intake so I can use my mass air, and what to do about the egr spacer. I took some measurements and ran over to my local exhaust shop the next day and had them cut me a piece of 3'' tubing with a flare to 3.25'' on one end so it would fit snugly in the stock intake elbow. Now on the the egr, since I deleted all that stuff anyway I thought I would just order a mustang egr delete plate and do a little modding to my throttle cable bracket and make it work, so thats exactly what I did. I chose to go this route also because the local machine shop wanted $80 to bore the stock spacer and I was like F that lol. Okay so all that is taken care of time to wire the mass air sensor, searched for a while and found instructions I liked, and knocked it out in about an hour, super easy the hardest part was getting the cover slid back far enough to de-pin the ecu connector. All done wired and ready to run right? Wrong. I absolutly hate clutch fans, and my electric fan had not came yet, I know I can start it without a fan, but I waited anyway. It was there 3 days later. I wired it up and had it working. Now its time for the first start with the new engine and ecu, cycled the key a few times to get fuel pressure, then went for the start, it started up and ran perfect just like I had been driving everyday LOL I was so happy. I had my self a H.O. box haha. The joy only lasted for about a week though and the alternator died, &*%$# . You know what its time for now dont you? Yep 3G swap. So back to the junkyard to pic up a used 3G, and ordered the wiring kit and charge cable kit from www.rjminjection.com, the parts showed up in a few days and I did the swap in about an hour and half because I had to do a little grinding on the alt bracket to get more adjustment out of it cause the next size up belt I could find was to long and the stock one was just slightly to short, but a little clearance on the backet fixed that. Now I was all set, but wait the car had came with shitty dry rotted tires on the turbines, and a set of stealies on the back with studded snow tires on them. So I needed some fresh white walls and a serious cleanup on the turbines to get it looking fresh, so I got some oven cleaner and paint stripper and stripped the wheels down and cleaned them and smoothed the curb marks out, and I like purple and I had seen a few silver low riders with purple wires and I liked it. So I ran down to walmart and found a nice purple and went home and painted my turbines, I also made a curly cue antenna and painted it purple while I was at it 80's style lol. The next day I took my wheels down to the tires shop, bought a set of white wall tires and new valve stems and had them installed, came home and put them on the car. Man did it look sweet, life was good. Then it was nothin' but daily service and cruisin with it not stop for about a year with no proplems what so ever. Then about 4 months ago the front seal and bearing went out on the power steering pump, so I bought a new pump and stuck it on there and its been good for the past 4 months. That brings us to now. I've got another daily driver so the marquis could go full blown toy/project and I could do whatever I wanted with it. I'm currently collecting parts for a dart based turbo 351w build, and some misc goodies to do a wire tuck while im at it. This has been one of my favorite cars I have ever owned, very very rewarding replacing everything and doing it all my self, plus I like to tinker with my cars all the time so ive enjoyed it very much up to this point, and you cant beat the look on peoples faces when they see that it actually runs pretty good for a big heavy grandpa car haha.
CLIFFS : I suck at grammar and punctuation
Anyway here are my pics from start to finish
The oldest pics I have are while I was doing the H.O. swap
Here it is with the steels and studded snow tires on it
Interior
lopo out
New H.O. ready to go in
H.O. freshly installed
Modified throttle cable bracket on a mustang egr delete
Engine in and running with everything hooked up before I put my overflow tank back in and shortened my intake tube
Close up of the flared intake tube and mustang egr delete plate
Over flow tank installed and intake shortened
purple wheels with the new whitewalls and my purple curly antenna
First pictures of car after swap and painted wheels and new tires
Interior goodies
Fan switch
Hidden xm with the console open
My tree farm LOL
Some nice shots of the car
Electric pusher fan
3G swap
3G charge wire and breaker location
Some more nice shots of the car
Well thats it I hope you've enjoyed getting to know the story of my car and I a little better.
Comments and input welcome.
CLIFFS : I suck at grammar and punctuation
Anyway here are my pics from start to finish
The oldest pics I have are while I was doing the H.O. swap
Here it is with the steels and studded snow tires on it
Interior
lopo out
New H.O. ready to go in
H.O. freshly installed
Modified throttle cable bracket on a mustang egr delete
Engine in and running with everything hooked up before I put my overflow tank back in and shortened my intake tube
Close up of the flared intake tube and mustang egr delete plate
Over flow tank installed and intake shortened
purple wheels with the new whitewalls and my purple curly antenna
First pictures of car after swap and painted wheels and new tires
Interior goodies
Fan switch
Hidden xm with the console open
My tree farm LOL
Some nice shots of the car
Electric pusher fan
3G swap
3G charge wire and breaker location
Some more nice shots of the car
Well thats it I hope you've enjoyed getting to know the story of my car and I a little better.
Comments and input welcome.
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