Did it still ride as smoothly after those modifications? I know they ride really nice because of the air bag suspension. When the transmission went out in my mom's grand wagoner we borrowed my grandpa's crown vic. They are very comfortable cars. My grandpa's car was never a police unit either.They do. I had a 2005 Crown Victoria for a while, bought it with just 9k miles on it in 2009. Literally was the old man car, the previous owner was 89 years old and had to sell it because he couldn't drive anymore.
I then turned it from a land yacht into a sport yacht. Mach 1 mustang chin spoiler, Eaton 1 1/2" lowering springs, P71 (police interceptor) KYB mono shocks, Addco front and rear sway bars, Heinous billet rear control arms, Mustang 18 inch wheels with 255/55-18 Bridgestone Potenza summer tires, and I raided a crashed low mile P71 vic at the scrap yard for it's Metal Matrix composite drive shaft, 3.55 limited slip rear diff, and dual exhaust system that I replaced the stock mufflers with Magnaflows. Then had an ECU tune done to bump the power up a bit. Still wasn't fast, but it looked and sounded good lol.
These were taken after putting the mustang wheels on. It's already had all of the other work done.
I Think what surprised most people was just how well that car could take a corner. The crown vics of that era were actually pretty good handling cars for how big they were, and with the work I did it was insanely good. One of my favorite memories with that car was outpacing a guy in a Honda S2000 around a rather aggressive curve on one of the highway interchanges here. He was trying to pass me, and I felt like messing around. He should have beat me, but he ran out of bravery. The look of astonishment on his face when I stopped messing around and let him by was hilarious.
I have a soft spot in my heart for big full size sedans. I've been wanting to get my hands on another Electra to "hot rod" a bit.
The control arms and sway bars made it ride and handle like a big German sport coupe. The springs I used were Civilian spec so the rates were not super stiff like the p71. The shocks were quite firm, but it still rode amazingly well. I followed the Colin Chapman theory of road car suspension tuning. Soft spring, stiff shock, big bar (sway bar).
30mpg is a stretch on the far end of the spectrum. My 2005 was the start of the last stretch of the platform, not much to update from there until 2012. With the original rear end (2.73:1) it would manage about 28-30mpg with the cruise set at 60-65mph as long as there was no head wind or lots of hills. With the 3.55's it dropped to about 26-28mpg on the highway but picked up a couple MPG in town since it didn't have to work so hard to accelerate it's fat butt from a stop.
I would take a civilian p73 or p74 over a used p71 every day of the week. They aren't as different as people believe, and anything that is different pretty much bolts up.
I missed this one, and I can answer that. The rear window has a big chonky double seal and I do believe the windows are tracked in such a way that the rear windows push outward when they reach the top of the regulators travel. Mine was past 20 years old when I got it so a lot of the seals were a bit past their prime. That middle one, surprisingly, never leaked water. It made a good bit of wind noise though.
Had a 1995 Interceptor 2 years ago. Ex G.F. Gave me then broke up with me. I told her I didn't want it. Next thing I know it's parked under my carport. Don't know what the mileage was on motor but you could stand a quarter on the air cleaner when it modeled. It was THE FASTEST CAR I EVER OWNED, DAMIEN. Sold it to a guy who made a demolition derby car with it.
What a waste of a good fast car...lol.
Just a real world report. Mine got 34mpg. My buddy got 32...local taxi company got similar, according to their mechanic. This was not the 5.4l triton....which got me 22mpg in my expedition.
The vics only had the 4.6 Mod motor since it came out. 34 is impressive. Not normal, but impressive.
