A ford rep told me that Ford thought about adding the bigger engine but ther'd be more than just the engine to change to make sure everything was reliable. The trans, differential etc would need upgrading.

Our Caprices were faster than the Fords but we had trans. and differential problems on quite a few. The Fords handled better though.

 

I have done two 4.6 to 5.4 swaps. It is a bolt in, almost. You will be disappointed in a stock 5.4 vs. a 4.6 swap, but with a few straight forward smog legal mods, mostly Trick Flow heads, larger throttle body and mild cams, you will see 100 HP and 130 ft. pound. torque gains at the rear wheels. Use spacers and stock intake and you can keep the stock hood.

Both swaps were with an HPP car using stock 3:23 gears and slightly modified 4r70w transmissions. Both were reliable, appeared stock, got the about the same gas mileage as a 4.6, but ran and handled much better than any 4000 pound car had a right to. The hardest part of the swap was programming the new package.

As Bert mentioned, more torque will put additional strain on the drivetrain, but police cars see severe duty and I have had no problems with reliability in everyday civilian driving. A 4r100 trans would be bulletproof, but they are big and do not interface well with the Panther body ECM's.

 

Sorry if I'm late, but thank you for posting... I came here to ask this since I wasn't convinced that the 5.4 would go over well in a Crown Vic or Mustang (96-up) back in the day.

~Ben

 

The 5.4 works very well in either car. The 5.4 in the GT500 Mustang, however, is quite a different engine! My mildly modified '08 Shelby GT500 (smaller blower pulley for increased blower boost, FRPP intercooler, and proper tune) makes well over 620 RWHP! Many street driven GT's make 700-1000 RWHP. The 5.4 SOHC engine will make around 320 RWHP in street tune, still considerably more than a stock 4.6.

 

And, I also wanted to let you all know the prior 5.8L used in the 1981-91 LTD/Crown Victoria Police Interceptors (a title not explicitly used until the car's 1992 redesign) had been purpose-built (if that's the key phrase) with a variable-venturi carb for all those years (the same engine used in the Bronco and F-series trucks was fuel-injected since 1987), with only minor changes.

Horsepower of this 351W was still only 180 for a '91 model... a far cry from the same engine's application in the Bronco, which in that case was fuel-injected (as earlier stated) and from that configuration had produced about 210 hp if an automatic transmission was used.

~Ben

 

If any of you guys remember the sixties, and I do, I thought of that decade as the golden era of cars. We had all the factory hot rods plus Cobras and Shelby's.

I thought those glory days were long gone, especially during the terrible "smog motor" days of the seventies and eighties. As an example, my wife's '79 'Vette makes around 180 HP, and will get eaten alive by most of today's mini vans.

But alas, we are now in another golden era, with cars (and motorcycles) that not only go like stink in a straight line, but that actually corner and stop as well. I hope it lasts, and I also hope that FoMoCo will bring us a big engine rear drive replacement for the Crown Vic because building the 5.4 for a CV is a lot of work, not to mention expensive.

The Taurus is a good machine, but not rear drive, and the new Impala SS is enough to make a Ford guy wander. Are you listening Henry?

 

I don't think he is. Have you seen what they're replacing the Econoline with?? I see a lot of contractors running to GM.

 

Hello Cat:
Yes, I have seen photos, but haven't read much about construction and drivetrain. I hope that Ford is not thinking about phasing out the Super Duty line for something "European"! If so, then Henry is NOT listening and I'm keeping my current F-350 for ever.
I also need to give credit to the Aussies when I called the Impala "new". It's been around for a while, and was really developed several years ago as an Australian Holden (I think), then brought here as a Pontiac G-8. GM screwed up big time when they dropped the "Poncho", but at least they carried the car over as an Impala.

 

So far, they're not touching the trucks. You can still get an F150 with a V-8, but they're pushing the Ecoboosts (with good results from what I've seen, so far). However, they totally dumped the Econoline for this European looking van that looks like the Sprinter. You tell me, when you go to a convenience store for coffee in the morning, which are you more likely to see, a Chevy, Sprinter, or Ford? Most places around here, Ford probably has about 65% of the market share.

Yeah, I was pissing and moaning about this last spring and I haven't stopped, yet.

 

Hey Cat:
And I'll piss and moan right along with you! Maybe somebody will listen to two old dinosaurs!

 

:hy:

 

Another thing: did Ford ever consider making a police-package Bronco in the 1980-86, 1987-91 or 1992-96 generations? Its engine would've been the same 351 V8 engine as the CV PI (Crown Victoria Police Interceptor), but in High Output form (1987 and later models were fuel-injected).

~Ben

 

I have no insight into what FoMoCo thought about making, but do not believe a "Police Package" Bronco would handle well in a pursuit. 4x4 vehicles have, and still are, used by many law enforcement agencies, but by nature of their design and purpose would not benefit from more power.

I come from the school of there's "no such thing as too much HP", but short wheelbase high CG vehicles are not much fun at speed. I have, however, seen some really nice 351 powered Bronco's. A guy down the road from me owns a blown 351 '68, and I saw a hot looking 302 powered '68 in the Clackamas Town Center parking lot (near the Spaghetti Factory), last year. They're out there, easy to build, but not built entirely by Ford.

 

The other problem, dare I say, was that the 5.4 V8 came out in 1997 (and only for the lower-rung F-series trucks and the Expedition SUV, the latter being the Bronco I's replacement), the final year of the 1992 generation Crown Vic. I wonder if that degree of timing killed off any interest in shoving anything bigger than the 4.6 into a car as this?

~Ben