76 Mercury Grand Marquis

[saucey1986]

Ok so I had bought this car last year in August now I rebuilt the engine making around 500hp+ I know I had came across a thread which said pro touring land yacht. Most say why not a Chevy well because I never seen a custom Mercury well at least a grand marquis. Looking for comments. My wheel size will be either a 24"or 26 inch rim

[Dave B]

Wow man, that is a big car....

[saucey1986]

Yes I know my main goal my main goal is to retro it out. As of now my back light are getting the full led treatment. I had them custome done to resemble the new BMW and LEDs for the front headlight

[cobragt]

24 or 26" rims are kind of big. Don't forget you still need to be able to turn that beast. The bigger the rim the less turning radius you have. I've seen guys with 20 to 22" wheels having to almost make a 3 point turn to get around a corner. Personally I wouldn't go more than an 18" in front maybe up to a 20 in the rear. Plus the bigger the rim the harder it will be to lower it. Most of those guys that have their vehicles bagged and dropped over really big wheels have chopped the living crap out of the car or truck.

[saucey1986]

That's so true. I thinking about bags and a 2" or 3 inch drop would be the lowest for this monster not looking to be dropped to the ground its still classy with some hot rod appeal and as far as the wheels size go I guess I look at it as the stock diameter of the tire on there now is close to 30 inches as long as I get my offset right I can be find with 24s after coming from the import seen I'm still into the flush look with no wheel gap...

[19,69camaro]

500hp? Any information on that engine build?

[MonzaRacer]

Tip one, drop the donk wheels. With high HP it will not hook worh crap.
Now, as stated take a step back, I love the build idea, think Ridetech Shockwave's, box and beef up the control arm, build tubular arms in back.
Now I'd run 20's in back, 18 or 19's in front, trust me, I have seen two bigger 70s land yachts those guys tried same sizes you mentioned both cars were fairly well done, but both were underivable,PERIOD.
One had so much cutting the roof had too be replaced and body reinforced.
Both had huge powerplant s and would haze the tires at touch of gas. Even with supposedly sticky tires.
Ones in scrapyard, other is being rebuilt around better wheel package.
One thing is tuck and narrow bumpers, flush up trim and cleanup.
Please don't try donk wheels, they just don't work for handling or ride.
Properly done this car would be awesome, butcher it and shove too large wheels and its rolling crap.
PLUS if you can make it turn well you will have many people blown away.
Good d luck.

[latamud]

I think this could be a cool build if you can stick with the Pro-Touring theme and ween away from a Donk. I'm guessing it has a 302 in it now. Honestly, I would do something to make it cool to show off your skills but I wouldn't dump a ton of money in aftermarket parts. You could probably tweak the factory suspension yourself to get the car to handle better. I'm not exactly sure what the Gran Marquis is equivalent to, possibly Crown Vic, Town Car? I know the Monarch, Granada and Versailles were very similar cars to each other. I'd like to see some renderings of this build.

quick search, it's basically Mercury's version of the Crown Vic. I found a nice looking project, side exit exhaust, T5 swap, looks like 17 or 18" wheels, just tossing ideas. Now, a 6 speed would be a cool swap in one of these bigger cars.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2014/10/sigup012710-1.jpg