Talk about going from one extreme (Miata) to the other! 
I like it, though. It's a 2003, 125k miles, and came with a complete service history, including an extensive logbook from the Ashland, NH police department. It's in great shape inside and out. I see no sign of a prisoner cage ever having been installed, which is about as intrusive as a roll bar. The transmission was rebuilt at 86,142 miles, so it doesn't have many hard miles on it since.
It's going to be my daily driver, and I'll play with it a bit, too - autocross, HPDE, probably even try a rallycross with it at some point (after all, it's made to hop curbs). No major performance mods in mind, just a K&N drop-in air filter to compliment the nice rumbly Flowmaster mufflers the car came with. Of course, my ham radios will go in the car since there's plenty of room for them, and even an antenna mount on the trunk.
Congrats on getting a nice one! Careful though... it can be a slippery slope with those cars. My brother bought one last year with the intent to just drive it... now it's lowered with a bit of this, a bit of that. He just started collecting parts for a T5 swap too.
Looks like my old one. Nice.
pigeon
SuperDork
2/24/12 12:32 p.m.
Cool - there's one local to me that I see on the roads with a HAM setup in it including the big antenna on the trunk, and special HAM plates. He actually kind of pisses me off, though it's not intentional on his part. He drives it like an old man, always dead on the limit. Nobody (except me) passes until they get close enough to see the special issue plate - turns him into a rolling roadblock.
nice! since i just got me a 96 thunderbird with the 4.6L (and i've been crazy for crown vics since forever) i've been doing some light reading on the mod motors, parts interchange , maintenance and all that , adtr.net and others are cool to browse....
Yeah, I've definitely noticed traffic acting a bit different around me. Fortunately most of my driving these days is highway - people are very quick to move out of the left lane ahead of me, and for some reason they tend not to pass me. I do try to respect the flow of traffic and keep moving at a reasonable pace, aware that whether I like it or not the car is basically setting the pace of traffic.
I'll have to read up on the J-mod. I'm extremely wary of automatic transmissions, seeing as how half of the ones I've owned (2 out of 4) have had major problems.
it doesn't affect reliability, and it barely costs more to do than just servicing the transmission.
it was one of the first things i did. now, 35,000 miles and a 5.4 triton later, its still working great.
Javelin
SuperDork
2/24/12 3:30 p.m.
The J-Mod is well worth doing. It has all positives and no negatives. Do it!
Javelin wrote:
The J-Mod is *well* worth doing. It has all positives and no negatives. Do it!
Why is it called a J-Mod, anyway?
EDIT: little research provided the answer. j-mod info
the first time you bark off a solid 2nd gear scratch in your otherwise stock crown victoria, you'll know you made the right choice.
youtube search for tritonvic and my car will demonstrate.
Ashland PD! So it's never been over 45mph or Cali stopped anyone, nice.
I'm envious, that's a nice rig. P71 is on my list for a new daily, provided the cheap ones show up soon.
White_and_Nerdy wrote:
I see no sign of a prisoner cage ever having been installed, which is about as intrusive as a roll bar.
SWMBO (she's a Detention Officer, but young and is hoping to move up the ladder to real cop one day) sez that without the priz bucket, it was probably a senior Officer's car, and had much less duty (but the same maintenance) than most cruisers get, regardless of what the odometer says. Sounds like you picked up a good one, congrats!
sweet hook up Justin! I love that pick of the slammed Vic above, but I don't think I'd go quite that low. I do like the sounds of a 5 spd swap after the slush box gets boring!
Thanks, Roger! I've seen videos of them with the 5-speed swap. Tempting.
