Dynoed the Town Car

Had a chance to make some pulls on the personal car finally. This is a 98 TC Cartier with the dual exhaust and premium fuel required stickers.

67K miles, replaced the stock plugs and air filter first thing this morning. Paper replacement filter element. I wasn't surprised to see stock plugs though. Everything else is still stock including the air silencer. Both base and reprogrammed tunes were run with the new plugs and filter.

Stock it pulled a best of 149 rwhp and 230 rwtq after three pulls. Remember this is the upgraded engine/EEC calibration for 91 premium fuel only. I can't imagine what the real numbers are for those that have base models with regular fuel requirements.

After a few pulls trying to get the a/f curve as flat as possible I ended up with 174 rwhp and 246 rwtq. I had a slight bump in the a/f curve that after 3 hours I've determined that it's a MAF problem. I plan on installing a Marauder MAF and box next to see what the gains will actually be. But for now I have a good 93 octane program that produced 26 more hp and 16 ft lb tq. With SAE values it comes to 170 rwhp and 240 rwtq. Trying to add any more timing did absolutely nothing even with the KS turned off. I never heard a single ping from it either.

Nice gains for the big boat!

You using that as a test bed for a new line of Town Car upgrades? :wink2-green

Nice torque... nice numbers for 98 SOHC heads...

I'll bet the TC driver's feel is alot better.

I remember a C&D review of a crown vic that described the SOHC 4.6 as "the V8 that thinks it's a six"

I happen to own a 1998 Crown Vic with the above mentioned 4.6 SOHC. That thing is super smooth. Probably the smoothest idling engine I have ever felt. But the performance is very sad... It is only rated at 200hp from the factory. So the above mentioned #s are really not that surprising. Torque is surprisingly good though.

sleeper said:

"the V8 that thinks it's a six"

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LMAO.....stupid fords, haha. Thinks its a six and uses 4 times the gas, hehe.

Not Really

Not Really

J said:

LMAO.....stupid fords, haha. Thinks its a six and uses 4 times the gas, hehe.

Click to expand...

Actually, I drove a Crown Vic twin (Merc Grand Marquis) for a number of years at work and got surprisingly GOOD gas milage with it! 24-26 MPG on the road. Very simular to my Mark. BIG difference in the space tho. I could haul most anything I wanted to it the GM!

They average about the same as the Mark VIII. I don't see why they wouldn't since they have a less powerful engine but the same transmission and usually lower gears 2.73.

Man those gears are a DOG for such a big and heavy car with a relatively non-powerfull engine.

It all depends on what you are using the car for: the one I was using was for business, sales/service of medical equipment. I really needed the room AND the comfort for going long miles....worked for me. I wasn't racing, but it had plenty of speed. If it weren't for that cruise control, I'd still be in jail!

I picked this one up from ebay out of Miami. As far as the engine and trans go they seem to be in pretty good shape. Still had the stock air cleaner and plugs installed. I needed a car that I could put the kid (12 year old) in and not worry about her destroying it. She's trashed my Mark to the point it's going to take some real cash to bring it back. I don't know what kids now a day think or what goes through their heads. My dad would have punched me in the face if I ever took an ink pen to his leather, dash and panels or punched holes in it. Then I can also use if for business and travel.

This one was rated at 220 hp / 275 tq, 17 city / 25 hw. So the numbers are somewhat disappointing for real world stock. I've dynoed CVs of the same year and 99 which are supposed to be identical but with 5 less hp and tq, they had similar results.

I’m going to do a comparison each step of the way with this just to have some hard facts. I've got a 99 TC single exhaust, regular fuel that will make some pulls here soon also. So I can compare the results and share them. I posted over on some of the other sites and they were basically non-believers. They were sure there was something wrong with the car or how I dynoed it. People just don't want to believe that these cars just didn't make any real power. And all they see is peak hp/tq, they don't look at the whole picture.

The car barely made 200 ft tq below 2000 rpm to 2600. It then picked up slightly from 2600 until it fell below 200 at 3800 rpm. With the tune it was making 230 ft tq at 1700 rpm and didn't drop below 200 until 4500. And from 3400 rpm to redline it made 40+ more ft tq than stock. Then the hp increase from 4000 rpm to redline stayed 30 above stock. That's a significant jump from nothing more than just a tune.

I installed a trac-loc with 3.55s before the dyno. Driving around town with just the gear change it was still just as slow. If I drove like a blue hair it got 17 mpg. But the traffic was passing me up and it took the car for ever to get up to the speed limit. When I drove it to stay up with the traffic it got 16 mpg but you had to put your foot into it to keep up. This thing was a dog. Now with the tune I noticed a much quicker off the line with less throttle and I could pass without making it down shift. I've worked out a trans program for it that I think is pretty good for all around driving and plenty of pick up when you put your foot into it. Not harsh for those that don't want to get jerked around either. I'll be working on a more aggressive one later. But for now the biggest change to the car was the tune. Before I swore that someone had attached a trailer to the car. Now it feels like I dumped about 400 lbs off the tank. Still on the first tank after the dyno, only used 1/4 tank and it's been all in town with high 16 mpg.

I wonder if the newer 03+ TC/CV Feel much better than the current "dogs". My 98 Crown Vic is at 140k miles while it will probably last until 300k with no problems it is just getting a bit old I will probably replace it within a year or two.

I would hate for the newer vic to be as much of a dog as the current boat.

I can only say my '02 Town Car is actually adequately powered. The car handles nicely as well without that "big boat" feel. The wife and I often find ourselves speeding unintentionally.

Of course my interest in this is Lonnie developing a tune to make it even more responsive. :wink2-green

I think the Crown Vic Handles great. It is almost a 50/50 front/rear weight split and I took mine canyon carving and it performed quite well. Especially with some decent tires. VERY controllable at the limit, where as the Mark VIII but tried to escape.

The boat feeling is due to the light steering, soft shocks and GIANT dimentions.
I love the Crown Vic... most reliable/easiest to work on car I have ever owned. Just wish it had a bit more pep.