87 Grand Marquis 2 door build

Not shure if this will be concidered a hot rod by all. Guees you will let me know.
First 87 was the last year for the full size 2 door Fords. In Grand Marquis trim there were only about 4900 of them assembled. Spare parts for them are mostly made out of unobtianimum.

This was my first one Midnite Blue. My thoughts after driving it for a while was to set it up like an old school NASCAR build with full power equipment. First visable changes were the addition of 8x15 and 10x15 IMSA wheels. They had the correct ofset to mount 275x50s front and 295x50 rear TA radials. No fender mods required.

It's got potential; it's a full framed rear wheel drive two door with a V8. Go for it, most of us have never seen one of these done and it might be interesting.

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Originally Posted by falconvan

It's got potential; it's a full framed rear wheel drive two door with a V8. Go for it, most of us have never seen one of these done and it might be interesting.

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Yup,,certainly different,,and by that,I dont mean to be rude...I quite like some of these years of cars..specially the coupes..I had a 1978 Mercury Zephyr wagon for a few years,which someone had thrown a 302w into..went okay,but was butt ugly..Was intending to build a new engine,and lower it a tad,but something else got in the way,and it had to go..That coupe of yours looks better..Just needs lowering a little,and a stroker in the engine bay..What did they come out with?Windsor??carbs or injection??

Long before the wheels and tires first mods were to the engine. earlyer yeas were carbed low performance 302s. Later CFI and by 86 were SEFI, Hyd roller what were LOPO 5.0s. 351Ws were aviable in Police intercepters and started out as carbed then veriable venturi to CFI. Never went to SEFI with these 351Ws. Think if Ford had always offerd a high performance version of this chassis sales would have been different.

My first change was to install a 5.0 HO throttle body on the engine. Std these came with 48 ish MM TBs. The Mustang came with a 60 MM TB. The upper and lower intake were the same as the early 5.0 HO Mustangs. The differance was the upper inlet faced the driver side in a Mustang it faced the passenger side. The EGR spacers were also different. The bores were different and the throttle linkage attached to the EGR spacers differently. For a first attempt just champhered the TB side edge to clear the TBs butterfly. Also installed a bleed to remove air from the coolant passage for the EGR as it was a high point in the system.

The 5.0 TB was the next issue, the belcrank was 180* out. Fixed it by redrilling attachment points of the cables. 5.0 HO TB on the right Grand Marquis on the left.
The other pic shows it redrilled and cleaned up.

The engine bay looked basicly like this another 2 door I purchased.
The reality is I was busy working on other cars like my Mustang. I realy started to enjoy the Merc and its comforts. Ease of getting in and out of great on trips, roomy, nice ride. The TB swap improved performance and economy. Was a bit difficult to get it to idle but smoothed out after a couple months. Years later getting into EFI and programing it I undestad why. Traded my 84 mustang with a 70 Boss 302 in it for half down on an ofshore boat. Started realy thinking about tricking out the Merc. Have owned I dont know how many Mustangs and guess got a bit tired of them.

Deciding to go old school NASCAR started to look into the suspension. First supprise was that this chassis used upper and lower A arms. Before looking thought it was the typical front strut rod lower I arm suspension often called in circle track the Hollman Moody front end.
This ment had to look at different options than the stock car parts for the H&M style.
The front suspension was different than standard A arm set ups. So ideas for using tubular upers and lowers were out the window for now.
Best lower arm that would fit were the Police lowers. A bit stronger than std ones with better ball joints. Was lucky I purchased the last ones from Ford. OEM replacements for these do not exist.
2 choices for uppers. The Police uppers used bronze bushings as the 70ish Mustangs. They have to found used and are not servaceable at this point if found. Have one pair found in 15 or so years.
Endes up going with the original uppers with new rubber bushings and the PI upper ball joint.
Brakes in the front were upgraded to PI units which only required PI pads and calipers. Went with Raybestos units. Loved the almost dustless Super Stop pads. Think they went over 100k before replacing and still had meat on them.
Front sway bar was the weeny one and none on the rear. Went aftermarket and purchased front and rear Addico ones.

Been busy. The next step was springs and shocks. Checked into the weight of the car. Aprox 4000 lbs, 2500 front 1500 rear. Selected Street Stock 12.5 length 1000# springs. Figured this would lower the front about 1.5". Front shocks also street stock units from Afco.

pictures of stance with new springs please

Next was picking rear springs. The double pig tail end springs reduced the options. Street stock versions had been discontinued. Only single pig tails and way to short.
Ended up using some station waggon oveload springs. There were two versions variable rate and straight rate (which was no longer avalable). The variable rates went in. Used standard rear shocks for a bit while searching for longer shocks. The springs raised the rear to the point there was only a 1" or so of extension.

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Pic of the front springs installed. Much easier than the stock units didnt need a spring compressor.

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Drove this thing as a daily driver for years at this point (kinda catching you up with whats up today). Installed dual exhaust had to fab up factory looking mouts as stockers were not avialable. Just used factory muffs and stock exhaust. Cats were removed later as they srtarted to burn out. Actually one of them the core cracked appart and clogged up one of my new mufflers witch had to be replaced.
The car would realy corner. Not a lot of power but was a bit suprizing. Corners many high end sports cars couldnt keep up. They could cath me on a straight. Remember kicking it turning left in a busy kind of a sharp Y ish intersection. Floored it looked in the rear vew mirror and there was a M5 behind me front wheels turned into the slide trying to control it sliding side ways to keep up. I was noting the nice brakes on his car.
Eventually I bent the IMSA approved rims hanging corners. Had to use a dial indicator to figure out what was wrong after three trips to check alignment and wheel ballance. I finaly at that point had some semi custom Weld Wheels made up. Issue solved. I picked the NASCAR looking ones.

