The Cougar

1996

Mercury

Cougar

Pacific Green Metallic

I bought this car for $350 as a daily for my mother. It had bad head gaskets and a waterpump that shot coolant straight up. It apparently made a good black widow incubator. I stopped counting how many I found after 25. I planned to simply regasket it and move on but it snowballed into a full tear-down and rebuild. Every system on the car has been either refurbished or upgraded.

The stock single-port 3.8L had seen all it's best days prior to my ownership. I had originally planned to re-gasket the heads/intake and install a new water pump. A few seized and broken fastners later and I was in the junkyard looking to upgrade. I found a 2004 Mustang with the 3.9L. I also had a low-mile JMOD'd 4r70w that I pulled from my Bird when it got the M5R2. After a lot of part swapping, rewiring, fabrication, and head work - I got it all together and running. The final configuration is the 2004 3.9L engine with a 1996 4R70W that has a JMOD and updated accumulators and springs. I kept the IMRCs in the lower intake functional. All engine and transmission mounts are solid rubber. I added a Hayden 679 cooler for the transmission, as well as a OEM pan with a drain plug (U-Haul). I have an SCT chip on the PCM tuned by David Dalke (SCUI) to delete the catalytic converters, EGR functions and run the stock 2004 21lb/hr fuel injectors. The 3.27 open 7.5" differential was replaced with a Traction-Lok 8.8" with the same gearing. Exhaust is a single 2" that splits behind the axle to two 40 series Flowmasters. Converters and resonator are deleted.

The interior is still a work in progress. This car has basically been the catch-all for parts that I have left over from my T-Bird build or that I've had sitting in my shop. It has factory Medium Graphite interior. I swapped the color-matched driver's surround pieces out for black and a 1997 cupholder console. The stock non-lit visors were swapped for Mark VIII black dual visors. It has Currant Red 1991 XR7 seats and red rear speaker covers from a 1994 Thunderbird. The carpet was removed and power washed. It also has a rebuilt 145mph speedometer and an SC 'premium fuel' tachometer. It's a mash-up, but it works.

Nothing fancy at all. It sports it's original 1996 paint with maybe 25% of the clear still hanging on.

The stock AM/FM/Cassette and non-premium speaker setup was all tossed. Since I had the car blown apart anyway, I went ahead and laid in two runs of 2/0 welding cable from the front battery into the trunk. New 16/2 wire was pulled to each speaker as well as 6 channels of RCAs to the deck. The deck is a JVC KD-S88BT and the speakers are 6x8 Pioneer 3-ways. The subwoofer is an IDMAX 12". All of this is powered by matching MTX 404 (4ch) and 1501D (mono) amplifiers. Battery is an Optima Redtop, terminals are 6x 2/0 made by NRG Metalworks. I also have a 6x 2/0 ground block in the trunk bolted thru the chassis by the shock mount. The 'big 3' was done in 1/0, as well as the battery cable. All connections are soldered and heat-wrapped.

The suspension was completely torn down and refurbished. Up front I salvaged the stock strut rod ferrules, new Ford strut rod bushings, new Spicer upper and lower control arms, new swaybar links, new inner/outer tie rods, and greaseable polyurethane swaybar bushings with collars to hold the bar in place. Out back I went with polyurethane carrier, lower control arm (inner/outer), knuckle, swaybar links and greaseable swaybar bushings. The correct upper-inner bushings were purchased from SCP to ensure they were the correct design. Toe compensators were deleted. The car sits on 1.5" Eibach lowering springs. The front shocks are Monroe Sensa-Trac and the rears are Bilsteins from a 99-03 Cobra Convertible. The rack and pinion was replaced with a unit from RackDoctor and the small factory power steering cooler was swapped for a much larger one. Front brakes were upgraded to the aluminum PBR dual-piston calipers.

The stock 15" 21 spoke wheels were ditched if favor of a set of 1st generation Supercoupe wheels on 225/60 rubber.