Hello again everyone,
I'm back to no good with panther platform vehicles again! After telling myself I was done with the panther platform after the last one I sold (4th one I had owned), I decided I'd venture into a whole new world with the V70R project. While it was a fun project and was interesting to work on something that was actually rare/unique, I started to miss the simplicity of the ol' body on frame crown vic. I have done alot of different things with these cars, ranging from rallycross, autocross, gambler 500, and just about everything in between. So, this next one is going to be something different that I haven't done with one yet, an off-road dedicated build! Back when I owned the last one I had, I was on the verge of going down this rabbithole.. So it has been on the list of things I have wanted to do for a while. As far as a donor vehicle goes, I have the perfect one in mind. About 3 years ago I bought my first crown vic from a friend of mine who had a little "incident" with it. Lets just say it met a guardrail on the highway in the rain. Other than the resulting body implications, the car still ran and drove just fine and my friend took excellent care of it before the incident. When I bought the car from him, I replaced the front header panel, bumper beam, frame standoffs, rear bumper, and taillights. A little before/after:
When I brought it home:
And after a new front end:
The car is from from perfect, but is presentable. From there, I wound up using that car for alot of new forms of motorsport I had never explored before, due to the fact that I wasnt afraid to beat on it. I rallycrossed it, went ice racing with my brother in it, and took it to the Michigan Gambler 500 (failed miserably there, was severely lacking ground clearance for the deep sand). Some pics from rallycross a couple years ago:
After owning it for about a year or so, I passed the car on to a friend of mine who had always wanted to try out the crown vic scene. Turns out I was able to convert another loyal follower, and he now owns my old car and another one as well. He has rallycrossed and autocrossed the car regularly. However, his attention has been turning more towards restoring the other one he bought, since it is a much nicer car all around. I asked him what his plans were for my old car and offered to buy it back from him. He mentioned he will sell it to me, so I'm happy to have my old car back again (no matter how ratty it is). Like I mentioned above, plans for this one are an offroad-centric build so that I can go wheeling with some of my friends (that have rigs that can recover me) as well as claim redemption at the gambler 500 after my poor performance 3 years ago. Plans are at the moment:
1. 3" front and rear lift spacers - These are from one of the common donk kits, and involve 3" spacers for above the strut assemblies in the front end and 3" spacers for underneath the coil springs in the rear (between the spring and the axle)
2. Extended front upper control arms to help correct some of the suspension geometry issues that arise with this kind of lift (and so that I can acutally align it without positive camber/excessive upper ball joint wear)
2.5. Extended rear shocks to work with the increased travel necessary (apparently front struts from a '92 Jeep wrangler do the job, as well as 4x2 F150 shocks from the early 2000's)
3. 31" tires, probably 265/70/R16's in as aggressive of a tread as I can find (would like to find some jeep take-offs, and will likely wind up running a spacer of some variety)
4. Rebuild the rear traction lock differential, preferably with the GT500 carbon clutch kit for increased locking bias. Also potential for some kind of locker if I'm really feeling spicy
5. Potential re-gear of the rear end (4.10's) depending on how bad performance suffers
6. Front "pre-runner" style bumper with incorporated skid plate and winch mount
7. Other miscellaneous offroad equipment (light bar, roof rack?)
8. Side pipe exhaust of some variety would be nice
At any rate I know I'm not the first to do this kind of conversion on one of these cars, but I'm excited to give it a shot and keep you all in the loop. Would also like to keep it somewhat street-able so I can daily it in the winter if I so feel inclined.