Eventually installed equi lenght shorty headers and off road pipes into the stock mufflers. Rear shocks being a bit short issue was solved by installing double adjustable QA1 shocks. Purchased the coil over versions but no coil over coils at this point.


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Somewere along the line I installed a Canton road race pan. It was left over from the Boss 302 in the 84 mustang. I wouldnt fit in it because of the road race style headers.


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Here is the car think its the summer I had to rebuild the passenger front torq box.
Battery cept busting loose flipping the car around corners. Battery impailed itself on a bolt and would drain one cell dry. Guess were the eletolite went. Into the frame. Poored some baking soda water mix all round were the battery sat and into the frame before repair. Soda was bubbling up like mad. Noticed the top of the frame rail from the torq box towatd the rear about a foot felt like there was a crack. Couldnt see it only enough room to feel for it.

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More views

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Cool, very different build.

Moving along the car started shaking again mostly when it shifted. The frame rail on the passenger side with the crack I felt had gotten worse. I had already cut a torq box to torq box section from a 4 door Grand Marquis I had stripped to the bare frame.
So for my 2 week X-mass break took the car to my friends frame shop. He did restorations and built frames for race cars. Great guy. He charged me half price and I helped in installing the new one.
Because of the rust in the car i had been looking for a better one for a couple years.
Figured cheeper to find a good one than fix this one. Found a few but were gone before I could check them out.
As we were working on the car I was joking about finding one probably about 2 weeks after all this work.

"As we were working on the car I was joking about finding one probably about 2 weeks after all this work."

:DCarefull what you ask for, it has happened before.

Well a friend and I go to the first of the year swap meet at the Michigan State Fair Grounds. Its the first weekend in January. I see a 2 door but it looks like a Lincolin but a bit strange. My friend notices it too and says something. I drive closer and look its not a Lincolin. Put a half down payment on it and finial payment at the end of the month when I picked it up. Here is what I found. Already changed the wheels at this point it also had lincolin wire wheel hub caps , grill and hood oniment

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Front and sides


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Well after driving it around for a while it was time to remove the conti kit. Kinda cool but not my style. It was even hooked to the trunk pop button and would fall back when the trunk was opened.
Upon removal noticed the bumper was bent and a few extra holes so swapped the one off the blue car.


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Next move was to swap all the new suspension and brake parts from old blue to the new car now named "Creamy".

While making changes played around with the blue Merc a bit.
One was what would a dually version look like.

Looks like you came up with a much nicer car!!!! As for the duals, probably best to leave them on the truck!!!!!:LOL::LOL::LOL:

How about flipping the headers and

Check room for a pair of T-BIRD turbos

The turbos are still on the back burner. One issue would be making new inner fender wells as the factory plastic ones would melt.
How about making a fiberglass hood with cowel induction scoop.

It's got potential; this bodystyle is growing on me. I'll bet the boneyard parts are cheap and plentiful, too.

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Originally Posted by falconvan

It's got potential; this bodystyle is growing on me. I'll bet the boneyard parts are cheap and plentiful, too.

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That depends. Tudors in this body style are amoung the lowest production cars Ford built. In 87 (the last year for 2 doors) 4900 Mercs and 5800 Crown Vics were built. Early years of this body style production numbers were a bout the same. 4 doors plenty were built. Lots of them were turned in for cash for clunkers or even more ended up demo derby cars. Being the last full framed car. Most things like chrome trim, window and door rubbers, doors, etc are now made out of unobtainium. Waggons are the next most difficult to find. Been looking for the front bumper for a 86 87 for 5 or so years now. The waggons these years had an aluminum bumper. Stock steel bumper is almost 80 lbs in steel. Shure would improve my track times on a road course or autocross.

The body style kinda grew on me too as well as driving the car.

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Originally Posted by turbo2256b

made out of unobtainium.

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That's a popular building material for many reproduction parts.....:LOL::LOL:

Installed duals using 90ish Mustang eqi length headers and off road H pipe.

Had to make some hangers based on the stock single frame mounts as replacements for either side were not available. One for the tail pipe hanger one for the muffler hanger.

Decided the car needed a new look. So I removed the front and rear bumpers and the grill. You might notice the head lite covers I made too

Rear

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pretty cool, like the stance especially from rear, nice use of wheelwell wdith little available, me samething actually machined 3/16 spacers spacers for under load conditions, read turning

Decided the tail lites needed some work so I painted the edges that were cromish but deteriorated. Also felt the brightness wasnt to good either.

Reflectors were a dull gray, painted them with some silver. That didnt seem enough so medium size silver flake was sprayed on top of that.

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Latest engine pics. Custom headers and exhaust includes eletric cutouts with quiet factory style mufflers. Aprox HP 430.

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That's some very nice detail work on the engine!!!!! Makes a Blue Oval man proud!!!! Very well done!

Very cool! Most people don't expect to get their doors blown off by a Mercury Marquis!