A 2014 Taurus Limited with 151k miles. I've owned it since 20k miles.
It's starting to turn into a money pit. Time for it to go
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A 2014 Taurus Limited with 151k miles. I've owned it since 20k miles.
It's starting to turn into a money pit. Time for it to go
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Fun car question…… seat of the pants feel, how much HP have you gained since the engine “refresh”? And was it enough of a change to say it was worth it?
rednotch
Founding Member
Not much different with the suvs. My rx350 is like that, only good thing is it has the power close button on the bottom of the door, told old for the ground sensor but I can close it with my nose when hands are full of junk lol.Dads car was a babe magnet..... LOL .. I always wanted to know who designed the down sloping back doors in the wagons? Hit my head many times on it..
Oh man. That's a tough question. It pulls hard, but i haven't had a good enough stretch of road to wind it out 2-3 gears or so. I will say that the biggest change I noticed right away was that it doesn't run out of steam at 4500-5000RPM like it did with the stock E7's. Now i have to pay attention to my shift points rather than being able to feel when it was running out of breath.
I need more time to really evaluate a SOTP feel. Was it worth it? I'd say so. A lot of what i did pertained to refreshing the car in general vs just trying to improve HP numbers. I wasn't going for big numbers as a goal anyway.
Once i get this thing tuned up, i will head to a dyno. It's an hour away unfortunately.
I am starting to think I want to step the 3.73's down to 3.55;s or 3.31's. Need a little more time to think about this. 1st gear is too short and too aggressive just trying to get through an intersection with regular traffic.
The Borla's do emphasize the cam chop more at idle now than the flowmasters did. Even though it's a tad bit quieter, it's more distinct and pronounced. That alone makes driving it fun when you come to a stop sign and hear that cam chop. It's actually pretty darn driveable even untuned.
Also...i'm still on my 19# injectors, so trying not to go too hard yet. I really need to get my Megasqurt in, add the 30#ers and tune this MF. I need to build the adapter harness, but i want to drive the car a bit first.
Poor wording on my part... I meant the two back passenger doors behind the front doors.... The top of the back of the door slopes down... I am 5 10" and it was hard for me to get in the back seats without hitting my head.....
This is something I remember as well, now that you've mentioned it. It felt like it would rev to the moon. I recall having to look down to see where it was at.
Before you mess with rear gears again, decide on the trans. With 4.10s, the T56 1st gear (2.66) is still a little too TALL in Black Jack for my taste, while 4th is too short. But, in the other black car, 3.70 rear gears & 28" tires makes 1st (2.97) feel about the same.
A lot of manual drag car guys like a 'Starting line ratio' of around 11:1. I'm pretty close in those cars. In the blue car, with 2.66 1st and 3.73s, 1st is even taller at an SLR of around 10... Feels very tall, but it's still fine.
Now, you have more than enough power/torque to snap a T5, but will you drive that way, and will you get aggressive on tire & clutch selection? If not, and you choose to remain with a T5, you still have 1st gear selection to do (3.35 vs 2.97), and if you want the extra torque capacity, a TKO has tall options, too. T56 is only tall options. Tall 2.97 and taller 2.66.
For drag racers, gearing should typically be selected based on 4th gear trap RPM. For autocrossers, it's probably looking for a 2nd gear that'll let you wind to 70-ish in 2nd. For street driving, it might be based on what your cruise RPM is at hwy speed in your tallest gear. You sure 1st gear is really the way you want to think about rear gear selection for yours?
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That's just it. I have a few options in front of me and haven't made a decision yet. It's not going to happen anytime soon, but one thing on the table is Coyote swapping the car as well, so the trans issue might be addressed with that.
That's not anytime soon. You guys know how i operate. took me 3 years just to do a HCI job.
Just caught this comment from post #2,062. Check this out: if a 3.38 1st w/ 3.27 rear is the 'perfect gear' for you, and you end up with a 2.97 1st gear in a transmission, then the perfect rear gears would be 3.38 * 3.27/ 2.97 = 3.72. Dayumn!
Damn you and your math.
The 4.6L had another 1000RPM or so before redline, so that's certainly not something to overlook. I'm getting ready to shift at 4.5-5K on the fox, but a 4.6L was just getting warmed up there.
With a good tune & enough spring pressure to keep the valves from floating, I'm fairly confident you're going to have a theoretically optimum shift over the stock limiter. So, you might be pleasantly surprised. I'm guessing you'll play it safe and shift at 6k or so. Let's see what the dyno says. I know you mentioned prioritizing torque for the street on your custom cam profile.
I shift the 331 at about 6,400 but has spun it north of 7,000 (dyno pull). I put a 6,600 pill in the MSD as stock blocks are not ones you want to put a bunch of rpm in and expect them to live or at least that is what I have seen at the track.
Boostedpimp
15 Year Member
I would feel the car out real good first before changing the gears out and have a word with whoever ground your cam. See what they say because depending on the grind, stepping to 3.55s etc may bring on bogging or jerking at low speeds
Swung by Wally world on the way home. Picked up a fresh 58-3 battery for $110. Now i can ditch the 10-year old battery which is failing (evident by the terminals turning black)
And while i was there..
Sun weather looks decent. Goal is to finish up the t-stat housing Sat and get the system filled with coolant again. Looking forward to my short Sun AM coffee runs again!
And while i was there..
Sun weather looks decent. Goal is to finish up the t-stat housing Sat and get the system filled with coolant again. Looking forward to my short Sun AM coffee runs again!
My original to the car looked like that and I remember fighting bad t stat housings throughout the years... I coughed up and purchased this one from LMR.. Not running yet but its a very nice piece....Back to the fun car.
Oil change. It’s been over a year plus I just want to keep tabs on what comes out.
Then I dug into the tstat change. Going back to the 180*
This might be why my rad hose leaked a tad here. I should see if I can find a replacement or repair this by smoothing that all out with JB weld
Edit: after searching around, looks like this is an outer D9 housing that ran to 1989. The F0ZE 1990+ neck looks like it has a revised hose “barb” so I’m gonna pick up a clean one.
