how come the Mark VII's had a HO option, when the cougar/t-bird's only had a SO? and how come when there was the switch to the mn-12 chassis, the Mark VIII's had DOHC, when the cougar/t-birds SOHC? i'm just not sure why FoMoCo decided to give the lincolns that extra bit of power. and because of this, if same year cars raced(ex. 88 t-bird vs. 88 mark VII) would the mark win?
The reason is very, very simple. Ever price up a new Lincoln compared to its Ford counterpart? When you're gonna charge 50% more for the same car it had better have something special. Sadly, Lincoln has forgotten that lately...
What the hell motor is even in the LS's???
3.9l V8.
Yeah if I was paying for a Lincoln, I'd want a "good" engine in it too.
Besides, the Marks were performance luxury vehicles. Thunderbirds were geared more toward the luxury side. Plus the Thunderbird has always played second fiddle to the Mustang as far as the V8's go, Ford liked to explore their alternative engines (2.3 turbo, 3.8 SC) with the Thunderbird & cougar :dunno:
3.9l V8 eeewww. I could have sworn it would have at least been a V8 outta the newer T-bird.
The new T-birds do (did) have 3.9L's.
My friend has an '00 Lincoln LS with the V8. I read that it has 252 ponies under the hood but I sure couldn't find them.
My '96 felt faster.
I thought they had a 4.something motor that Ford uses in their Jags?
Oi, and who started the user bar trend on this site???
I dunno, I know of one other person here that has one that says "Cougar Driver".
the 3.9 is from jaguar
2002+ got 280 horses
Its the Jag 4.0 de-stroked. Sure Lincolns get better motors than Fords, but Jags get the best of the best. :giggle:
And yeah, the 280hp LS's with variable valve timing are animals. Combined with the 5-speed auto they really fly.
yea, this does make sence, if i were to pay that much more i would want to have that little something extra. and it is sad how FoMoCo gets one car and sells the same exact thing 3 times, with the only difference being the car name and the company emblems. :shakehead
Why didn't they put the HO in the Cougars and T-birds? Quite simple. They weighed less than a Mark VII and would have been quicker. How could Ford charge more for a car that was slower than a car that cost less and was almost comparably equiped?
People buy cars for its looks first, engine second. With a couple hundred thousand of our cars coming off a year, ford had nothing to worry about. And, we all did a double take the first time we saw our cars.
With that big of a selling point there was no need to trick us into it. THe stock engines arent the worst that could ever be put in these cars. Well maybe the 3.8.....
THe stock 5.0 is more then enough to get the car moving. We all have to admit that. Our cars are not sports cars, they are the compact boats of the age. And most boats are about the same speed or slower then ours.
Even thought are cars are mustangs, noone else will see it that way.
Actually I think the 3.9 is a de-bored 4.0. The Jag version of the engine had aluminum bores with a "Nick-a-sil" nickel/silicone alloy plating, while the Ford/Lincoln version had cast iron liners. I have a suspicion that the Ford version will prove to be more durable...
Are you serious? 155 horsepower is shameful for an engine of that size, especially in SEFI form. Ford had an excuse back in 1977, when they had to make a carbureted engine meet emissions and fuel economy standards, but by 1986 (when the 5.0 got port fuel injection) there was no excuse, except Ford wanted to herd people toward Mustangs. The ONLY reason the Mark VII ever got the HO version is that people demanded more than 155 horses in a car that was supposed to compete with BMW's, Mercedes', and the like. Even the lowly 3.8, at 140 horses, has a much higher power-to-displacement ratio than the SO 5.0. Think about it: The SO 5.0 had a mere 15 horsepower over the 3.8, yet it displaces 1.2 liters (the size of an entire Honda engine) more.
...And
compact boat? You do have at least one of these things, right? The interior may be compact (due to poor packaging), but the outside of these cars are large. They are longer than the MN12 platform. Hell, they're even larger than my four-door Volvo wagon. The hood is about 5 feet long, the doors are about 4 feet long, and the things weigh in the neighbourghood of 3500 pounds. They've got a turning radius of about 40 feet, and have about three feet of arse hanging past the rear axle. These cars are many things: Compact they are not.
As for other boats being slower, what other boats are you referring to? The Monte Carlo/Grand Prix/Regal/Cutlass are about the only comparable cars in the same class as these ones, and just about all but the most basic of their V8 versions would outrun V8 versions of the Bird and Cougar. The Turbo coupe was faster, but we're talking about SO 5.0 versions of these cars. Then again, the Grand National would outright embarrass a Turbo Coupe. Chrysler's Lebaron was a competitor as well, at least as much as a FWD car could be (some would say it was an absolute rip-off of the Thunderbird) but it was lighter, so its 3.0 Mitsu V6 would easily hang with a V8 'Bird or cat, and the 2.2 turbo versions would flat out run rings around one.
People do care a lot about style over power (look at Mustang sales compared to F-body sales) but power is still a big factor. Sadly, this is a lesson that Ford still has not learned. Just look at the sales of the woefully underpowered Five Hundred compared to the Camry/Accord/everything else.
Ya know I heard about the de-bored motor, but I never got verification on it. Thought it would be cheaper to de-stroke instead, but who knows with those sleeves. :)
You're right Carm. But I can't help but think...why didn't we just get the 200hp version of the HO from the '86 Mustang? That would have been the perfect step between the 'Stang and the Mark VII, and our cars would have been not as slow.
If you think about it, what Ford did with our cars was make them tow pigs. We have a towing cam in the 5.0. It is ground for low-end torque: out of breath at 4 grand and making peak torque well under 2500. It just happened to be fairly decent at fuel economy (for the time) also. And don't forget how horrid the insurance industry was back then. All these factors made Ford reconsider the power output for our cars...unfortunately their decision was so conservative that dealing with its legacy today is downright painful.
Make no mistake: As the technical flagship for luxury (Mark VII) and the technical flagship for luxury/performance (Turbo Coupe) made their waves, there was no way that Ford would have allowed our cars to become the horsepower bargains they should have been. It all came down to the almighty dollar. Had our cars been quicker, would the Mustang have had a chance to grow and become legendary for its bang-for-the-buck performance? I doubt it. Remember, Mustang + F-150 = Ford Motor Company. That equation will never change. And that is why we must deal with 150hp today.
Lincoln is under the microscope now because Cadillac is doing so well, and Ford has realized how pitiful its Lincoln lineup compares. So that's why Lincoln will always be different--it has always been Ford's pet project. That's why you see different engines for Lincolns. There is always something on a Lincoln version of a car that is different, design-wise or styling-wise, from the Ford or Mercury versions. For example...the Mark VII has its own transmission crossmember, H-pipe, H-pipe hanger and transmission tailshaft compared to other Fox cars, including our cars which were virtual clones of the Mark VII in a lot of respects. It also has the airbag suspension, so all the suspension parts were tweaked for that. Even the 11" brake spindles were different to accept a wider ball joint shaft. Why go through all that effort for just one or two cars? Because it's Lincoln. That's all the excuse Ford ever needs for that division. Why not Mercury? Why indeed...